The Housekeepers

August 13, 2016 Leave a comment

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The five-day conference, “Alethea Lit Conference – Form without Substance? brought Irene to town. She was to lead the symposium O Still Voice of Calm on day three.

On Sunday evening Irene checked into room 351 and got settled. Pulling back the drapes she could see a terrace and beyond that the wooded campus of Indiana U. The late evening August sun etched the campuses’ limestone buildings with long sepia shadows; the heat of the day was receding.

After unpacking Irene went down for dinner. She returned an hour later anxious to kick off her shoes and put her feet up. Before retiring Irene was in the habit of reading. She chose Paul’s letter to the Romans for this week. But soon the day’s travel caught up to Irene and she fell asleep in the armchair. She awoke later with a terrible kink in her neck. She moved to the bed for the rest of the night.

 

Irene woke at the sound of her alarm clock, at 5:30. She showered, dried her hair and put on a jersey tank, an A-line skirt and a pair of flats. She was to meet her publisher Mark for breakfast. She gathered her loose belongings into her suitcase, left her open Bible on the desk and headed downstairs.

Antonia knocked. When she heard no answer she entered 351 and began her routine. Hotel housekeeping began at 7:30 during the week with the previous day’s laundry to clean. When finished, Antonia would then clean rooms until 2:00.

As was her habit Antonia turned on the TV when she cleaned a room.  She switched the station to her favorite talk show.  “Today, two couples each recount the loss of their child,” announced the host. Antonia’s turned up the volume and headed into the bathroom to grab the wet towels.

While dusting, Antonia saw the open Bible and moved it to the bed to wipe the desk top. She then changed the bed sheets after replacing the Bible.

“My son was eighteen when his car flipped over and he was killed,” the mother of one of the couples related.  The police found nothing to cause the accident. There was no rain, no alcohol, no other car – nothing! It just happened!”

Antonia watched the husband put his arm around his wife as she began to wipe her eyes. Tears welled in Antonia’s eyes.

Antonia adjusted the sheers and then went in to finish the bathroom. Seeing the makeup kit on the sink reminded her of what had happened the other day.

After work last Tuesday Antonia headed to her car. She grabbed her car keys from her purse loaded her soiled uniforms into the back seat and then drove off, leaving her bag sitting on the pavement. When she got home she couldn’t find her glasses and suddenly realized what she had done. She raced back to the parking spot and found that the bag was gone. Now she was frantic. The bag contained her wallet. The wallet held her ID, 40 dollars in cash, her credit cards and her hotel pass card.

Not finding the bag in the parking lot, Antonia went to the front desk to see if her bag had been turned in. It had. With that she breathed a huge sigh of relief, but then made sure everything was still there. It was. Antonia shuddered at the memory. Finished, she grabbed her cart, turned off the room lights and headed to room 353.

 

Tuesday morning Irene woke with her alarm at 5:30. She washed her face and then slipped on a pale blue dress and a pair of flats. After making a cup of coffee she sat with her Bible. This morning she would meet author Janice Fillmore for breakfast. Seeing it was 6:30 Irene placed her open Bible on the desk, gathered her loose belongings into her suitcase and headed down to breakfast.

Antonia knocked. When she heard no answer she entered 351 and began her routine. She turned on the TV and found she didn’t have to change the channel. After turning up the volume she proceeded to vacuum the floor.

“Today we have Chance Parlance, Senior Pastor of Broadway Church here to talk to us about his new book, “The Power of You.  Before we talk about your book, our viewers would like to know…You are asking each of your 200,000 followers to donate $300.00 so that you can purchase a luxury jet?”

“Yes. We want to safely and swiftly share the Good news of the Gospel worldwide…I declared it and God will do it!”

Antonia moved the Bible from the desk to the bed and began to dust.  As she gathered the garbage she noticed a brochure in the desk trash bin. She lifted it out and read the title out loud. “Alethea Lit Conference – Form without Substance?  Monday – Birthing The New Creation in Christian Lit.”

Looking at the time, Antonia put the leaflet into her apron and finished her cleaning. She had been given several more rooms to clean today. She turned out the lights and headed to the next room.

 

Wednesday morning Irene awoke before her alarm.  She showered, dried her hair and carefully applied her makeup. This morning she would lead a symposium before three hundred people. She put on a gray suit while coffee streamed into a cup.

Irene sat down with the coffee, her Bible and her notes. She had chosen her topic, O Still Voice of Calm, after spending several years practicing listening prayer. It had become her habit to sit in silence and to let God speak to her. She expected God to speak to her; God was constantly streaming His words to her. And Irene had come to realize that her creativity, her art, was born out of such times. Today she would introduce authors and publishers to listening prayer. At 6:30 she gathered her things and headed down to breakfast.

Antonia knocked. When she heard no answer she entered 351 and began her routine. She turned on the TV and found she didn’t have to change the channel. The volume was the same so she turned it down.  But she didn’t feel much like listening today. Monday’s program had left her unsettled, like she had lost something she couldn’t afford to lose. She even discussed the show with her best friend Lily, a biology major at IU, the day before.

Lily’s dogmatic reply came out of nowhere: “Now, how could any god permit the death of any child? You saw the pain those families had to deal with! And there is so much injustice in the world. My god, it’s like the gods are off somewhere uninvolved and angry and just waiting to jump all over us with patriarchal oppression. The god nonsense is a placebo for the weak.  These things happen, you know.  Just live, laugh and party on if you can before you leave.  Make the most of your time. And who knows, maybe when you die you will be reincarnated as a god and you can do some good in the world.  And don’t forget about me, your best friend.”

