Nature and sin-nature

I'm not one of those folks who come up with excuses to skip church like, "I can feel worshipful taking a walk in nature," but...

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Today I had to miss church because my wife's back was hurt and I stayed home to help take care of her. At one point I was taking a walk barefoot through my yard headed toward my garden to check things out there. I was actually feeling very worshipful and was praying as I walked. Something along the lines of, "Wow, God. Look at all this great stuff you created. Your creation sure does make your presence clear..." (see Psalm 19)

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and right at that moment I stepped on a thorn!

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"Yeouch!!! Your creation sure does make our sin nature clear too." (Gen 3:17-19)

Ayn Rand's Anthem - dystopian scifi at its best

Anthem is the shortest (by far) of Ayn Rand's novels, and it is my favorite. Not just because it is short (but that helps) but also because I really enjoy post-holocaust and dystopian science fiction.

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Set in a world that has slid into decline because of a total suppression of individuality, the main character's name is Equality 7-2521, apparently a batch serial number from the communal nursery he was born in. Equality feels that something is vaguely wrong when he is randomly assigned to menial tasks instead of being assigned to be a scholar (BTW, these scholars needed hundreds of years to re-discover the technology of the candle after the holocaust), but can't really place a finger on what is wrong until he makes a terrible, dangerous discovery.

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I can't tell more without spoiling it for you. Ayn Rand's Anthem is highly recommended, especially if you enjoyed stories like Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm, 1984 or anything by Lois Lowry. If this sounds like it's right up your alley, please pick up a copy of Anthem at my Amazon store:

I'm not making this stuff up!

That is what Paul seems to be saying over and over in the beginning of Galatians, "I'm really not making this stuff up!"

Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;) (Galatians 1:1; ESV)

For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:12; ESV)

As evidence of this, take the following:

• Compare the early gospel message of Paul to that of the apostles. He did not confer with them to get his story straight. The apostles added nothing to Paul's gospel (Gal 2:6). Paul was converted, the truth was revealed to him, and he went directly to preaching the gospel (Gal 1:15-17), which turned out to be the same gospel that was imparted to the apostles. Later, when they saw him and heard his message they recognized its validity (Gal 2:9).
• This message was not taught to him by men. This is not the type of thing that men teach, and certainly was not what he had been taught as a Jew (Gal 1:13-14, Gal 2:19). It is as if he is saying, "This message is so unlike the type of things men make up, I must either be crazy or truthful." And from the clarity of Paul's rhetoric you certainly can't think he is crazy or deluded.

Seamus Heaney's Beowulf

Here's a book that most of us love to hate - and I want to put an end to that. We hate it because, not only are we forced to read it in school, but we are forced to read the wretched old Burton Raffel translation. But here we have a breath of fresh air in the new (2001) translation by Nobel Award winning poet, Seamus Heaney.
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I really can not say enough in favor of this translation. It is an exciting story told in language that swells dizzily in the imagination. Such an exciting story that it served as inspiration for Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead as well as several movie adaptations, including The 13th Warriorand the new movie, Beowulf.

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My wife and I have used this Seamus Heaney translation with out homeschooling students and we have read and re-read it right along with them. I can hardly wait to read it again with them as we are re-entering the Ancients in our schooling cycle next term.

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If anyone would like to purchase a copy of the Heaney translation of Beowulf, please check out my Amazon store:

Lost cellphone

Hi, all, This weekend I lost my phone while watching Hulk in Hammond, LA. It was apparently picked up by some guys who gave my wife some lip about getting it back when she called it. So, we wrote that phone off and had the cellphone company suspend service to that number until I can get a new phone tomorrow.
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But the real downside is I lost y'all's contact numbers. If you are one of my regular contacts, please send me your contact info for me to plug into my new phone. Send your contact info to mokurendojo@gmail.com.
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Thanks,
Pat

Grace and mercy

One of the things that the other teen Sunday School teacher has been bringing up here and there in the last few weeks is the difference between grace and mercy. Both are attributes of God and we tend to casually use them synonymously, but they are different things. To paraphrase his definitions...

• Mercy is when God withholds judgement that we deserve.
• Grace is when God gives us blessings that we do not deserve.

I did a quickie text serch of the ESV and found three places that these two terms are used together. They always occur in this formula, "Grace, mercy, and peace." That might be why we tend to think of them as synonymous is that they always occur together in sort of a formulaic greeting.

To Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1Tim1:2)

To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (2Tim1:2)

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love. (2John1:3)

Mirror mirror

The beginning of Galatians reminds me of a little blurb from James;

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-- (Galatians 1:6; ESV)

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. (James 1:23-25, ESV)

Though the two passages are not exactly on the same topic, it is the motif of turning away that brings them together in my mind. The Galatians are like the man who forgets himself when he turns away from the mirror. I think that it is interesting that there are echoes of James (Martin Luther's least favorite book) in Galatians (his favorite book).

