5.28.10 MAY YOU LIVE FOREVER!

several articles from world mag..

the big nudge by janie b. cheany, 5.22.10, p28..the government turns to science to manipulate our behavior

..'it's one thing to delve into behavioral science around the dinner table and another to make it a matter for government policy. an essay by andrew ferguson in the weekly standard examines how the nanny state proposes to pull on a lab coat and base its regulatory powers on science rather than fiat. behavioral science, to be exact. the president has surrounded himself with intellectuals who believe there's no school like the behaviorist school for remaking society. 20th century standards like executive order 12866 which required a cost-benefit analysis on each new regulation, are hopelessly out of date.

a great deal has been learned since that time, president obama wrote in a memorandum shortly after taking office: far more is now known about regulation - not only about when it is justified, but also about what works and what does not. the memorandum ordered a review by the office of management and budget to, among other tasks, clarify the role of the behavioral sciences in formulating regulatory policy.

the report was due within 100 days. that means it's about 12 months late. perhaps the review board took some time off to study the Procrastination Effect.

the proposed change in regulatory policy is based on studies that claim to show a pattern of 'predictable irrationality', meaning humans acting in ways contrary to their best interests. they choose chocolate seven-layer cake over an apple for dessert, consistently drive over the speed limit and fail to replace outdated attic insulation. sometimes they even vote republican. since appointing jackbooted thugs to make people behave would be unpopular, regulatory policy should be based on the 'nudge', an incentive strategy sometimes called 'libertarian paternalism'.

for example, rather than offering a 401(k), employers will be required to enroll everyone in the plan and offer an 'opt out'. cigarette warnings will be larger with smaller words and fruit will be placed in front of pie in the school cafeteria. and so on.

a policy introduced with some fanfare 15 months ago seems to be on the back burner now. perhaps someone noticed that 'libertarian paternalism' is an oxymoron or that theoretical conclusions from university experiments don't translate to desirable behavior.

'cognitive dissonance' was unknown to jonathan edwards, who saw a clear correlation between a man's mind and his will. a drunkard reaching for his next drink knows the drink will satisfy him at that moment, enough to outweigh the consequences. no social norm or product placement will sway him until his mind changes - even to admitting he's a wretched man trapped in a body of death (romans 7.24). god places the responsibility where it belongs: on the individual.

do we really know 'what works'? what are the chances that a program of 'nudging' irrational creatures into making the right choices will sooner or later eliminate the choice? new york state is now considering a bill to automatically enroll new yorkers as organ donors, unless they officially opt out. which is the tyrant: the government that holds citizens responsible for their actions, however irrational or the government that assumes responsibility for its citizens, however benevolent?'

paul ryan, wisconsin republican, p31

..after a decade of near anonymity in congress, ryan's 2007 ascension as the ranking republican on the house budget committee gave him the staff resources and the clout to let out his inner economist. he now also is senior member of the tax writing house ways and means committee. from those perches he has crafted a roadmap to:

1. privatize medicare and medicaid
2. provide vouchers for many federal programs
3. replace employee-sponsored health insurance plans with individual health insurance plans with individual tax credits
4. impose tougher controls on federal spending.

the congressional budget office, the nonpartisan number crunchers, determined that ryan's roadmap delivered on its promises of balanced budgets and smaller deficits (unlike its projections for obamacare). under current policies, the cbo concludes that the nation in 2080 will devote 34% of its gross domestic product (gdp) to government spending; under ryan's plan, the cbo predicts that federal spending in 2080 would fall to less than 14% of the gdp while the government would enjoy a 5% annual surplus. and all without raising taxes. in fact, ryan proposes a flat tax of two rates: 10% and 25%..

..ryan ran for reelection in 2008 using an early version of the roadmap. the district's residents did not blink, giving ryan 64% of the vote. and that with obama winning his district by about 5%. so it is clear to ryan that people are ready to be talked to like adults..they are ready to have these ideas presented to them and they want to choose the path of american exceptionalism, not managed decline..

..there are two kinds of people up here, be-ers and doers..there are a lot of people who come to congress from both parties who just want to be a congressman. keeping the job is the ultimate goal..to ryan, the doers - the ones with the ideas - have to 'take this place over'..

what did you expect? paul david tripp, worldmag, 6.5.10, p.31

..'you both bring something into your marriage that is destructive to what a marriage needs and must do. that thing is called sin..(which) is essentially antisocial. we don't really have time to love our spouse...because we are too busy loving ourselves..we turn our spouses into vehicles to help us get what we want or obstacles in the way of what we want..God's grace is meant to bring you to the end of yourself so that you will finally begin to place your identity, your meaning and purpose and your inner sense of well-being in Him..'