That conversation had left Antonia more unsettled.

Antonia moved the open Bible from the desk to the bed and began to dust.  As she gathered the garbage from the bins she noticed another brochure in the desk trash bin. She read the title out loud. “Alethea Lit Conference – Form without Substance? Tuesday– Uncommon Grace: The Life of Flannery O’Connor, a documentary film and discussion

Looking at the time, Antonia put the leaflet into her apron and finished her cleaning. She then turned out the lights and headed to the next room. Her work for this week ended at 2:00.  She would start work again on Sunday morning.

 

Bonita knocked. When she heard no one answer she entered 351 and called out “Housekeeping!” No answer. She began her routine. Bonita would clean the hotel rooms until 2:00. Then, her kids would need to be picked up from her mother’s house. Little Alphonso and his older sister Lupe would be anxiously awaiting mom.

Bonita had worked for six years as a hotel housekeeper. The housekeeping hours allowed her to work while her kids were in school and then be home for them in the afternoon. During the spring and summer months Bonita’s husband, Alonzo, a landscaper, was gone from six in the morning until eight at night. During those times Bonita would bring her two kids to her mother’s house.

While dusting, Bonita saw the open Bible. She carefully lifted the Bible and read out loud, “In the same way, too, the spirit comes alongside and helps us in our weakness. We don’t know what to pray for as we ought to; but that same spirit pleads on our behalf, with groaning too deep for words.”

Bonita set the Bible down on the bed. She wiped the desk top. She then changed the bed sheets after replacing the Bible. She turned her attention to the bathroom.

On the bathroom ledge was a makeup kit. Bonita cringed. It was twelve years ago, in Sonora Mexico, that Bonita lost her first child Esperanza. The child died from pneumonia six months after her baptism.  For the funeral the mortuary had applied rouge to the Esperanza’ cheeks. Bonita’s eyes welled with tears as she cleaned the sink.

After Esperanza’s death, Bonita grieved for many months. After coming to live in Indiana she decided to remember Esperanza in a painting. Bonita had become a watercolorist after leaving Mexico.  She had seen many art fairs in her new home town. It was the water color portraits that had so moved her.

Bonita painted Esperanza in a white Easter dress, purchased in Mexico. Bonita applied a faint Cadmium red to Esperanza’s cheeks.

Bonita dried her eyes with a towel, gathered the towels, tossed them into her cart and sighed.

Being at home with two kids every day, Bonita appreciated the room’s silence. It felt like she was in the presence of something much more than herself.

Bonita turned out the lights and headed to the next room.

 

Friday morning Irene awoke before her alarm.  She showered, dried her hair and carefully applied her makeup. She would participate in a final symposium this morning and then head out. While coffee streamed into a cup Irene put on a jersey tank, an A-line skirt and a pair of flats. She gathered her belongings into her suitcase. When she reached for her Bible she noticed what looked to be a watermark on one of the pages. She closed the Bible, placed it into her suitcase, took one last look around, shut off the lights and went down to breakfast.

 

 

 

 

 

© Sally Paradise, 2016, All Rights Reserved

Filed under Christianity, short story Tagged with , ,

Hold the Scotch and the Logical Fallacy of Atheism

June 4, 2016 Leave a comment

“One more logical fallacy and we’re done.”

 

This past week I encountered atheists on Twitter.  I noticed one atheist’s snarky scorn of Christians and I responded.

As you’ll see, I engaged him and one other for just a few rounds (please forgive my typos and some bad grammar, I was busy making a living at the same time).  The atheists immediately stop tweeting after dismissing me out of hand:  “One more logical fallacy and we’re done.” Their arguments must have fallen off the edge of the earth, the black hole of unbelief having sucked them away.

The exchange reminded me of a post I put together when Christopher Hitchens’s passed. (This is a long but hopefully informative post.  So, grab some coffee and hold the scotch.)

 

 

 

In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011

As you will see and hear in the video below, Christopher Hitchens’ (Hitch’s) arguments for atheism (exclusively an argument against theism), after many dead-end asides, were centered on his aversion to having anyone telling anyone what to do.  His followers readily know that over the years Hitch has repeatedly taken umbrage on paper or in one-upmanship debates against totalitarianism and against any authoritarian person or religion having a say in his life or in the lives of others. For the record, William Lane Craig (marker 13:59) noted that Hitch despised and hated religion.

 

Hitch was certainly OK, though, with authoritarian imposition upon others if he felt the cause justified removing other authoritarian figures from the lives of those he thought were oppressed.  He, to the horror of the liberal elitists, aligned himself philosophically with G.W. Bush regarding the Iraq war and the war on terror against radical Islamists.

 

The February 2012 issue of Vanity Fair includes Salman Rushdie’s “In Memoriam”, Christopher Hitchens: 1949-2011.” Rushdie wrote about Hitch’s return to the left:

 

“Paradoxically, it was God who saved Christopher Hitchens from the right. Nobody who detested God as viscerally, intelligently, originally, and comically as C. Hitchens could stay in the pocket of god-bothered American conservatism for long.  When he bared his fangs and went for God’s jugular, just as he had previously fanged Henry Kissinger, Mother Teresa, and Bill Clinton, the resulting book, God is not great, carried Hitch away from the American right and back toward his natural, liberal, ungodly constituency.”

 

As a way of life Hitch sought to stand juxtaposed to the universal rule of law (his own conscience) in an antinomian position while at the same time declaring moral diatribes against religious and political authorities he considered too overarching in their imposition. A true Epicurean in his ways, Hitch also liked to keep his conscience well inebriated and his roving moralist eye ever looking elsewhere – looking outside and not within – denial and pretense being typical liberal traits.

