David said to Solomon:
"My son, I had intended to build a house to the name of the Lord my God. But the word of the Lord came to me saying,
'You have shed much blood and have waged great wars; you shall not build a house to My name, because you have shed so much blood on the earth before me. Behold, a son will be born to you, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side; for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days.'"
This indicates, I believe, that God's plan for his people is to move us beyond shedding each other's blood, and toward non-violence as the way to honor our Creator. Those of us who can appropriate such truth will extend the work of God's prince of peace beyond the brutal nature of our human history.
In the wake of yet another tragedy of national scope, my prayer in Jesus' name is that we will, some day, overcome by his grace our vengeful wickedness.
Glass half-Full
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
We do have choices to make.
As inhabitants of earth, we have learned over time that there is a polarity that governs our home planet. The north pole is at one end and the south pole at the other, with every earthly thing revolving between them. Turn, turn, turn. We are not typically aware of the planet's polarity and its spinning, but we do notice certain effects: the pointing of a compass, the weather, the seasons. We discern, and learn about, the somewhat predictable turning of earthly events. Days turn into nights, nights into days. Clouds turn into sunshine, sunshine into rain. Summer turns into winter, winter into summer. Turn, turn, turn. Light and dark, hot and cold, dry and wet. Turn, turn, turn.
Just as we notice with regularity the visible world's polarity and its resultant events, we discern also a polarity within the unseen world of our thoughts, our minds, our souls. Good and bad, right and wrong, well-intentioned or ill-advised--but this polarity is not as easily identified as the physical one. And we humans have much more trouble in agreeing upon how to evaluate such as that.
Every now and then, however, something happens that attests to the undeniable presence of evil in our good world. Take, for instance a look at the shooting that happened yesterday in Tuscon. No doubt about it: what the guy did was wrong.
He made a bad choice, and the consequences of it are bad. Several innocent people are dead. What do you call that? I call it evil. The shooter was not listening to his better angels. No, he was following the counsel of his badder angels.
You don't think there are angels? Think again. There is an unseen world out there, within us and without us, because we cannot, you know, even in our great wisdom, see everything. When the invisible universe intersects with the physical world, stuff happens. Shit happens. But it doesn't just happen, people make it happen.
So there is this big right and wrong thing going on in the universe, and on our planet. And its true that we see every shade of combination between those two in this world--shades of gray and all that ambiguity problem. But even though the choices that we make are not simple because of the ambivalence, we are all of us moving in one direction or the other. Each of us is moving steadily, whether we understand it or not, toward the good pole or the bad pole.
And when it dawns on each of us that we are in an unseen moral weather pattern that blows us one way or the other--toward the good or toward the evil, we can begin to make daily choices that will change our direction.
If that young fella in Arizona had made better choices along his life-path, he would not have done the destructive deed that he did yesterday.
What about you? Which way are you headed?
This polarity in our world is a defining characteristic of our universe: positive and negative, 0 and 1, etc...that makes everything happen. The One who coded it into existence made a choice to create a physical universe that utilizes polarity as it working principle.
But here's the deal. Included within that divine choice is a certain amount of choice that is delegated--yes, given-- to the objects of that godly attention (us)... Or, we could say, the objects of God's affection (you and me.)
Because God loves us, God has given us the power of choice. We are not computers, but children of God, if we want to be. So we can choose to move toward the Creator, or away. Which way are you headed?
Here's a warning though: one result of the bad choices that so many make is that some who choose the good get mistreated and abused, maybe even crucified. One in particular did get crucified, but he raised from being dead just to prove the point that here is a way of light through this present darkness.
Glass half-Full
Just as we notice with regularity the visible world's polarity and its resultant events, we discern also a polarity within the unseen world of our thoughts, our minds, our souls. Good and bad, right and wrong, well-intentioned or ill-advised--but this polarity is not as easily identified as the physical one. And we humans have much more trouble in agreeing upon how to evaluate such as that.
Every now and then, however, something happens that attests to the undeniable presence of evil in our good world. Take, for instance a look at the shooting that happened yesterday in Tuscon. No doubt about it: what the guy did was wrong.