i thank God for my marriage for it was, from my end, an exact match of the above comments. it was the beginning of hope born out of hopelessness.

premature dispatch by matt anderson, p65

'the transplant industry is extremely interested in the definition of death. transplants now include kidneys, hearts, livers, pancreas, corneas, lungs and other body parts. even a face has been transplanted. these transplants allow recipients to continue their lives, lives which may have been marred without a transplant. but the number of needed organs exceeds the number of available organs for transplantation. on this shortage stands the definition of death. liberalize the definition od death and increase the number of abailable organs.

medically, death occurs when the heart stops and breathing stops. these two parameters defined it for millennia. but with medical technology, applying that definition has become fuzzy and troubling. death now includes brain death and cardiac death, with cardiac..the most controversial..a hear stopped for 5 minutes defines cardiac death for transplant in most circumstances. some places use two minutes..in colorado, some pediatric transplant doctors wait only 75 seconds..one family member told of the transplant doctors calling ..twice a day to see if she would consent to use of her child's organs for transplant.

examples of liberal definitions of death are not hard to find. many european countries now have an opt-out law instead of an opt-in law., which means organs are deemed available without consent - unless the decedent of the decedent's family specifically denies permission. new your assemblyman richard brodsky recently proplsed the same rules for new york..however, such a law could force patients to be donors against their will. also, patients fear doctors might not work as hard to save their lives if they are viewed as prospective donors..'

right now i am a piece of detritus in an angry sea. i remind myself of isaiah's words, 'the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked'. 59.20f i am a foul nothingness carried along by forces well beyond my control. (in my own mind i once ruled over all, as hard as that is for me to imagine at this time.) the weird thing is that while being nearly bereft of any, what i would call, human emotion i seem to be in strange possession of..Him. (vs.19 I create the fruit of the lips; peace, peace to him that is far off and to him that is near, saith the Lord and i will heal him.) all the promises of His mouth seem to be mine even in the midst of total sin and chaos. who can understand...maybe He has me in an ezekiel experience where ezekiel reports that he 'sat where they sat' among the hopeless captives, taken from their home country to a land far away.. who sat by the river chebar waiting to see what would happen to them..i just don't know. i just know that in the midst of personal devastation on many levels He is mine and He is enough. how can i make any sense of what is going on, but He knows what He is doing. may He destroy me utterly if that would most advance His cause. may He bring me to the utter and ceaseless end of myself where i have become an unchangeable zero and His beauty, holiness, power is seen! that is all that matters in this vapor called 'life'. whether or not i have life may He grant me Life.

hope you have a good week. love, dad

5.23.10 MAY YOU LIVE FOREVER!

my home country under the judgment of God. living thru the greatest holocaust in history. the Church in full scale apostasy. no human fellowship. fiddling 'spiritually' while 'rome' is burning...yet out of the wasted, blasted, weathered, seemingly God-forsaken, barren rock of reality little, tender, full-of-life green tendrils of God's love to me keep appearing out of it's cracks.

told of rapidly increasing prices, hear of the gulf oil spill...i have, anxiously, wanted to purchase heating oil for several months but not enough $. 'wait for Me' came. 'trust Me. let Me provide.' God gave grace to roll my concerns on Him and His peace came. finally the needed $ came and on friday received 226.3 gallons of oil at $2.37 a gallon...25% higher than on april 30, 2009 but one cent higher than the lowest price recorded since calling all local oil companies and tracking their c.o.d. prices. so .56 gallons or $1.33 per day for heating water and house. thank You Lord for Your provision.

since casting a lot which led to giving up much painting work last week, i now have three new jobs.

am in what at this point seems a deepening spiritual crisis. it seems God is simultaneously showing me how wretched a sinner i am...enabling me to trust Him...showing me His precious love... leaving me in a state of despair spiritually, yet strangely aware of His love. i used to read, with uncomprehending amazement accounts or people under deep conviction of sin who would outwardly moan and cry out and wail and roll on the ground with the appearance of great agony, begging for yet not as yet having received assurance of forgiveness. i now find myself in a similar agony inwardly yet not as yet having received Life.

my concern is, am i 'saved'? can one who is as wicked in heart and life as i possibly be forgiven. can one who lives in open disobedience to God, who has little evidence of the life of God within or without possibly have the Life of God? i believe that salvation happens in a moment in time because Jesus clearly likened it to a birth. before a given moment there is no functional life and the next there is. when this may have happened..or will happen, i have no clue. but that it may truly be said by God of me that it HAS happened is of vital concern. it is no longer good enough to outwardly look the part. it is no longer good enough to, in imagination or in reality 'be better' than others who claim salvation. the only thing that matters is what will He say to me when i stand before Him on the day of judgment. will He say, 'good and faithful servant enter into the joy of your Lord' or 'depart from me, wicked, for I never knew You. profession counts for nothing. possession is everything.