 

With atheistic cowardice and hubris, Hitch attacked Mother Teresa, a little old lady. He apparently wanted to feed his prurient desire to neutralize any authority figure (overt or implied) by trying to bring her down several notches in people’s eyes.  Why? He claimed she was pushing her authoritarian teachings onto the helpless. He accused her of hypocrisy in her dealings (an easy, self-serving claim for an atheist to make against any Christian). He may have felt threatened by her devotion to an unseen God and her ability to make things happen for others and doing so as a little old lady.

 

Why would a grown man verbally attack a helpless woman who indeed went about helping others who themselves were under the totalitarianism of poverty and squalor?  Maybe Hitch thought she wasn’t helpless. Maybe it was a direct attack against God. It certainly was an act of unmatched intelligential cowardice. To be sure Mother Teresa fought the unseen authorities of this world (the “powers of darkness”) by physically helping the outcast, the hungry and the hurting with an agape-powered love and not verbal hubris.

 

Hitch, on the other hand, fought the very public “seen” authorities of this world by aligning rhetorically with causes which he felt were important for him. He should have noted that he and Mother Teresa were fighting the same issue – human suffering at the hands of others (whether a dictator or a false religion) -from two different sides. Yet, he chose to denigrate Mother Teresa. I believe he did this because he felt threatened by her belief in the unseen God.

 

Hitch postures that Christians, especially Christian missionaries like Mother Teresa, are hypocrites who say things they know to be true and good but live disconnected lives apart from such truth – their deeds not matching match their words. This argument (?) against God was replayed in his use the La Rochefoucauld quote “hypocrisy is a tribute vice pays to virtue.” Yet, this hypocrisy argument folds in on itself if one were to hold any moral standard at all. Perhaps Hitch, a polymath, saw moral laws as “many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.” (The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe)

 

Clearly Hitch’s excessive lifestyle (his immoderate drinking, smoking, etc. have been noted elsewhere) made his salacious attacks against God all the more the more forthcoming and lubricious.  His lifestyle had also proved his belief in nihilism – life is nothing if not suffering. So he apparently used a “get it while you can” justification to medicate the blows between verbal jousting contests.

 

His liquid lifestyle also spoke to the fact of Hitch’s drive for “freedom” from any limitation imposed on his person including by his own person – his physiology. He chose against himself again and again.  He did this while throwing the world a bone now and then, choosing willy-nilly causes to deflect away any personal soul-searching which might lead to accountability to any higher authority. (see marker 25: 5, If god does not exist then objective moral standards don’t exist – a self-satisfying argument.)

 

Hitch detested dictatorships of all kinds and he did so while as a potentate of his own world. He would not bend the knee to anyone or to anything.  He would fight, as Salmon Rushdie recalled in the same Vanity Fair article remembering his friend, for anyone who was made to do so.  Hitch’s rebellion was against dictatorial authority of any kind and not just in the political and religious realm.  And he certainly rebelled against authority stated as codified truth – the Bible and the recorded history of the resurrection of Jesus.  His moral relativism, stated above, is characteristic of most atheists (and the “ungodly constituency”) since they affirm that no moral standard exists outside one’s self.

 

In the video Hitch asks the universal question posed to theism:  why would a God who was all powerful and good allow suffering?  My answer:  suffering comes out of created man’s free-will choices in a fallen world. God has allowed it for a time but not forever. Justice will be meted out and suffering will end.

 

He continues his disbelief: “Why would God spend eons of time in creating a world that he could set up in a blink of an eye?” He went on to say that Christians are now co-opting evolution theory in accordance with the Creation argument, evolution being a position long held by atheists.  He “christens” this “tactic” or “style” of argument as “retrospective evidentialism” or as a “second thought.” (marker 37:40)

 

As a Christian theist I see no conflict whatsoever with science and creation.  I believe in theistic evolution-a finely tuned theistic universe, a personal cause of the universe and a theistic objective morality. As scientific evidence becomes available it should be used and not discarded.  Beyond scientific proofs, my own belief in God is vindicated every day because I, a rational human being, know that God exists. I continue to pursue Him actively and I submit to His authority. Hitch, on the other hand, fled from any such authority outside of himself and employed his own existentialist belief system where he felt safe from intrusion.

 

Also in the video, Hitch uses the Creationist argument of a literal seven days to say that we as Christians are basically lunatics to believe such things. Again, I see no conflict with a Creationist’s position of a literal seven days and the theory of relativity which could make thousands of millennia appear as seven literal days. But as I mentioned above, I accept theistic evolution, so the point is mute in my case.

 

Hitch takes another jab at Christian theism by invoking his own god-like view point when questioning why God would do what Christian theists believe He did. He balks at the idea (and I’ll paraphrase): “…the eons of time that God has created-evolved – that all of this fine tuning, mass extinction and randomness is the will of a Creator God (marker 40:21) and that all of this happened so that one very imperfect race of evolved primates might become Christian – all of this was “with us in view” is a curious kind of solipsism, a curious kind of self-centeredness.”

 

Hitch jests that he thought Christians were modest and humble, not self-centered with certain arrogance to the assumption that this “was all about us.” And, “The tremendous wastefulness of it, the tremendous cruelty of it, the tremendous caprice of it, the tremendous tinkering and incompetence of it, never mind, at least we’re here and we can be people of faith.” This projection from one who, with his own free will, spoke from a self-centered and solipsistic core throughout his entire life!