He made a bad choice, and the consequences of it are bad. Several innocent people are dead. What do you call that? I call it evil. The shooter was not listening to his better angels. No, he was following the counsel of his badder angels.
You don't think there are angels? Think again. There is an unseen world out there, within us and without us, because we cannot, you know, even in our great wisdom, see everything. When the invisible universe intersects with the physical world, stuff happens. Shit happens. But it doesn't just happen, people make it happen.
So there is this big right and wrong thing going on in the universe, and on our planet. And its true that we see every shade of combination between those two in this world--shades of gray and all that ambiguity problem. But even though the choices that we make are not simple because of the ambivalence, we are all of us moving in one direction or the other. Each of us is moving steadily, whether we understand it or not, toward the good pole or the bad pole.
And when it dawns on each of us that we are in an unseen moral weather pattern that blows us one way or the other--toward the good or toward the evil, we can begin to make daily choices that will change our direction.
If that young fella in Arizona had made better choices along his life-path, he would not have done the destructive deed that he did yesterday.
What about you? Which way are you headed?
This polarity in our world is a defining characteristic of our universe: positive and negative, 0 and 1, etc...that makes everything happen. The One who coded it into existence made a choice to create a physical universe that utilizes polarity as it working principle.
But here's the deal. Included within that divine choice is a certain amount of choice that is delegated--yes, given-- to the objects of that godly attention (us)... Or, we could say, the objects of God's affection (you and me.)
Because God loves us, God has given us the power of choice. We are not computers, but children of God, if we want to be. So we can choose to move toward the Creator, or away. Which way are you headed?
Here's a warning though: one result of the bad choices that so many make is that some who choose the good get mistreated and abused, maybe even crucified. One in particular did get crucified, but he raised from being dead just to prove the point that here is a way of light through this present darkness.
Glass half-Full
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Salt of the earth and hoi polloi gas
In the world of basic Earth elements, 8 is a kind of ideal number. Atoms (we could generally say) strive to achieve 8 electrons in their outer (reactive) shells, and when they do attain that status, they become relatively stable.
Those elements that manifest this condition of stability, aka inertness, are a certain class of gases that have been named the "noble" gases, because they exist in their self-sufficiency; they disdain associations with the readily-reactive "salt of the earth" types.
Similarly, in the world of societies, as in the world of elements, we see that the nobility and the salt of the earth tend to seek their own, instead of mingling with each other. In both systems the natural world exhibits a diverse range of interactive predispositions, between these two polar ends.
Any particular atom of any element has a degree of reactivity which is determined by the number of electrons in its outer (valence) shell. Scientists have arranged a data table which indicates any particular element's affinity for reacting with other atoms. On that data table, which is called the Periodic Table, earth's elements are arranged from left to right according to the number of electrons in their outer shells , 1 through 8.
Having only one electron in its outer shell, sodium (represented as Na on the Periodic Table of Elements) takes its assigned place on the left side of the Table. Accordingly, a sodium atom is found to be unstable, and therefore prone to react with some other element in order to establish the ideal 8-electron stability.
Well, along comes a Chlorine (Cl) atom, which, being from the other end of the lineup, has seven electrons in its outer shell--not the sought-after 8 status, mind you, but closer to it. They're both a little wobbly so they share resources, which in this case is outer electrons; groping for stability, they get hitched together. Lo and behold, they become in the process something totally different from what they were as separate entities--salt, chemically named NaCl. In sacrificing individual identities (a la Confucius or Plato) the two elements become a new compound, and thus yield a common mineral which is a universally useful resource: the salt of the earth.
Salt, which helps your food taste better.
Men and women have used the stuff since the dawn of civilization to flavor food, and also for another valuable use--preserving food so you can store it for a longer time before eating it.
Meanwhile, back on the other end of nature's arrangement of elements, floats the "noble" (gas) class--the hoi poloi whom some enviously call the richest 1% or whatever; they exist independently in a rarified condition of invested self-assurance and ease, while the salt of the earth legions mingle amicably among themselves and s0 dutifully among the other strata along the highways and byways.
We see that the elemental world is somewhat like the social world.