the layers of 'salvation' in my life seem to be a series of changes that have occurred which have progressively left me a bit of a changed person. after each change i viewed myself as 'saved' only to come, eventually to

first, as a child i think nothing of God, heaven or hell. then there was the dawning realization that there is a righteous punishment, a never-ending judgment of and punishment of God, an eternal hell and i deserve to be sent there, never to be able to leave...

second, as a teenager, i think, 'i am a good person, not like so and so'....to, in college, i am a sinner. i am not good as good is defined by God and therefore need to be forgiven..saved!

third, from about the same time, my view of the bible moves from 'this does not even make sense to me/i have no desire to read this' ...to 'these are the words of God, these reveal who God is and what He wants me to do'..i cannot get enough of these words, they are my very life.

fourth, this change was experienced after it actually happened. it happened in my late 40's around the time of my divorce. i realized, after the fact, that i had an ongoing, real relationship with God. if experienced as a need not as something qualitatively different that had already occurred within me it might have been framed thus. do i have an ongoing relationship with God such as i might with another person? do we regularly communicate with each other, spend time with each other, are we aware of one another's needs, interests, etc., do we help each other, seek to please each other, not forsake each other no matter what happens? the above was experienced without realizing it for the first time, i believe, at this time.


fifth and currently for the first time, increasingly aware of the facts that most if not all i call good in me is not at all bone-deep but fake, hypocricy and that there are a multitude of areas in which i am in open disobedience. framed in a formalized way it might be stated, do i experience the life of God in me (ie. do i have His love truth and righteousness, do i have His 'compassion?) and flowing out thru me to others (ie. do i keep the commandments of God?) 'always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh'. II cor. 4.11-2 'when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory'. col. 3.4 'he that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life'. I john 5.12 the honest answer currently would have to be that there is little to no evidence that i have the life of God in me or coming out of me? i view myself more and more as a seeker than one who has found. may God find my poor, lost soul. may i be willing to lose my life, so that i might find it...

hope you have a good week, love, dad

5.15.10 MAY YOU LIVE FOREVER!

ct, 5.10, p.33..james davison hunter says the church's strategies to transform culture are ineffective and the goal itself is misguided in new book, 'faithful presence'...speaking of paradigms for cultural engagement..'all the paradigms speak to authentic biblical concerns. yet the desire to be RELEVANT to the world has come at the cost of abandoning distinctiveness. the desire to be DEFENSIVE AGAINST the world is rooted in a desire to retain distinctiveness, but this has been manifested in ways that are, on the one hand, aggressive and confrontational. and on the other, culturally trivial and inconsequential. and the desire to be PURE FROM the world calls on the entire laity, in all vocations -ordinary and extaordinary, common and rarefied- to enact the shalom of God in the world.

christians need to abandon talk about 'redeeming the culture', 'advancing the kingdom' and 'changing the world'. such talk carries too much weight, implying conquest and domination...

(a number of years ago i remember hearing jim dobson of focus on the family and coming away with the impression of conquest and domination. it caused me to reflect how different his approach was from that of the old testament prophets, the apostles and Jesus who spoke truth and were killed rather than, in the name of truth, seeking positions of power in society. as much as i turned away intellectually i have continued to experience the strong temptation toward wanting conquest and domination rather than suffering and death.)

..if there is a possiblity for human flourishing in our world, it does not begin when we win the culture wars but when God's word of love becomes flesh in us, reaching every sphere of social life. when faithful presence existed in church history, it manifested itself in the creation of hospitals and the flourishing of art, the best scholareship, the most profound and world-changing kind of service and care - again, not only for the household of faith but for everyone, faithful presence isn't new; it's just something we need to recover'..

poop this week...the thot occurs that maybe i shouldn't ask people, 'how can i pray for you?' maybe that too is infected with self..with the desire to be seen as 'godly'. maybe its just another example of practicing 'righteousness' in order to be noticed by men. can't i just hang out, praying, with people and see how i can pray for them by hearing what they say? can't i just pray for them in my heart? do i have to display prayer? do i have to lengthen prayer...to 'be seen'? won't You meet me when i deliberately pray without 'being seen'? am i, in this way, trying to force people to interact with me 'spiritually'? am i trying to be seen as some spiritual guru? why not just wait on God to see what He unfolds along the way? can't i be content just to quietly practice mimicking Him, doing what He commands? may the goal always to be forgotten and You to be seen and loved.