 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Creator, was always meant to bypass the wise of this earth: “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, “He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.”” (Apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church).   A priori rebellion coded as cleverness is found in the Mitochondrial DNA of man.

 

Apart from Hitch’s free-wheeling self-directed solipsism, there is a bounty of sound arguments for theism and William Lane Craig (WLC) highlights them artfully: “No good argument that atheism is true, there are good arguments that theism is true – not via social questions or ethics (marker 16:00).

 

WLC philosophical arguments in quick notation:

 

Cosmological argument:  things exist, not nothing; the universe began to exist not infinite, not eternal – Big Bang Beginning, ex-nihilo, a cause by an UnCause beyond space and time; David Hillburg – The infinite; there must be a cause of creation. This Being must be uncaused, timeless, space unfathomable & personal and not abstract thought or object; The universe has begun to exist and is not infinite, not eternal (astrophysics concur); Past event are real, there must be Personal creator of the universe, transcendent intelligent mind

 

Teological argument: (marker 20:00) finely tuned universe – mathematically constants (e.g., gravity) not determined by the laws of nature & the arbitrary conditions (entropy, balance between matter and antimatter); any change in these would be the end of life itself (the atomic weak force being altered)

 

Chance?  Odds are incomprehensibly great, life prohibiting universes are more probable

 

It follows logically by Design – intelligent argument, intelligent designer

 

Moral argument (marker 25: 15):  if god does not exist then objective moral standards don’t exist; if God exists then valid and binding; the morality that has emerged proves that god exists – via moral experience; we understand that there are things that are really wrong.

 

 Historical fact (marker 27:40):  The resurrection of Jesus a historical fact not just a belief; tomb discovered empty eyewitnesses; individuals and groups saw Jesus, appearances to believers and unbelievers; the original disciples believed in the resurrection and Jewish religion believed otherwise about when resurrection occurs; Christian die for the truth of the resurrection (marker 30:26)

 

Experiential knowledge:  The experience of God or claim to know that God exists – properly basic beliefs part of a system of beliefs including the belief of an external world; context of physical objects; grounded in our experience of God; God immediate reality

 

Hitch responds (marker 33:16): “arguments the same across religions – belief in God but differences; presuppositionalists (by faith) and the evidentialists a distinction without a difference.”

 

As you will note Hitch’s arguments are all basically dismissive of Christian supporting arguments for belief and are not evidentiary in favor of atheism; note his “rather sweet” dismissal of those who believe – that those of faith should have evidence.  (Hitch once again conveniently dismisses the facts of the resurrection and the improbability of causation by chance.)

 

Hitch: “We argue that is no plausible or convincing reason, certainly no evidential one to believe that there is such an entity…all observable phenomena is explicable (marker 42:00); I don’t believe that following the appropriate rituals…

 

“Even if this deity did exist it doesn’t prove that he cared about us…cared who we had sex with …care whether we lived or died… (marker 42:32)

 

“Miracles suspend the natural order – Christians want it both ways (“promiscuous”) (marker 44:00); The natural order – “It is miraculous without a doubt”

 

“I have to say that I appear as a skeptic, I doubt these things.” (marker 46:16)

 

“The theist says it must be true…” Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”;

 

“Too early in the study of biology…to make these claims.”

 

Hitch, the verbal grappler, was as a sound and fury professional wrestler who was agile at avoiding a real match-up with Truth. But now, the fight has ended, the match is over. All that’s left in the empty corner is Hitch’s book “God is Not Great” and an empty bottle of Scotch.

Filed under Atheism, Christianity Tagged with ,

Utopia Has No Room for You… in the Inn

April 2, 2016 Leave a comment

 

Utopia comes from the Greek: οὐ (“not”) and τόπος (“place”) and means “no-place“, a non-existent place.

…..

And now a few clarion words from Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Angelo M. Codevilla:

 

“This dismissal of the American people’s intellectual, spiritual, and moral substance is the very heart of what our ruling class is about. Its principal article of faith, its claim to the right to decide for others, is precisely that it knows things and operates by standards beyond others’ comprehension.

While the unenlightened ones believe that man is created in the image and likeness of God and that we are subject to His and to His nature’s laws, the enlightened ones know that we are products of evolution, driven by chance, the environment, and the will to primacy. While the un-enlightened are stuck with the antiquated notion that ordinary human minds can reach objective judgments about good and evil, better and worse through reason, the enlightened ones know that all such judgments are subjective and that ordinary people can no more be trusted with reason than they can with guns. Because ordinary people will pervert reason with ideology, religion, or interest, science is “science” only in the “right” hands. Consensus among the right people is the only standard of truth. Facts and logic matter only insofar as proper authority acknowledges them.

That is why the ruling class is united and adamant about nothing so much as its right to pronounce definitive, “scientific” judgment on whatever it chooses. When the government declares, and its associated press echoes that “scientists say” this or that, ordinary people — or for that matter scientists who “don’t say,” or are not part of the ruling class — lose any right to see the information that went into what “scientists say.” Thus when Virginia’s attorney general subpoenaed the data by which Professor Michael Mann had concluded, while paid by the state of Virginia, that the earth’s temperatures are rising “like a hockey stick” from millennial stability — a conclusion on which billions of dollars’ worth of decisions were made — to investigate the possibility of fraud, the University of Virginia’s faculty senate condemned any inquiry into “scientific endeavor that has satisfied peer review standards” claiming that demands for data “send a chilling message to scientists…and indeed scholars in any discipline.” The Washington Post editorialized that the attorney general’s demands for data amounted to “an assault on reason.” The fact that the “hockey stick” conclusion stands discredited and Mann and associates are on record manipulating peer review, the fact that science-by-secret-data is an oxymoron, the very distinction between truth and error, all matter far less to the ruling class than the distinction between itself and those they rule.