The world of Adam reflects somewhat the world of atoms. But take heart, we are on the Eve of some wonderfully interactive phenomena.
Glass Chimera
Those elements that manifest this condition of stability, aka inertness, are a certain class of gases that have been named the "noble" gases, because they exist in their self-sufficiency; they disdain associations with the readily-reactive "salt of the earth" types.
Similarly, in the world of societies, as in the world of elements, we see that the nobility and the salt of the earth tend to seek their own, instead of mingling with each other. In both systems the natural world exhibits a diverse range of interactive predispositions, between these two polar ends.
Any particular atom of any element has a degree of reactivity which is determined by the number of electrons in its outer (valence) shell. Scientists have arranged a data table which indicates any particular element's affinity for reacting with other atoms. On that data table, which is called the Periodic Table, earth's elements are arranged from left to right according to the number of electrons in their outer shells , 1 through 8.
Having only one electron in its outer shell, sodium (represented as Na on the Periodic Table of Elements) takes its assigned place on the left side of the Table. Accordingly, a sodium atom is found to be unstable, and therefore prone to react with some other element in order to establish the ideal 8-electron stability.
Well, along comes a Chlorine (Cl) atom, which, being from the other end of the lineup, has seven electrons in its outer shell--not the sought-after 8 status, mind you, but closer to it. They're both a little wobbly so they share resources, which in this case is outer electrons; groping for stability, they get hitched together. Lo and behold, they become in the process something totally different from what they were as separate entities--salt, chemically named NaCl. In sacrificing individual identities (a la Confucius or Plato) the two elements become a new compound, and thus yield a common mineral which is a universally useful resource: the salt of the earth.
Salt, which helps your food taste better.
Men and women have used the stuff since the dawn of civilization to flavor food, and also for another valuable use--preserving food so you can store it for a longer time before eating it.
Meanwhile, back on the other end of nature's arrangement of elements, floats the "noble" (gas) class--the hoi poloi whom some enviously call the richest 1% or whatever; they exist independently in a rarified condition of invested self-assurance and ease, while the salt of the earth legions mingle amicably among themselves and s0 dutifully among the other strata along the highways and byways.
We see that the elemental world is somewhat like the social world.
The world of Adam reflects somewhat the world of atoms. But take heart, we are on the Eve of some wonderfully interactive phenomena.
Glass Chimera
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Professuh Alan dun struck out de niggers
Alan Gribben he dun wrote a nutter version uh ole Huck Finn where he struck the niggers and put slaves whar dey used to be. Fer 'zample, dis meet'n tween Huck and Jim when dey meet by accident on a island in de Rivuh cuz dey bofs be hightailin' it. Jim be tellin' Huck 'bout how he got away:
" 'Well, you see, it 'uz dis way. Ole Missus--dat's Miss Watson--she pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she wouldn' sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed day wuz a nigger (heah's whea Massuh Alan dun stuck in de slave 'stead uv de nigger, and he dun it, dey tells me, two hund'd times in Massuh Twain's book) trader roun' de place considable, lately, en I begin to git oneasy. Well, one night I creeps to de do' pooty late, en de do 'warn't quite shet, en I hear ole missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but she didn' want to, but she could git eight hund'd dollars for me, en it 'uz sich a big stack o' money she couldn'resis'. De widder she try to git her to say she wouldn' do it, but I never waited to hear de res'. I lit out mighty quick, I tell you...' "
So you may wan' git a copy o' dis new version, sanitized like, and p'liticly correct an' awl, an' reads it fo yo'self.
Den, you might could pick up from Amazon a nutter new novel 'bout life up and down de Missip-- little bit updated but not too much. Like, where Robby, microbiologist grad student, he be drivin', in chapter 2, 'long de Rivuh road, near de place in Luzianna where Huck and Jim ended up. Fer 'zample:
This bend on the river road always kindled Robby's imagination. The lonely antebellum columns, man-formed as they were and so stakly incongruent in the overgrowing wildness, remained as silent, stubborn monoliths, superfluous sentries guarding the lost opulence of a plantation culture that had turned to ashes generations ago. Honeysuckle, ivy and scrubby saplings now ruled the spot from whence Colonel Theseus had commanded his legion of slaves and later sharecroppers. Surrounding the old mansion's skeletal array were hundreds of acres: dark, delta loam fermenting microbial memory of black feet whose calloused heels and toes traversed row upon thousandth row of King Cotton's scurrilous servitude.