a quirky thing last sunday night at mision. during the message a teenage boy next to me (one who never speaks to me and seems to have no desire to) leans over and says, 'God has the answer' and not more than a few seconds later the man behind me leans forward and says the same words..
whoever exalts himself will be abased but he who abases himself will be exalted.. lk.18.14 mary..a los pies de (at the feet of) Jesus.. 10.39

and she vowed a vow and said, 'o Lord of hosts, if Thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of Thine handmaid and remember me and not forget Thine handmaid, but wilt give unto Thine handmaid a man child, then i will give (dedicar) him unto the Lord all the days of his life.. I sam. 1.11 Lord will You bring me to the blessed place of hannah where i may genuinely give my whole life to You?

make me Your disciple (learner). help me have no answers, no knowledge, nothing. help me look at You and imitate (mimic) You. help all of who i am to be constantly crucified so only You remain, Your will and desire is all. call me. make me an apostle (sent one). help me be completely willing to go wherever, to do whatever You want or lacking such to remain peacefully wherever You want me and mimic You there.

a painter i know was willing to lend me a 36' ladder with which i was able to paint 15' or so of gables i could not otherwise reach. when asking what i could give for this loan he said something about the ladder being Jesus' and he needed nothing. the rope to raise and lower the ladder was almost destroyed so i said i would replace the rope. this turned out to be quite an 'expensive' way to say thank you. i had to learn about the need for a proper sized rope (originally bought a .25' rope but the ladder and pulley were designed for a .37' rope) and a rope made of the proper material (first bought plastic, then considered polyester, nylon and manilla before finally settling..and returning those not chosen). in the process i spent 3 man hours of time and traveled 4o miles. it was a battle not to become frustrated and angry but yet this was evidently exactly what God wanted for me. God seemed to whisper, 'sit 'in themud' at another red light or in one of a billion other hinderances and irritations and fully receive each annoyance, frustration, enragement, heartache and pain as a special gift from Me. shift out of overdrive into neutral; let Me drive; enjoy wherever i have you at any given moment! akounamatada baby! aurghhhh!!! i think of how it says the even Jesus learned obedience by the things that He suffered.

this week start prepping john and sandy's porch and have very strong lack of peace. am praying. the lack of peace grows. i must get down from the ladder, walk over to 54 and cast a lot asking for the answer to 'do You want to paint for john and sandy?' the coin said 'no'. lost alot of work and a lot of $ on that, but there was instant peace as i walked over and packed up the equipment and left. at this point have several of hours of painting left and no prospects. thank You Lord for giving every day what is necessary to live.

i have come to use the lot sparingly (this is only 3rd of 2010)..usually in situations where i am torn by various considerations and need to remove the subjective from the decision.

women are sinners. men are sinners. the besetting sin of women is the lust to be in control. the besetting sin of men is the lust to use women as sex objects. which gender is at fault for the current dysfunction in gender relationships? which came first, the chicken or the egg? in our current 'world system' women are in ascendancy. women are worshipped. their desire is law whether viewed from a microcosmic or macrocosmic perspective. one major result is the murder, in cold blood, of more than 1.5 billion innocent human beings..a genocide that dwarfs to microscopic proportions every other genocide in human history. let it be remembered that though women are the 'efficient' cause, every human being who is aware of this is blameable before Almighty God.

history, within its overall linear movement toward the realization of God's overall, final purpose that all reality will be summed up in Jesus Christ, is very cyclical in many respects. one is the nature of relationship between the genders. the world system, in particular areas, oscillates between two polarities: male domination and female domination in cultural/governmental/ personal affairs.

both dominations, for female control or for male use of women as objects, are clear signals of the disintegration of a viable, healthy society. isaiah, shortly before israel was largely dismantled as a nation by wholesale destruction of their infrastructure and deportation of their people writes, 'moreover the Lord saith, because the daughters of zion are haughty and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go and making a tinkling with their feet..therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown orf the head of the daughters of zion and the Lord will discover their secret pars. in that day the Lo4rd will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet and their cauls and their round tires like the moon, the chains and the bracelets and the mufflers, the bonnets and the ornaments of the legs and the headbands and the tablets and the earrings, the rings and nose jewels, the changeable suits of apparel and the mantles and the wimples and the crisping pins, the glasses and the fine linen and the hoods and the veils. and it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink and instead of a girdle a rent and instead of well set hair baldness and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth and burnign instead of beauty. thy men shall fall by the sword and thy might in the war. and her gates shall lament and mourn and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground'. truly every nation who forgets God will be turned into hell (the hebrew word for sheol, the realm of the dead)..in other words, destroyed.

one of the lies of history is that women submitting to their own husbands brings about degradation of women. this can only seem true when general female respect for and deferment to male leadership actually has exalted the place of women. this in our time is/has largely moved into the past but women are still enjoying the fruit of the deferential women before them. woman who are truly degraded have no voice to speak of or complain about their degradation. wherever men, in accordance with the word of God or in accordance with His law that is written on their hearts, follow His pattern women are exalted. more accurately, it might be said that to the degree to which this is occuring, to that degree women are exalted and protected. to the degree that God is not followed in this area or is discounted altogether, to that degree women are debased. as marquis de sade, for whom god was nature, said..men can do anything they want to to women for they are, by nature, stronger..