The Grounding of Group 6

Yeah, Baby! Geek out! Somaserious figured out the Book Geek Challenge from a few days ago! I checked out this book on Amazon and read a few pages on the preview and I'm pretty sure that this is the book I was talking about - at least this is the 1997 updated re-issue of the 1983 book I read as a kid. This book got pretty rave reviews on Amazon. I'm definitely going to be getting a copy to re-read for a trip into nostalgia land.
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Extra points go to Somaserious for not only being able to ID the book plot but to be able to drop the name of the author, who lives in her hometown. How geeky is that! Maybe I should start the Book Geek Challenge as a regular feature of this blog...
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If anyone wants to get a copy of the book, here's the link to the Amazon page...

The Eye of the Hunter

Some time back I read The Eye Of the Hunter by Dennis McKiernan. This is high fantasy in the tradition of Tolkien but unlike many wannabe epic fantasies, this is the real thing. This may, in some ways be even better than Tolkien, heresy though that may be.

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The thing that really sets this book apart from so many others is that the bad guy is truly a sonofabitch. He is an awful, terrible, no-good, evil sonofabitch. Possibly the most evil bastard of all fantasy literature. I have, over the years re-read Eye of the Hunter several times and will continue to re-read it just to shudder at the vileness of the villain.

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If you are a fan of High fantasy and have not read this, then please, pick up a copy at my Amazon bookstore:

The Split-P's

The following funny was blatantly stolen from here. I couldn't help it - I had to change it from a Baptist joke to a Presby joke in honor of the split-P's:

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said, "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!" He said, "Like what?" I said, "Well, are you religious or atheist?" He said, "Religious." I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?" He said, "Christian." I said, "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?" He said, "Protestant." I said, Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Presbyterian? He said, "Presbyterian!" I said, "Wow! Me too! Are you Presbyterian Church of God or Presbyterian Church of the Lord? He said, Presbyterian Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are you Original Presbyterian Church of God or are you Reformed Presbyterian Church of God?" He said, "Reformed Presbyterian Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are you Reformed Presbyterian Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Presbyterian Church of God, Reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Presbyterian Church of God, Reformation of 1915!"

I said, "Die, heretic scum!" and pushed him off.

Fishers of men

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. (Mat 4:17-20; ESV)

Notice He didn't say something like, "Try to figure out how to be fishers of men and you may follow me."

He said, 1) "Follow me" and 2) "I will make you fishers of men."
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Don't try to figure this thing out on your own and do it your way. You'll mess it up. Do it My way. Throw your nets on the other side of the boat (as in John 21:6) and I'll do it.

The Self-Education of Pat

I've given my other blog, The Self-Education of Pat a facelift and have begun posting at it again. That is where I write about things I'm reading that generally don't have to do with martial arts or Christianity (Those posts go here at Presbyterian in McComb or in my martial arts blog, Mokuren Dojo).
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I have a new book geek challenge going on over at The Self-Education of Pat. Check it out:

http://selfeducationofpat.blogspot.com/2008/06/calling-all-book-geeks.html

Calling all book geeks...

Calling all book geeks...

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Ok, so you consider yourself a long-time Book Geek of the First Order - here's a challenge to prove yourself. There's this book plot that I remember from childhood that has been stuck in my mind but I can't remember the title of the book. It goes like this:

A group of troubled-teens are sent by their rich parents to a summer wilderness retreat where they are supposed to be challenged by the counsellors like in Outward Bound. The catch is that this particular camp happens to be run by assassins who are paid by the rich parents to kill the entire group of troublemaking kids and make it look like an accident. The disorganized, individualistic kids get out into the wilderness and somehow manage to survive the first attempt to kill them and they figure out what is going on, team up, evade the assasins, and even begin hunting their hunters.

This book was probably something that I picked up at a school book fair, which would place the publication date somewhere between about 1980-1987. Alternately it could have been a selection from some monthly book club during the same time period. Definitely not high literature...

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Anyone remember this book?

Future resembles, if not reflects, past

I thought this was interesting. In the first chapter of The Peloponnesian War, Thucydides describes his historical method along with some of its possible drawbacks and limitations...

...I grant that there will be a difficulty in believing every particular detail. The way that most men deal with traditions, even traditions of their own country, is to receive them all alike as they are delivered,without applying any critical test whatever.

...There are many other unfounded ideas current among the rest of the Hellenes, ...

...So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand. On thewhole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may, I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft, or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's expense; the subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend. Turning from these, we can rest satisfied with having proceeded upon the clearest data, and having arrived at conclusions as exact as can be expected in matters of such antiquity.

...With reference to the speeches in this history, some were delivered before the war began, others while it was going on; some I heard myself, others I got from various quarters; it was in all cases difficult to carry them word for word in one's memory, so my habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my opinion demanded of them by the various occasions, of course adhering as closely as possible to the general sense of what they really said. And with reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report being always tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some labour from the want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by different eye-witnesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from undue partiality for one side or the other. The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.