By identifying science and reason with themselves, our rulers delegitimize opposition. Though they cannot prevent Americans from worshiping God, they can make it as socially disabling as smoking — to be done furtively and with a bad social conscience. Though they cannot make Americans wish they were Europeans, they continue to press upon this nation of refugees from the rest of the world the notion that Americans ought to live by “world standards.” Each day, the ruling class produces new “studies” that show that one or another of Americans’ habits is in need of reform, and that those Americans most resistant to reform are pitiably, perhaps criminally, wrong. Thus does it go about disaggregating and dispiriting the ruled.” (emphasis added)

Beyond the excerpt:  I commend Codevilla’s entire article to you.  In fact, I urge you to click on the link and print out the article.  Sit and read it and be forever changed by its content. I pray that the article opens your eyes and that moral courage arises in your heart.

America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution by Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Angelo Codevillano_room_at_the_inn_postcard

 

Now, perhaps, you know these culprits,  the Unconstrained Visionaries, by their characteristics:  snobbish, name-calling bullies; cliquish; desiring kinship w/other like-minded people; seeking power by government association; demanding rule by ‘right’; believing themselves morally and intellectually right; saying “You must obey us because we know better”; blinded to their  ‘well-intentioned’ actions leading to horrible unintended consequences; believing they know better than you; applying a “living constitution” template to every legal decision; using science as leverage without any depth of scientific knowledge; posturing “settled science” to quash dissent;  believing they “have the one true faith”; deeming that intentions and not results matter most; obtaining snobbery wielding government power;… combining attitude with government power, coercive.

…

Utopia Has No Room for You (and Swaddled Truth) in the Inn.

Us Christians, we abide in Christ wherever we are.  We’ll leave the Light on.

…

Background on the Constrained and Unconstrained Visions, the intuitive assumptions that shape our worldview:

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No Stone Left Unturned

April 1, 2016 Leave a comment

 

“Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. And He said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.”” Matthew 24: 1-2

~~~

jerichoA “Roll away the stone” anthology: Jericho’s stone wall fortifications fall under their own weight and with the help of a pro-God marching band. An adulterous woman, caught between a stoning and a hard place, looks to the Rock that is higher than her and her accusers. The man of God Stephen speaks aloud his rock-solid revelation while on trial and is consequently stoned to death by a PC jury of non-peers. Lazarus becomes memorialized forever, but not in stone. The disciples find that the stone in front of Jesus’ tomb has been rolled away – and pulverized! Even stones will cry out in praise to God if others are silenced! woman-caught-in-adultery

 

Urban fortifications, buttressed by Reason’s Redirects:

“…from the eighteenth century on, people have said that if you believe in modern science – by which they mean the Epicurean project of scientism, which claims empirical evidence for the philosophical worldview – then you can’t believe in the resurrection. This skepticism has, however, nothing modern about it. Lucretius, the greatest ancient Epicurean, would have scoffed at the idea of resurrection. So would Homer or Aeschylus or Plato or Pliny. The point is that the resurrection, if it had occurred, would undermine the Enlightenment’s self-congratulatory dream of world history reaching its destiny in our day and our own systems. That’s why the resurrection has been seen in scholarship not as the launching of new creation but simply as the most bizarre of miracles, then as an impossible miracle, then as a dangerous ideological claim. You bet it’s dangerous. If it’s true, other ideologies are brought to book. (Emphasis added) N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Scripture

Stephen being stoned (1)There are those, of course, who wish to remain under a rock, preferring to be entombed in “night’s predominance.” They would hate for anyone to turn over their stone and expose them to the “living light.”

There are those, of course, who wish to keep people under a rock, preferring them be entombed in “night’s predominance.” They would hate for anyone to turn over their stone and be exposed to the “living light.” See the Ruling class and its humanist Kulturkampf war on the family, Progressives, atheists and others disposed to slither from rock to rock.

lazarus8

~~~

Truth-seekers turn over every stone until they find the Stone that was rejected by society’s builders. And regardless of what the culture is telling you, that Stone has become the cornerstone from which all things are to be aligned and made square.

 

Once you find that Stone, then like the resurrection you become “dangerous” and begin to turn the world upside down, stones included. The world will notice and protest vigorously…

Acts_of_the_Apostles_Chapter_17-6_(Bible_Illustrations_by_Sweet_Media)

“…they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also,…” Acts 17:6

Filed under Christianity, Easter, Holiday Tagged with , ,

Cow Bells Are for Fellow Travelers

March 14, 2016 Leave a comment

 

Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”

…

Do not submit your humanity and your dignity to cultural Marxism and its systematic lies. The narrative of the ruling class is meant dehumanize you, to make you cattle in need of prodding: “There is no need for discussion or debate.” “Truth is what we tell you.” “Shut up and listen!” “Dissent is bigotry!” “It is settled science!”

What should those in the Kingdom of God do to stop the Long March of cultural Marxism? Stand up to the ruling class. Do not equivocate to appease or to be inclusive. Truth is not relative. Truth is Revelation sent from God: “for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth.”

Why are you in this world? To deny Truth? To be yoked to lies?