'tonsure' is the act of cutting the hair or shaving the head and also the state of having been thus shorn. i am having difficulty actually using the word in speech and was not helped much by the various literary examples given in the oxford dictionary.

it seems, in the constant mystery (to me at least) of how the human and divine interplay, i recently i have noted that i have been led to talk to myself as if to a naughty, disobedient child. this has been effective the few times i have tried it in dealing with gluttony (eating for taste or self (psychological) reasons rather than for strength to live and work, etc.). i have said , 'you are not going to have a banana when you get home..you are not going to have one before bed...you are not (every time the thot or urge to comes to my mind). david talked to himself (why art thou cast down oh my soul and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God for i shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance..) st. francis or luther or someone refers to the physical body as 'brother ass' which goes along with Jesus' (?) comment that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. so maybe this may be another way to crucify the self desires...i don't know..

God is introducing me to the very starts of His love..cleaning up toothpaste all over the bathroom sink and picking pubic hairs out of the hair strainer without saying anything and trying to be a help...even when taken advantage of..

in a letter from a missionary who was going to visit a fellow missionary in the outback..'roger walked ahead of us directing us where to drive so we were able to miss the places wher we would have sunk in the mud'...what a beautiful and accurate picture of Jesus. an old hymn..'my Lord knows the way thru the wilderness; all i have to do is to follow...'

this a.m. at mision.. referring to the people in the region where Jesus' granted the demon horde permission to enter the pigs who they then destroyed in the sea of galilee it says of them tenian gran temor (they had great fear). oh Lord, help me to say the tremendous works that you are doing around me and help me to have great fear of You...not leading me to want You to go away but leading me to want to give You everything i have!

hope you have a good week. love, dad

5.9.10 THE GRACE AND PEACE OF THE LORD JESUS BE WITH YOUR SPIRIT

this week actually worked 8 hours a day for $ for the first time this year. neirmans gables are finished and lakjers fire escape is almost totally prepped. was offered a grinder to do the job which proved to be a great answer to prayer.

continue to struggle spiritually because of who i am. God is off the charts. His love is so precious. His forgiveness so amazing, the grace He gives that allows me to do things that otherwise would be impossible and the sweetness of His presence - from time to time like a cooling, refreshing breeze - are all so much more than i deserve. yet because of my fallen part i perversely do not earnestly seek to please Him, i fear and honor men much more than i do Him and many other spiritual dysfunctions.

if only i could give myself totally to Him. but as i am learning again and again - i may intellectually understand something, i may even make strides to do it, but to really, for real, do and be what He would have me do and be - i can do nothing but wait on Him. i am experiencing, something along the same line as but much less than david was when he said, 'save me oh God for the waters are come into my soul. i sink in deep mire where there is no standing. i am come into deep waters where the floods overflow me. i am weary of my crying, my throat is dried. mine eyes fail me while i wait for my God'. i can do nothing. at the same time it seems important to try to imitate what God wants.

am so all alone. the realization of profound aloneness i powerful. the years at leidy church were probably an unconscious attempt to escape this aloneless. but as the time there came to an end there was a strong impression that the whole time there, immersed in people-related activity, i was still all alone. now with the masquerade of intimacy gone the aloneness comes into much more powerful focus. this week a group of young children living in the neighborhood of where i was at worked played around me and interacted with me in such a way that it has been a while since i felt the joy of what fellowship will be like when in heaven. there was such freedom and joy and comradary..it's hard to explain...it was beautiful and encouraging. this happened two times! so God gave me two little oasises to tell me a bit of what like heaven will be. in terms of otherworldliness, it recalled the first visit to brooklyn tabernacle when the time of oral and audible praises of the congregation of how many came floating to me like some totally otherworldly spiritual beehive. thank You Lord for these experiences in which You give a glimpse of what it will be.

i'm wondering whether a certain circumference of fishing line would not provide me with a never-ending piece of floss to cut my expense in the bathroom supply area. i tried one circumference but it was too wide but have heard that there are different types of lines with different 'test' strengths and, i think, different circumferences.

this a.m. was a sort of breakthrough for me in the area of spanish. i have been asking God to give help in speaking. today, at the mothers' day lunch i was actually able to have some beginning, very halting types of interactions with some men...there was even a joke about fruit salad. they said that there were plantains and then something about 'macho' (male) and 'hembra' (female) and i, with mock astonishment said, looking into the cup of fruit, 'en aqui?' (in here) and they all broke up laughing. it was good and is, i hope, a promising start of more to come.