We sho'nuff be glad dem dark days is over!
Glass Chimera
" 'Well, you see, it 'uz dis way. Ole Missus--dat's Miss Watson--she pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she wouldn' sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed day wuz a nigger (heah's whea Massuh Alan dun stuck in de slave 'stead uv de nigger, and he dun it, dey tells me, two hund'd times in Massuh Twain's book) trader roun' de place considable, lately, en I begin to git oneasy. Well, one night I creeps to de do' pooty late, en de do 'warn't quite shet, en I hear ole missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but she didn' want to, but she could git eight hund'd dollars for me, en it 'uz sich a big stack o' money she couldn'resis'. De widder she try to git her to say she wouldn' do it, but I never waited to hear de res'. I lit out mighty quick, I tell you...' "
So you may wan' git a copy o' dis new version, sanitized like, and p'liticly correct an' awl, an' reads it fo yo'self.
Den, you might could pick up from Amazon a nutter new novel 'bout life up and down de Missip-- little bit updated but not too much. Like, where Robby, microbiologist grad student, he be drivin', in chapter 2, 'long de Rivuh road, near de place in Luzianna where Huck and Jim ended up. Fer 'zample:
This bend on the river road always kindled Robby's imagination. The lonely antebellum columns, man-formed as they were and so stakly incongruent in the overgrowing wildness, remained as silent, stubborn monoliths, superfluous sentries guarding the lost opulence of a plantation culture that had turned to ashes generations ago. Honeysuckle, ivy and scrubby saplings now ruled the spot from whence Colonel Theseus had commanded his legion of slaves and later sharecroppers. Surrounding the old mansion's skeletal array were hundreds of acres: dark, delta loam fermenting microbial memory of black feet whose calloused heels and toes traversed row upon thousandth row of King Cotton's scurrilous servitude.
We sho'nuff be glad dem dark days is over!
Glass Chimera
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
We're up ship creek
In the unlikely development that Republicans' diversion of public money from the public sector to the corporate sector actually turns our zombie economy around, who will get the credit? Our Democratic President, or our Republican lawmakers? If their fiscal buckarooing falls flat and appears to be a fizzle two years from now, who will get the blame-- the braying asses or the blubbering elephants?
The House Republicans have now gotten themselves into a highly visible position of public responsibility. If their corporate coffering blows up in their faces, and we still have a sputtering wannabe recovery instead of a new morning in America when its time to vote again, they will have a difficult task in pointing the finger at the man whose re-election they so direly oppose.
In the great money-grubbin' tug of war between unionists and corporatists--in that fierce tussle between our two growling, grunting special-interest-spewing bully teams as they contend for guv'ment greenbacks to mainline one side's funds instead of t'other's--whadaya say we call it a draw, and split the honkin' budget down the middle!
Let the dems build public rights-of-way and rails, while the repubs invest in sleek state-of-the-art market-powered maglevs and modern locos to glide and roll on innovated thorofares of improved travel. Put the two together and we'll have a transportation system worthy of 21st century excellence--an impressive phase three of our earlier stage-one iron-horse stagecoach intercontinental railways and our 50s-era phase-two Eisenhower-inspired gasoline-fed, overcrowded inefficient interstate highway system.
And if our armed forces don't fall into disgrace under the voyeured influence of journalists digging up stories of wild sex on aircraft carriers instead of documenting the once-noble defense of a freedom-loving nation, we'll be able to get around this wide continent without payin' an arm and a leg for it.
Glass half-Full
The House Republicans have now gotten themselves into a highly visible position of public responsibility. If their corporate coffering blows up in their faces, and we still have a sputtering wannabe recovery instead of a new morning in America when its time to vote again, they will have a difficult task in pointing the finger at the man whose re-election they so direly oppose.