What should those in the Kingdom of God do to stop the Long March of cultural Marxism? Like Jesus, speak truth to power.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918 – 2008)

Alexander Solzhenitsyn
(1918 – 2008)

A clarion call to moral courage is required. Here is an excerpt from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s essay Live Not By Lies (emphasis added):

~~~

Our path is to talk away from the gangrenous boundary. If we did not paste together the dead bones and scales of ideology, if we did not sew together the rotting rags, we would be astonished how quickly the lies would be rendered helpless and subside.

That which should be naked would then really appear naked before the whole world.

So in our timidity, let each of us make a choice: Whether consciously, to remain a servant of falsehood—of course, it is not out of inclination, but to feed one’s family, that one raises his children in the spirit of lies—or to shrug off the lies and become an honest man worthy of respect both by one’s children and contemporaries.

And from that day onward he:

  • Will not henceforth write, sign, or print in any way a single phrase which in his opinion distorts the truth.
  • Will utter such a phrase neither in private conversation not in the presence of many people, neither on his own behalf not at the prompting of someone else, either in the role of agitator, teacher, educator, not in a theatrical role.
  • Will not depict, foster or broadcast a single idea which he can only see is false or a distortion of the truth whether it be in painting, sculpture, photography, technical science, or music.
  • Will not cite out of context, either orally or written, a single quotation so as to please someone, to feather his own nest, to achieve success in his work, if he does not share completely the idea which is quoted, or if it does not accurately reflect the matter at issue.
  • Will not allow himself to be compelled to attend demonstrations or meetings if they are contrary to his desire or will, will neither take into hand not raise into the air a poster or slogan which he does not completely accept.
  • Will not raise his hand to vote for a proposal with which he does not sincerely sympathize, will vote neither openly nor secretly for a person whom he considers unworthy or of doubtful abilities.
  • Will not allow himself to be dragged to a meeting where there can be expected a forced or distorted discussion of a question. Will immediately talk out of a meeting, session, lecture, performance or film showing if he hears a speaker tell lies, or purvey ideological nonsense or shameless propaganda.
  • Will not subscribe to or buy a newspaper or magazine in which information is distorted and primary facts are concealed. Of course we have not listed all of the possible and necessary deviations from falsehood. But a person who purifies himself will easily distinguish other instances with his purified outlook.

No, it will not be the same for everybody at first. Some, at first, will lose their jobs. For young people who want to live with truth, this will, in the beginning, complicate their young lives very much, because the required recitations are stuffed with lies, and it is necessary to make a choice.

But there are no loopholes for anybody who wants to be honest. On any given day any one of us will be confronted with at least one of the above-mentioned choices even in the most secure of the technical sciences. Either truth or falsehood: Toward spiritual independence or toward spiritual servitude.

And he who is not sufficiently courageous even to defend his soul—don’t let him be proud of his “progressive” views, don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a merited figure, or a general—let him say to himself: I am in the herd, and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and warm

… You say it will not be easy? But it will be easiest of all possible resources. It will not be an easy choice for a body, but it is the only one for a soul. No, it is not an easy path. But there are already people, even dozens of them, who over the years have maintained all these points and live by the truth.

So you will not be the first to take this path, but will join those who have already taken it. This path will be easier and shorter for all of us if we take it by mutual efforts and in close rank. If there are thousands of us, they will not be able to do anything with us. If there are tens of thousands of us, then we would not even recognize our country.

 

If we are too frightened, then we should stop complaining that someone is suffocating us. We ourselves are doing it. Let us then bow down even more, let us wail, and our brothers the biologists will help to bring nearer the day when they are able to read our thoughts are worthless and hopeless.

 

And if we get cold feet, even taking this step, then we are worthless and hopeless, and the scorn of Pushkin should be directed to us:

Why should cattle have the gifts of freedom?

Their heritage from generation to generation is the belled yoke and the lash.”

…

Cow Bells Are for Fellow Travellers. Resurrection Day bells are for those wedded to the Truth.

Filed under Christianity, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with , , ,

Gravity Is Waving. Wave Back.

February 14, 2016 Leave a comment

“It is an easy thing to argue from precedent because it makes everything simple, but it is a risky thing to do. Give God “elbow room”; let Him come into His universe as He pleases. If we confine God in His working to religious people or to certain ways, we place ourselves on an equality with God.” Oswald Chambers, Baffled to Fight Better, 51 L

News Release • February 11, 2016:

Gravitational Waves Detected 100 Years After Einstein’s Prediction

“For the first time, scientists have observed ripples in the fabric of spacetime called gravitational waves, arriving at the earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe. This confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window onto the cosmos.”  Gravitationla waves a-Mideast-Israel-Einste_Mett

 

 

Fellow spacetime travelers, as mentioned last time, the game is afoot!

This week, another substantial mind boggling cosmological clue!

Be reminded:  Truth-seeking the not-so-obvious five-sigma answers to your questions takes…spacetime, “elbow room” and the right lab equipment (spectrograph, interferometer, Sola Scriptura, to name a few) 9-excigravitational-waves-discovery-image-1.gif

Gravitational waves, Einstein’s ripples in spacetime, spotted for first time (quotes follow)

“…for the first time, physicists detected the waves, fulfilling a 4-decade quest and opening new eyes on the heavens….”

“It is the prospect of the science that might be done with gravitational waves that really excites physicists. For example, says Kamionkowski, the theorist at Johns Hopkins, the first LIGO result shows the power of such radiation to reveal unseen astrophysical objects like the two ill-fated black holes. “This opens a new window on this vast population of stellar remnants that we know are out there but of which we have seen only a tiny fraction,” he says…

gravitational-waves.gif

With the black hole merger, general relativity has passed the first such test, says Rainer Weiss, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, who came up with the original idea for LIGO. “The things you calculate from Einstein’s theory look exactly like the signal,” he says. “To me, that’s a miracle.”” (emphasis added)

LIGO

LIGO my Eggo:  the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) measures waffling gravitational fields created by black holes merging into a dancing embrace.  gravitational waves pass through LIGO

 

 

 

“LIGO watches for a minuscule stretching of space with what amounts to ultraprecise rulers: two L-shaped contraptions called interferometers with arms 4 kilometers long. Mirrors at the ends of each arm form a long “resonant cavity,” in which laser light of a precise wavelength bounces back and forth, resonating just as sound of a specific pitch rings in an organ pipe.”

gravitaional waves black stars.gif

 

The alpha omega a priori LIGO, the dancing embrace of the Trinity, is aware of every ripple in your spacetime, your prayers, your knocking on His door in the middle of the night, your pinging. Become a “resonant cavity” and you will hear the Trinity moving the universe to answer you.  Like Paul…

“I am persuaded, you see, that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor the present, nor the future, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in King Jesus our Lord.” The apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Rome.

Filed under Christianity, Cosmology, Science Tagged with ,

Make a Spectrograph of Yourself

February 7, 2016 Leave a comment

Another in the Quantum Theology and the Dispensation of Synchronicity Series
_____________________________________________________________________________________
As your bright and tiny spark
Lights the traveler in the dark,
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
From the English Lullaby Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 1, scene 5
~~~