along the line of spanish i have been praying for God to give me some $ to buy a good spanish dictionary. i am especially interested in synonyms (how do different spanish words for the same thing actually differ...so as to use the correct one in each different situation). i am also interested in the etymology of words (this is a love in words of any language!). this week, out of the blue, God gave me some $ to get maybe one of them. so i'm asking for guidance and hope that God will be seen and known through this.

it struck me, and i have to look at the word 'laugh' throughout the bible to learn more but in proverbs 1 and psalm 2 God laughs. in both cases the context is the judgment of those who resist, refuse, will not listen to or, as psalm 2 says, 'serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. these are the only times i remember when it talks of God laughing. on the face of it, so my human side tends to think, isn't it a mean thing, even a totally inappropiate thing to laugh at someone when they are being, or just about to be condemned to eternal suffering? but without apology that is the way God reveals Himself in judgment...a horrible concept...a never-t0-be-defaced-from-the-memory 'picture'. why would He laugh? i'm not so sure how to think about this. one tepid attempt to figure it out might be His thinking about that type of thinking that, in the face of all He does to make reality clear, refuses to give Him His due...we all continue to chose to ignore (or worse) Him and do what we want...against all sane thinking...

the TREMENDOUS SLUGGISHNESS of my entire life at this point comes from one simple fact, and that is not to do anything i want and to do everything i don't want. my life has been filled with long and extended periods of zest and zeal and excitement because i was doing what i wanted to do. now much of this part of life is consigned to death and so...no wonder i have no feeling, no 'joy' (not the true joy which is the distillation of 'You-Lord-are-enoughness' but the feelings counterfeit commonly designated 'joy'), no desire to do this that i am doing, the thing that i will do next and next and next and next. i guess this living hell of a life will continue until everything 'passes thru the cross' and steve paine and all he wants are dead as a doornail. the I will be consigned to death so that the true i free at last to drop from sight and totally loose itself in God. oh Lord deliver me from being a talker and set me free to DO.

this week talking to a guy who was doing the same thing i am doing - grousing about his circumstances. and, as so often happens, i am much better at preaching to the pot than at calling the kettle (myself) black...i said to him, preaching!, 'isn't it enough to not be in hell?! that's where we all belong and yet.....here we are!

God's leading as far as loving those who don't love me... to a woman who has said some pretty nasty things to me and will not talk to or acknowledge me anymore...smile! use her name! speak blessing type words to her.. to a person who i have asked to clean up after themselves and they leave more than before...pick pubic hairs out of the tub strainer and wipe up the tub after them. oh Lord help us to actually do good to those who are doing bad to us...

the more i think about it...people must hate to be asked 'how can i pray for you?' it's something i deeply long to ask and be asked. it is, to ME, a central thing in fellowship. the whole thing, no matter how technically the concept may in some sense 'be right', is flawed- i'm coming to see- in that it is all about me and my spiritual pride. i ask this because i am spiritual. others do not ask this because they are not as spiritual. barf. in this mode it becomes another of the innumerable stinking proclamations of the self-righteous stiff who thinks himself more spiritual than and looks down the long spiritual nose at the rest of, less spiritual, humanity. why am i trying to FORCE people to interact with me spiritually? why not rather wait for God to open doors natually for things He might want done rather than go around knowing oneself what He wants done and proceeding to do that in one's own power, according to one's own inadequate comprehension. doesn't God make what HE wants done abundantly clear in His word. what a novel approach! Lord, do You want me to just practice doing exactly what You say? that's right, You never said that i was to ask other people how i could pray for them. oh Lord, help me, help me, help me just have the humility do quietly, unnoticed do what You say rather than do things aimed to pointing out my spirituality. ...this a.m. at mision luke 18.14 'whoever exalts himself will be abased and whoever abases himself will be humbled. also 10.39 maria a los pies de Jesus...

c.s.lewis..when i first became a christian..i thot that i would do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology and i wouldn't go to the churches and gospel halls; and then later i found that it was the only way of flying your flag and, of course, i found that this meant being a target. it is extraordinary how inconveient to your family it becomes for you to get up early to go to church. it doesn't matter so much if you get up early for anything else, but if you get up early to go to church it's very selfish of you and you upset the house. if there is anything in the teaching of the new testament which is in the nature of a command, it is that you are obliged to take the sacrament and you can't do it without going to church.