In the great money-grubbin' tug of war between unionists and corporatists--in that fierce tussle between our two growling, grunting special-interest-spewing bully teams as they contend for guv'ment greenbacks to mainline one side's funds instead of t'other's--whadaya say we call it a draw, and split the honkin' budget down the middle!
Let the dems build public rights-of-way and rails, while the repubs invest in sleek state-of-the-art market-powered maglevs and modern locos to glide and roll on innovated thorofares of improved travel. Put the two together and we'll have a transportation system worthy of 21st century excellence--an impressive phase three of our earlier stage-one iron-horse stagecoach intercontinental railways and our 50s-era phase-two Eisenhower-inspired gasoline-fed, overcrowded inefficient interstate highway system.
And if our armed forces don't fall into disgrace under the voyeured influence of journalists digging up stories of wild sex on aircraft carriers instead of documenting the once-noble defense of a freedom-loving nation, we'll be able to get around this wide continent without payin' an arm and a leg for it.
Glass half-Full
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Searching for the God particle
After listening to Ira Flatow's discussion with Amir Aczel about the Large Hadron Collider project in France, I was contemplating the theoretical existence of the "God particle,"also known as the Higgs Boson particle, which "gives everything its mass."
The Higgs field is a mystery. When shaken like a blanket, matter happens! Our conceptualization of this transformation has major implications for us figuring out what happened during those first micro-seconds after the Big Bang.
I googled into a fairly accessible explanation of this physics problem: http://www.phy.uct.ac.za/courses/phy400w/particle/higgs1.htm
After grokking the immensity of this universe, and then fathoming the intense immensity of its incredible smallness, I was, as we simplistic Christians are prone to do, seeking even further simplification, and I found it in Genesis 1:4:
"And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness."
Furthermore, acting as Christ, we understand that God is "before all things, and in Him all things hold together."
That's oversimplified for sure, but it works for me. I do enjoy, however, being enlightened with the occasional CERN update from Ira, Amir, Higgs, and the other physics guys in their atom-smashing trailblazing quests.
Thanks, guys. Keep up the good work, but let us know if that dark matter ever gets a little too unruly and hence upsets our super symmetry.
Glass half-Full
The Higgs field is a mystery. When shaken like a blanket, matter happens! Our conceptualization of this transformation has major implications for us figuring out what happened during those first micro-seconds after the Big Bang.
I googled into a fairly accessible explanation of this physics problem: http://www.phy.uct.ac.za/courses/phy400w/particle/higgs1.htm
After grokking the immensity of this universe, and then fathoming the intense immensity of its incredible smallness, I was, as we simplistic Christians are prone to do, seeking even further simplification, and I found it in Genesis 1:4:
"And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness."
Furthermore, acting as Christ, we understand that God is "before all things, and in Him all things hold together."
That's oversimplified for sure, but it works for me. I do enjoy, however, being enlightened with the occasional CERN update from Ira, Amir, Higgs, and the other physics guys in their atom-smashing trailblazing quests.
Thanks, guys. Keep up the good work, but let us know if that dark matter ever gets a little too unruly and hence upsets our super symmetry.
Glass half-Full
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Surviving captive or dead rebel?
Surviving captive, or dead rebel: which would you rather be?
About 2600 years ago the ancient kingdom of Judah ended when Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took Jerusalem.
Jehoichin, the Judaic prince-child, had watched his father, Jehoikim, play politics and military featherweight between the two opposing empires of Egypt and Babylon. But daddy Jehoikim's maneuverings proved ultimately to be a losing game, as he ended up dead at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar after trying to do Pharoah Neco's bidding.
So the teenaged kid, Jehoichin, was much more compliant with the strong man from Babylon than his daddy had been. When Nebuchadnezzar blustered into Jerusalem with plundering brutality, the young king of Judah consented to exile in Babylon. He lived many years thereafter in Nebuchadnezzar's prison, but at the end of his life was released as an obsequious courtier under Nebuchadnezzar's successor, Evil-Merodach.
When the conqueror Nebuchadnezzar had carted young Jehoichin off to Babylon, he appointed a royal uncle, Mattaniah, as new regent in Jerusalem, and renamed him Zedekiah. But after eleven years of vassalage--what we call today sucking-up-- Zedekiah got cocky and rebelled against his Babylonian master. This resistance did not end well for the people of Judah. Zedekiah was forcibly removed in chains to Babylon, tortured, and publicly humiliated before dying. Nebuchadnezzar beseiged Jerusalem and wasted the city with fire and destruction.