So you want to know if God is game? It’s elementary dear reader. It’s in the stars and a spectrograph is required. “But I’m into relationships, not science!” Snap out of it, kid! Put on your thinking cap.  prisma-lightSpectrum-goethe

Prism break. In 1814 Joseph von Fraunhofer, a Bavarian lens maker, invented the spectrograph, a device which separates white light into a rainbow of colors. With a lab spectrometer the fingerprints of atoms and their Creator are uncovered.

“The white-hot surface of the sun emits light of all wavelengths, but this light then passes through the relatively cooler gases of the earth’s atmosphere (the “corona”). Here the atoms might absorb just those same wavelengths they like to emit. This absorption accounts for the curious dark lines observed by Faunhofer. Bit by bit, spectroscopy in the post-Fraunhofer era revealed that each element, when heated, produced a characteristic set of “spectral lines,” some prominent (like the brilliant lines of neon gas that are so familiar in neon signs), and some faint (like the dimmer blue of mercury vapor lamps). These lines were the fingerprints of the chemical elements, the first clues to the tiny “tuning forks” within atoms, or whatever the mysterious structures vibrating inside the atom must be.” (emphasis added) from Quantum Physics for Poets by Leon Lederman and Christopher Hill

“The game is afoot!”. What game? This game is kind of like Hide and Seek, the kid’s game. But in this game someone hides and the rest must seek out the hider. Like the kid’s game, no one seeking believes that the person hiding is unreal and not there, unless a person enters the game after the person hid. This person then has to believe the other seekers. But this person may think that the others may be tricking him and walk away. That’s his or her choice.
The seekers all must have a well-motivated belief that the hider is there and can be found to win the game. See. I am starting to build relationships.

“Spectroscopy’s second major achievement was a more philosophical. In the sun’s signature of dark lines scientists could read its chemical composition, and lo and behold, they found hydrogen, helium, lithium and the other elements of matter that compose our planet Earth. Since then, we have analyzed the light from the stars in extremely distant galaxies, always finding our own familiar elements: hydrogen, helium and so on. The universe everywhere has the same composition and the same laws of nature, all of which hints at a common origin in some incomprehensible act of physical creation.” from Quantum Physics for Poets by Leon Lederman and Christopher Hill

37spectra

“How I wonder what you are.” Information sourced from a twinkling star spectrum includes:  Bright-animated-star-shining-at-night-gif
Our distance from a star.
The temperature of the star
The size of a star.
The mass of a star.
The elements of a star
The motion of a star.
Using a star’s spectral lines we can measure its gas pressure and the strength of a star’s magnetism at the surface.

And you thought those little white dots in the night sky were there just for romantic reasons? They certainly are! The Creator is engaging his creation. So, “Make a Spectrograph of Yourself”.
[spek-truh-graf, -grahf], noun
1. a spectroscope for photographing or producing a representation of a spectrum.

spectrum

Like it or not you are taking in the Light of Christ. His Cosmic photons are constantly bombarding us. With it we can see familiar elements and, more closely, the fingerprints of God. And though the Light source seems off hiding somewhere in a distant galaxy there is considerable information for us to take in. We can analyze the Light from Christ and find the familiar incredibly romantic, like the red Valentines rose.
Under light a rose absorbs most colored light of the rainbow and emits red light.Rosa_gallica_purpuro-violacea_magna
What are you absorbing and what are you emitting? We tend to hunker down with some OTC Christian book that tries to explain God to us in proxy fashion. We ask God about something specific and we expect God to answer us in specific Voodoo-like fashion. “There will be a wet fleece on your doorstep tomorrow. That’s how you will know.” Look around. Adjust your spectrograph and see the full spectrum of answers God has already provided. And, if you ask for wisdom (light), have you used the wisdom God has already given you to find your way?
“The game is on!” Personally and very briefly, I joined the game of Hide and Seek when I started to read and think outside the “Christian” cave. I rid myself of the myopia of single point of light thinking – Sola Scriptura – and I stepped outside. To accomplish the move into the sunlight with a well-motivated belief of greater illumination, over the last several years I began studying science books. This path for me has made all the difference. And this path has shed enormous light back onto Sola Scriptura. God has been found ever since. Yes, he likes to keep hiding and being found. But, is God uncooperative when it comes to me? No!
The Hider is there and His Light is supernal. He wants to be found. Such Light gives itself away!
~~~
When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, O LORD, I shall seek.” Psalm 27:8
May the light of Christ remain with you always…

Filed under Christianity, Science Tagged with , ,

Curious Dabbling Required When “Bombarded with Hints”

January 22, 2016 Leave a comment

“The one thing for which we are all being disciplined is to know that God is real.  As soon as God becomes real, other people become shadows.  Nothing that other saints can do or say can ever perturb the one who is built on God.”  Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