..the proper pleasure of ritual..this will be understood by anyone who really understands the meaning of the middle english word solimpne. this means something different, but not quite different, from modern english slemn. like solemn it implies the opposite of what is familiar, free and easy, or ordinary. but unlike solemn it does not suggest gloom, oppression, or austerity.

the ball in the first act of romeo and juliet was a' solemnity'. the feast at the beginning of gawain and the green knight is very much of a solemnity. a great mass by mozart or beethoven is as much a solemnity in its hilarious gloria as in its poignant crucifixus est. feasts are, in this sense, more solemn than fasts. easter is solempne, good friday is not. the solempne is the festal which is also the stately and the ceremonial, the proper occasion for pomp - and the very fact that pompous is now used only in a bad sense measures the degree to which we have lost the old idea of 'solemnity'.

to recover it you must think of a court ball, or a coronation, or a victory march, as these things appear to people who enjoy them; in an age when everyone puts on his oldest clothes to be happy in, you must re-awake the simpler state of mind in which people put on gold and scarlet to be happy in. above all, you must be rid of the hideous idea, fruit of a widespread inferiority complex, that pomp, on the proper occasions, has any connection with vanity or self-conceit. a celebrant approaching the altar, a princess led out by a king to dance a minuet, a general officer on a ceremonial parade, a major domo preceding the boar's head at a christmas feast - all these wear unusual clothes and move with calculated dignity. this does not men that they are vain, but that they are obedient; they are obeying the hoc age which presides over every solemnity. the modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite and his readiness to spoil for everyone else the proper pleasure of ritual.

..the perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God..

hope you have a good week. love, dad

5.2.10 NOT JUICIO BUT JUGO!

hi. this am in men's bible class there was a discussion about next sunday's meal after morning meeting to honor mothers. i had offered to help and was told to bring several 2-liter bottles of soda. i had decided to try and bring several of organic juice. i thot the word for juice was juecio (it actually is juicio). so when the man said, 'steve, you are going to bring soda?', trying to say something... anything, in spanish, i said, 'juecio, ok?' he kept saying jugo and i thot he was saying 'soda', so i said 'juecio' trying to see if juice was ok in it's place. what a circus.

afterwards in talking to him i learned that 'jugo' is juice and 'juecio' is judgment! i couldn't help laugh, hopefully ruefully, at the whole thing. how emblematic of my inner world these days. the reality of my sinfulness is very overwhelming these days. i think one thing that has especially brought this to the fore is the number of people i have deep hatred for. what should be flowing out of me should be organic jugo=the love of Jesus that i experience day to day in my wretched sinfulness. but what would flow out is juecio..more correctly, juicio or judgment and rancor in all its ugliness...if i did not carefully conceal it...

as an aside, i am soo naive (but growing less so by the day) about human nature but this growing realization of who i am inside, has brought a new awareness to the vast amount of hypocricy that is practiced by mankind as a whole. i used to marvel at david's words describing a human encounter..'his words were soft as butter, but there was war in his heart' ..or something to that effect. now there is a dawning understanding that there is a whole lot of scum inside of every person that is either self realized or not. this is a rather recent thing..with me. i remember the many hallcyon days of past life when i used to quietly congratulate myself as being much more loving at heart than another whose anger/hatred happened to pour out in my presence. the areas of my blindness multiply daily it seems. it's frightening to be as wicked as i am. the wierd thing is that i have the sense that Jesus has forgiven it all!

but these days i keep thinking, is it possible..can it be possible... that i am saved from my sin and yet so wicked on a continual basis to such a degree? all i can do i moan out, 'give me Your love' , 'help me to be like You, help me to do what You want', on repeated occasions. every time i go for a run and pass a certain person's house who has done much to me.. i find myself praying, 'help me not to hate him'. i pray this every time and begin to wonder about the whole thing. all i can say is that i am, in this regard, maybe in some spot such as david was when he cried, 'save me oh God for the waters are come in unto my soul. i sink in deep mire where there is no standing. i am come into deep waters where the floods overflow me'..maybe david kept praying not to..whatever..without the prayer being answered right away...i just don't know. all i can do is keep coming to Him and cry out for His deliverance whether, in fact, it is the first deliverance that issues into a new, eternal life with Him or the umpteenth deliverance of one who He has already made His eternal child...'He restoreth my soul' is something i in a sense experience and yet wonder...Lord, show me the way thru this horror.

i must say though that one of the favorite parts of the week is coming to mision early to pray before service begins. one of the things that are blessed to me there is that they request that there be no talking beforehand and that that time be given over to silence to encourage prayer and reading the bible. for me it is only prayer...in spanish. i could not help being filled with...well, with how good God is to forgive me for my awfulness. to tell the truth i couldn't stop smiling from the heart out the whole time i was there this am...and that is not the first time this has happened...just so filled with His grace and goodness. i bless Him. without Him i would be an absolutely deserted orphan in this world. these days my inner experience is chaotic but He remains the unshakable rock.

