Another Word

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You return man to dust
and say, “Return, O children of man!”
For a thousand years in your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night.

You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning:
in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.

For we are brought to an end by your anger;
by your wrath we are dismayed.
You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.

For all our days pass away under your wrath;
we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Who considers the power of your anger,
and your wrath according to the fear of you?

So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Return, O Lord! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!

--Psalm 90, ESV

Ephemera: A temptation

Because of what this week means in the eternal scheme of things, I say to anyone stumbling across this blog, one must hope in Christ or one can deal with reality (like many in the nation where I reside) like this:

Comfortably Numb

Hello,
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?
Come on now.
I hear you're feeling down.
I can ease your pain
And get you on your feet again.
Relax
I'll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no Pain, you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move, but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become...comfortably numb--

O.K.
Just a little pinprick
There'll be no more aaaaaaaaah!
But you may feel a little sick
Can you stand up?
I do believe it's working, good
That'll keep you going through the show
Come on its time to go.

There is no Pain, you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move, but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child,
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I have become...comfortably numb--

--Pink Floyd

A Word

O God, save me by your name,
and vindicate me by your might.
O God, hear my prayer;
give ear to the words of my mouth.

For strangers have risen against me;
ruthless men seek my life;
they do not set God before themselves. Selah

Behold, God is my helper;
the Lord is the upholder of my life.
He will return the evil to my enemies;
in your faithfulness put an end to them.

With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you;
I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good.
For he has delivered me from every trouble,
and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.

--Psalm 54, ESV

Personal Update: Thank God for a sabbath.

I just finished collating receipts, performing much arithmetic, and running Turbo Tax, so now I can electronically file on Monday (waiting to make sure I didn't bone anything up). I can now relax and enjoy Palm Sunday.

I'll try to be a good sheep.

Hopefully not this kind of sheep:

Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away,
Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air.
You better watch out,
There may be dogs about--
I've looked over Jordan, and I have seen.
Things are not what they seem.

What do you get for pretending the danger's not real?
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors, into the valley of Steel.
What a surprise!
A look of terminal shock in your eyes
Now things are really what they seem.
No, this is no bad dream.

and in synthesizer speech:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by.
With bright knives He releaseth my soul.
HE maketh me to hang on hooks in high places.
HE converteth me to lamb cutlets,
For lo, He hath great power, and great hunger.

etc.--Pink Floyd

But maybe this kind of sheep (see the last verse):

1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity;
there is none who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven
on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
3 They have all fallen away;
together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.
4 Have those who work evil no knowledge,
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon God?
5 There they are, in great terror,
where there is no terror!
For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you;
you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.
6 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When God restores the fortunes of his people,
let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
--Psalm 53, ESV

I've got to be careful not hope too much, but at least I can take Pascal's wager.

Concerning the job: of course it could all be over any day, but in the sober light of further contemplation, irrational hope, and some judicious use of Reason, I may have a reasonable expectation of working at least another six months. If the Fascist overlords at the Port get too pissed, it could go really badly, and then my expectation would be in vain. Nothing is really certain, but I can see the future and it's a dark and cloudy place...

Social Philosophy: Individual vs. The State: Duty

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The individual cannot bargain with the State. The State recognizes no coinage but power: and it issues the coins itself.

Today I am rendering unto Caesar by performing the egregious bureaucratic duty of filing my taxes. So the above quote bears repeating.

Personal Update: Answers

To all my friends & relations that prayed for me, I have the first-fruits of answered prayer.

My brother-in-law decided to poke around under the hood of my Honda to see if anything obvious was wrong. He discovered that a spark plug had blown loose and just sat in the socket and bounced up and down. So he got a new spark plug, gapped it properly, and installed it. It seems to run ok now. I'll replace the other plugs after I am done with my taxes tomorrow.

So, I am glad to have friends & relatives to whom God listens. Praise His Name.

Personal Update continued

In thinking about what I wrote in the last entry, I wanted to state for the record that I am aware that my petty bourgeoisie troubles are nothing compared to what many of my Christian brothers around the world are forced to endure. For example, there are Christians in Africa that are more devout than any American ever thought of being and yet they go to bed hungry every night and they don't have enough clean water, etc. This is why when I read in the Old Testament about how the righteous are to prosper, it stretches the limits of my faith, because these Christians only experience prosperity in the spiritual sense and this life is hell for them.

So one can absolutely agree with scripture that the righteous do prosper--except that no one is actually righteous.

Personal Update & on Creative Writing

Meditating on the quote from the other day and thinking how completely out-classed I am in the realm of creative writing, I have decided to move my few fiction works from this blog to another blog dedicated to creative writing (and not mentioned too much, at least until I am good enough to not be an embarrassment to myself). This will include most of my metaphorical entries also.

I haven't given up trying to write creatively, and I will still try to get published some day (if I live long enough). I will still continue to read, study, & comment on literature & writing tips.

Today we presented our counter-offer in the negotiation meeting to management, and together with some new revelations on management's latest attempts to take away our work, and undermine public safety, I find myself in a vicious political fight. So, the gloves are off, but there is no certain future for my job.

The old anxieties immediately emerged; I began to have thoughts like this:

I thought the Lord would take care of me, but it looks like He may want me to lose everything and have my family starve.

The thing is, God has laid it upon me to be the provider of my household. Since I am fully aware of His profound sovereignty, and completely at His mercy (dependent upon Him with no protection of my own), and with the wounds of the last 40 month struggle to survive financial uncertainty still fresh in my soul, I panic easily. I currently support myself and three others in my household as well as all the Monkey Collective parasites and my numerous creditors on my one wage. I don't think I can take another bare-bones survival fight.

And on top of being broke, my 16-year-old Honda finally just broke down. I hate getting caught with my pants down, so to speak. I still haven't finished my Bachelor's Degree and my creative writing skills are not yet good enough to make money from. So I am just effed.

All this is occurring just when I thought my relationship with the Lord was improving and I was starting to get out of my spiritual funk. --deleted unworthy thoughts--

I do pray for forgiveness for my sins and for my presumption in trying to better myself and perhaps trying to achieve my dreams. Gotta kill that hope, it just keeps rearing it's ugly head.

End Transmission.

History Repeats

I had to laugh when I saw this quote:

The Earth is degenerating these days. Bribery and corruption abound.
Children no longer mind their parents, every man wants to write a book,
and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching.

- Assyrian Stone Tablet, 2800BC

Ephemera: If a picture is worth a thousand words...

here is a thousand word essay on how the producers are overwhelmed by the Monkey Collective:

Social Philosophy: Individual vs. The State: A few more thoughts

Hat tip to Mark Horne for these quotes; they exactly expresses the truth and my personal feelings:

"Everything the State says is a lie, & everything it has is stolen." - Friedrich Nietzsche

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false face for the urge to rule it.” — H.L. Mencken

"The State is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." Frederic Bastiat

Ephemera: A New Buck Rogers

This movie coming out looks interesting: Buck Rogers Begins

Check out the various YouTube clips relating to it.

(And in Ebonics): 'Cause I likes my melodrama and my pulp fiction.