~~~

In the scheme of things, it was just another day. I had gone to work.  After eight hours I got in my car and sailed away.  Traveling the four-lane, bored and looking for love in all the wrong radio frequencies, I came across a Chicago radio program.

The station emanating the program is the largest Christian radio station around.  How did I know?  I attended the school of which campus the station is located.  Back in the day I attended the school that housed the station that broadcasts the Bible 24/7.

The afternoon host was pumped.  She excitedly promoted her next guest:  “He’s a well-schooled PhD theologian – Oxford, I’ll have you know – who had just written a fine book.”  I gathered that we earthlings were supposed to take note of this highfalutin academic.

The question compendium, as described by the host, addressed the thousand and one questions people had asked the theologian during his ministry.  The talk show host who, unbelievably, had not fallen off her chair from complete exhaustion after highlighting the guest’s CV wanted to delve into some of the “begging-to-be-answered” queries with callers.

David, the first caller:  “Hi.” “Hi David, what is your question?” “Well, when God seems silent what do we make of it?” “That is a great question and one that I’m sure most of our listeners have.” I turned the volume up in case divine wisdom would be transmitted to earth via the FM station that broadcasts the Bible 24/7 and is located on the campus of the school that I attended.

After clearing his throat, the PhD’s response went something like… “I have experienced this…my wife and I wanted kids and there was silence in response to our joint prayer requests…we waited… we finally had a child… (then, a 3 point alliterated teaching summation per the school’s standard) … God is not punishing us when He is silent.”   Phew! I wiped my brow.  I turned off the radio and drove the rest of the way home puzzled and in silence…

You see, I was somewhat put off by the PhD’s answer.  It seemed to be a rather thin hidebound response to what the host was calling a deep and universal question. I supposed that, in fairness to the PhD, on-the-clock radio programs are not the best format for the broadest of answers. And I knew that, in fairness to the caller, the Bible school campus which housed the station is a strict Sola Scriptura guardian of the text of the faith once delivered, outside reference points being held suspect until canonized by afternoon radio hosts and guest theologians.

As I thought about the radio conversation, the question that I wanted to ask the caller was “How do you know when God is speaking to you?”  (Would it be when things are going just fine and without a hitch and God’s presumed ‘passivity’ is deemed as a silent knowing affirmation?) I wondered what the caller would say. And, is God truly silent?  I didn’t think so.  That has not been my experience. As a student of the Bible and curious dabbler that I am, I wondered how I could call in one day to 24/7 Bible radio and tell the world what I have witnessed? Thump. Thump. Thump….

I have spent most of my life dealing with Classical Dispensational nuts-and-bolts Theology, a theology which seeks to order the past, present and future and supplies the canned responses of its proponents.  Later, thankfully, I realized that there also exists a Quantum Theology, a way of knowing, a new way of looking at things – there is more than meets the eye or ear, for that matter.  There, I said it.

To be continued…

But first, a note to encourage curious dabbling:

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Been There But Not Done That?

January 18, 2016 Leave a comment

Mining for God (A Search for Ancient Truth in a Modern World) from Brandon McGuire on Vimeo.

Filed under apologetics, Christianity Tagged with ,

B-A-C-H and The Art of the Faith

January 17, 2016 Leave a comment

The following quotes are sourced from J. S. Bach in Japan:

”What people need in this situation is hope in the Christian sense of the word, but hope is an alien idea here,” says the renowned organist Masaaki Suzuki, founder and conductor of the Bach Collegium Japan. He is the driving force behind the “Bach boom” sweeping Japan during its current period of spiritual impoverishment. “Our language does not even have an appropriate word for hope,” Suzuki says. “We either use ibo, meaning desire, or nozomi, which describes something unattainable.” After every one of the Bach Collegium’s performances Suzuki is crowded on the podium by non “Christian members of the audience who wish to talk to him about topics that are normally taboo in Japanese society—death, for example. “And then they inevitably ask me to explain to them what ‘hope’ means to Christians.” (emphasis added)

“Although less than 1 percent of the 127 million Japanese belong to a Christian denomination, another 8 to 10 percent sympathize with this “foreign” religion. Tokuzen explained: “Most of those sympathizers are part of the elite, and many have had their first contact with Christianity through the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.””

The Art of the Fugue

“When Bach died on July 28, 1750, after two botched eye operations performed by John Taylor, a quack from England, his last major work, The Art of the Fugue, remained incomplete. It culminates in a quadruple contrapunctus bearing his signature, for it is formed from the letters b-a-c-h (in German musical terminology b-natural is called “h”)….

The Art of the Fugue is perhaps Bach’s most abstract and intellectually challenging work. Yet its pristine grace led Arthur Peacocke, the English theologian and biologist, to aver that the Holy Spirit himself had written it, using Bach’s hand.”

Hum along with Glenn Gould and let faith arise…

Filed under Christianity, Classical, Music Tagged with , , ,

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