Beware spiritual amnesia

In my last post I mentioned Ecclesiastes 12:1 briefly. Lets' dig into that one a little deeper...

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, "I have no pleasure in them"; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, ... (Ecclesiastes 12:1-2; ESV)

As we get older our senses are typically diminished. We often find we have decreased ability to see and hear. We might get 'a touch of diabetes' and lose some sensation in our legs. Thomas Hanna founded a school of therapy (Hanna Somatics) based on the idea that we progressively lose our ability to sense the position of our joints and the state of tension in our muscles and that this 'sensorimotor amnesia' leads to many other somatic dysfunctions.

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But it is not just our physical senses. We can become hardened with age and lose out sense of innocence, our sense of wonder. We can lose our ability to blush. We might sleep less and more lightly, losing some our ability to dream. In short, we can lose our sense of spirituality as we age.

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The author of Ecclesiastes is warning us about this phenomenon. Remember your Creator while you can still see and hear and feel good enough to see the magnificence of creation give witness to its' Creator (as in Rom 1:19-20, Psa 19:1). If we do not exercise our sense of spiritual wonder when we are young then we may be left unable to exercise it later (after the sun and the moon and the stars are darkened...).

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That gives a neat perspective to the rest of the Ecclesiastes 12 passage:

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, "I have no pleasure in them"; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut--when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low-- they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets-- before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. (Ecclesiastes 12:1-7)

Double shamed

Ok, I've been shamed into updating this blog by a friend that graduated high school with me and went to college with me. She says I'm a slacker and all, so I picked up the Peloponnesian War because (1. we're about to get back into the ancients in homeschool, 2. this was an interesting read the last time I read it, and 3. it's on the top of my to-read list on my blog) and right off the bat learnt something that made me feel even dumber and more-shameder...

Before the Trojan war there is no indication of any common action in Hellas, nor indeed of the universal prevalence of the name; on the contrary,before the time of Hellen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation existed, but the country went by the names of the different tribes, in particular of the Pelasgian. It was not till Hellen and his sons grew strong in Phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other cities, that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of Hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all. The best proof of this is furnished by Homer. Born long after the Trojan War, he nowhere calls all of them by that name.

Now, I knew that early Greece was tribal and disunified, only coming together under the name of Hellen later - but somehow I never put it together that Hellen was not the same person as Helen of Troy. Duh! From Wikipedia:

Hellen (Ancient Greek: Ἕλλην, Héllēn), Greek Katharevousa:([Héllēn] (help·info)) was the mythological patriarch of the Hellenes, the son of Deucalion (or sometimes Zeus) and Pyrrha, brother of Amphictyon and father of Aeolus, Xuthus, and Dorus. The word comes from the prefix έλ- (el- "sun, bright, shiny", (elios, "sun")) + λάς (las "rock, stone"). Ελλάς: "The land of the sun and the rock". His name is also another name for Greek, meaning a person of Greek descent or pertaining to Greek culture, and the source of the adjective "Hellenic". Each of his sons founded a primary tribe of Greece - Aeolus the Aeolians, Dorus the Dorians and Xuthus the Achaeans (from Xuthus's son Achaeus) and the Ionians (from Xuthus's probably illegitimate son Ionas ) together with his sister's Pandora's and Thyia's sons with Zeus and according to Hesiod's (probably) "Eoiae" (Greek : Ηοίαι (ancient Greek Ἠοῖαι from Ἠ' οἷαι = "or such women as") or "Catalogue of Women"[1], Graecus the Graecians, Makednos the Makedones and Magnes the Magnetes . They conquered the Greek area of Phthia and subsequently spread their rule to other Greek cities. The people of those areas came to be called Hellenes, after the name of their ancestor.

Want to read it for free? Check out the Gutenberg e-text. Otherwise, if you want to actually buy a paper copy of this super-cool history, please buy it at my Amazon store:

Seldom is heard an encouraging word...

This week I finish my study of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 12 contains one of the most famous of memory verses. One prescribed to me by my mom upon my graduation from high school:

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, "I have no pleasure in them"; Ecc 12:1

Most resources that you will find on Ecclesiastes will warn you that the book is depressing and dark. I disagree. Ecclesiastes is a book of wisdom with a sober, but important message, that being to keep in mind that everything under the sun (i.e. in this life), all human works, are ultimately futile (even if they have some human worth) and if you worship them then you will eventually find them as futile and fleeting as chasing the wind.

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But on the other hand, if you remember your Creator and guard your steps when you approach the Temple, you will find that God has blessed you with contentment in this life and youwill find everlasting reward because what God does endures forever. That is the encouraging word within Ecclesiastes.
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I think for my next study I will be doing Galatians, probably again at a rate of about one chapter per week. Please Lord, send your Holy Spirit to rest on me and tutor me and interpret this Holy, inerrant, infallible word to me so that I may apply it to my life.