The place was in ruins for seventy years until Cyrus the Persian allowed Jewish ancestors to return and rebuild the place.
So I was wondering this morning, as I read about this: With which of these last two Judean kings do you have more agreement? Jehoichin, who surrendered to the heathen tyrant and adapted to defeat, then survived to become a tamed--what we might call wimpish (wise?)-- ex-king.
Or Zedekiah, whose defiance ended in what we might call a martyr's (or insurrectionist's) painful execution?
I'll just go ahead and say to you now that I can see myself only as taking Jehoichin's path.
A leader adopting this careful strategy could end up like Puyi, the last emperor of China. He survived to become a benevolent historian under his Maoist taskmasters after being imprisoned and "rehabilitated" (brainwashed?). But the survival tact could also yield a fate like that of Nelson Mandela, whose wily perserverance through prison produced ultimate victory for him and his people.
Yet there is a part of me that wants to appropriate the courage of Patrick Henry, who said "Give me liberty or give me death!"
Consider Aung San Suu Kyi, of Myanmar... Liu Xiaobo of China.
Hamid Karzai?
My guess, from this perspective of American comfort, is that in real life the difference between compliance and resistance is not easily discerned, and must be somehow ever-changing in response to events.
How about you? Would you take one strategy or the other?
Glass Chimera
About 2600 years ago the ancient kingdom of Judah ended when Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took Jerusalem.
Jehoichin, the Judaic prince-child, had watched his father, Jehoikim, play politics and military featherweight between the two opposing empires of Egypt and Babylon. But daddy Jehoikim's maneuverings proved ultimately to be a losing game, as he ended up dead at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar after trying to do Pharoah Neco's bidding.
So the teenaged kid, Jehoichin, was much more compliant with the strong man from Babylon than his daddy had been. When Nebuchadnezzar blustered into Jerusalem with plundering brutality, the young king of Judah consented to exile in Babylon. He lived many years thereafter in Nebuchadnezzar's prison, but at the end of his life was released as an obsequious courtier under Nebuchadnezzar's successor, Evil-Merodach.
When the conqueror Nebuchadnezzar had carted young Jehoichin off to Babylon, he appointed a royal uncle, Mattaniah, as new regent in Jerusalem, and renamed him Zedekiah. But after eleven years of vassalage--what we call today sucking-up-- Zedekiah got cocky and rebelled against his Babylonian master. This resistance did not end well for the people of Judah. Zedekiah was forcibly removed in chains to Babylon, tortured, and publicly humiliated before dying. Nebuchadnezzar beseiged Jerusalem and wasted the city with fire and destruction.
The place was in ruins for seventy years until Cyrus the Persian allowed Jewish ancestors to return and rebuild the place.
So I was wondering this morning, as I read about this: With which of these last two Judean kings do you have more agreement? Jehoichin, who surrendered to the heathen tyrant and adapted to defeat, then survived to become a tamed--what we might call wimpish (wise?)-- ex-king.
Or Zedekiah, whose defiance ended in what we might call a martyr's (or insurrectionist's) painful execution?
I'll just go ahead and say to you now that I can see myself only as taking Jehoichin's path.
A leader adopting this careful strategy could end up like Puyi, the last emperor of China. He survived to become a benevolent historian under his Maoist taskmasters after being imprisoned and "rehabilitated" (brainwashed?). But the survival tact could also yield a fate like that of Nelson Mandela, whose wily perserverance through prison produced ultimate victory for him and his people.
Yet there is a part of me that wants to appropriate the courage of Patrick Henry, who said "Give me liberty or give me death!"
Consider Aung San Suu Kyi, of Myanmar... Liu Xiaobo of China.
Hamid Karzai?
My guess, from this perspective of American comfort, is that in real life the difference between compliance and resistance is not easily discerned, and must be somehow ever-changing in response to events.
How about you? Would you take one strategy or the other?
Glass Chimera
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