my falling off things continues. yesterday caught my foot on the tailgate of a truck and fell on a stone drive. no injury to speak of again. i think of ...'the steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord and He delighteth in his way. though he fall he shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholdETH (continually, repeatedly) him with His hand'. though not a good man the Lord is nevertheless demonstrating His tender care for me..not at the time but almost coming as an afterthot.

there would be no economic crisis in the lives of the people of an area who all sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. there would be no dissatisfaction or economically destructive competition if these people were not greedy for more than what they needed to live, for the promise is that all necessities will be added to the person who does so.

last summer i had occasion to paint a picket fence for levi alderfer who began alderfer's egg farm many years ago. as i began, levi, now in his 80s i would imagine, came out with a small spade and began to ruthlessly ATTACK the few sprigs of pacasandra (sp?) that remained anywhere near the fence. i was puzzled and amused at the time but it came to me that he was 'instructing by means of example'. one thing i got was diligence, hard work...meaning me...painting the fence! but i wondered about the pac..why didn't he have it as a ground cover which most people use it as? why didn't he let it grow thick and beautiful? why bother to have it at all if it is just an errant-looking sprig here and there.

recently i think i may have been able to piece a little more together..or the two experiences worked a learning synergy on me. i am very discouraged about the ongoing decay of the asphalt walk and driveway at 54. i was typically trying to keep the weeds from growing out of the cracks that were developing and as i went along weeding i had an 'ah ha' moment. all the sudden i became aware of the destructive power of root systems. you don't wait until they are sending plants up thru asphalt! you ATTACK them. this is war! i now thanked God for levi embodying this reality in that simple and yet profound way. he was a farmer who attacked weeds and did everything he could to encourage plants and their fruit. if i want asphalt that faithfully does its job as long as i'm at 54 i need to follow his example.

you incessantly keep weakening and destroying them when they get anywhere near what you don't want destroyed. i think my new strategy, applied, may have been given to me just in time to keep the whole asphalt structure, especially the walk from succumbing to the power of the root. but then there came a spiritual application to my soul. steve, you see how your sins are destroying you. (i think a proverb says something about keeping one's heart with diligence for out of it comes the issues of life.) if you don't want to continue to be destroyed, you need to go on attack mode. i used to attack by following what i have found to be a thoroughly useless strategy..trying to do good or not do bad. useless. what i am thinking now is that the attack is bathing in prayer. are we told to do anything else in the bible with the addition of 'without ceasing' except prayer. the closest thing i can think of off hand is to meditate on the bible 'day and night'. this is intense but not quite as intense as 'without ceasing'. may God show me the way and help me to attack my many sins in the way He would have.

got the rent checks too late, due to circumstances and lack of forethot, to get them into the bank. i am the closest to $0 in liquid cash flow i have been since the early teens. tomorrow morning $19.54 will be automatically deducted from my 'credit card' account. unfortunately i only have about $16 in that account. if i had reduced my other checking account to $0 i would have been left with $1.64 at the end of the month. it is amazing how God has provided in 10! i would never, in my wildest dreams thot i would still be afloat into may with virtually no paid work in the first four months. i will be at the teller's window at univest tomorrow am dv to deposit the rent checks and hopefully avoid an overdraft charge for my automatic phone bill payment. may God by His grace help me to actually transition into a life where i experience first, a seeking first of His kingdom and His righteousness ('how in the world is this going to be possible to such a person of small faith such as i?' is my question.). and second, to experience His supply of what i need.

i am continuing to practice economies. just got a 13.5 lb bag of baking soda from costco for about .60 a lb. and am now experimenting with various ways in which to apply it to the teeth as a 'toothpaste'. i was afraid to go off 'good tasting' toothpaste but it has been good. it's taste is a little different but am now well used to it. when you take regular water in your mouth after brushing the water has a sort of sweet taste to it. right now i am experimenting back and forth between putting a little on a wettened finger and spreading it and then brushing the teeth and putting a little into a glass dish and then 'scooping' some up with a wettened tooth brush. these are the best two ways so far. if i can perfect the finger method i may be able to get thousands of brushings from the $5.29 bag. so as far as body care the next step is to learn how to make hand soap. when that is done my body care needs will be a little hand rag (not often necessary and if need be to be gotten by without), a towel, the haircut thing that hopefully still has thousands of haircuts and beard trims, teeth floss and baking soda. that will take care of the bathroom needs.

i'm also practicing another economy my father practiced, that of coasting the car down hill. the first tank of gas i got 350 miles instead of the normal just-under-300. so we'll see how that goes. i'm not yet convinced that is good for the car, as set up to run by the mechanic. anyway, hopefully i'll soon be done painting and will have the ability to get rid of it and just bike or stay at home.

hope you have a good week. love, dad