Thank you for your kind words and for reading my stuff. God bless you. Amen.
Um, but, uh, well, the stoics said "abstain from beans" meaning don't bother with voting (which used to involve coloured beans and an amphora in the agora of Athens for example). So there is a sort of delightful cognitive dissonance for me in "Stoic Voter." So much irony in the diet!
Yeah, I've got a closet full of Beano.. but seriously, I'm not really a good stoic. Epictetus has a way of calming me down when my head's about to explode though. :-)
That's a truly hilarious image, my friend, of a voter taking Beano and then going inside the voting "booth" and closing the curtain. The true stoic will swallow that pill without water because reasons. lol!
"People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them." ~ that Epictetus fellow.
I also commend to you the meditations of Marcus Aurelius. For an emperor who slaughtered a lot of Christians, he had a certain repose in his thought process. May God have mercy on his soul. Amen.
"Consider Phlebas," wrote TS Eliot, "who was once handsome and tall as you." So much waste land, so little time. -smile-
Wait, where did you go? There was another user of the thorn orthography (thornography?) Þ here on the Stax not that long ago, but I didn't remember the Fafcist handle? Or am I thinking of another platform presence?
I do have an account there, so if you direct message me at twitter.com/planetaryjim you can still hear from me there. The mElon has silenced me from tweeting, replying, or retweeting, but I can "like" posts and DM like a mf. lol In the fullness of time, God willing, I'll have restored access to a certain level of access for that account, or one of the enterprises I've been told to begin will form a new account. Until then, remember the important words of Buckaroo Banzai. "Don't be mean. There's no need to be mean. Because remember, wherever you go, there you are." And here we are. -smile-
It was 1997 when I invited Jesus into my heart. A great many things began to change for me that day. Jesus is the truth, the life, and the way (John 14:6) and I don't believe true understanding is possible without Jesus. With Jesus, all things are possible. (Philippians 4:13)
One of the strange times in my life was that Summer of 2001. I was in Africa, working at the port of Djibouti on a fishing industry project. Then, suddenly, I was sent back to Texas by the people I worked with (including a Dutch diplomat and lawyer named Michael van Notten) at the end of August. So I was comparatively safe on the morning of 11-Sep-2001 when I saw the video "coverage" of the second plane hitting the World Trade Centre. At the time, I distinctly remember thinking that the pilot had manoeuvred in a most unusual way right before impact. The footage shown seemed to be from the perspective of a helicopter hovering nearby. That same footage was shown a few times that same day and the next, and seems to have disappeared down the memory hole in the years since then.
It was really quite quickly after those events in 2001 that the creep of tyranny sped way up. By Autumn 2002 it was not rational, in my experience, for me to fly on the communist/commercial airlines. So I gave it up. To be fair, the idea Ted Kennedy had in 1978 to destroy freedom at all the aeroports was put in place with his "civil aviation industry reform" act, prior to which Americans were free to bring guns with them on their domestic flights. (The overhead luggage bins for the 737 were designed by Boeing engineers that later discussed the matter with me. In their design they considered the two most bulky sorts of carry on luggage: golf bags and fowling gun cases.) A few years later, I gave up on cross-border travel as well.
We cannot any longer go back to the way things were. But when you consider that the people who wanted to destroy freedom and enslave mankind began their ascent to power before the Second World War (as it is called) and murdered JFK in 1963 to complete their rise to authoritarian rule, there really isn't a time to which one would wish to go back and "start over" if we were given the choice. The only way out of this mess is by going through it.
Necessarily, in setting the stage to accomplish what they seek, they have left out of their considerations any expectation of intervention by God. In this eventuality they have erred greatly. Since they worship demons, they are aware of God, but are not willing to suppose God's great wrath descending upon them - or they wouldn't worship demons.
God makes better plans than me. I say that in complete humility. I have been paid quite handsomely for business plans and for project plans. And I know that I know nothing about what to expect and how the future will unfold except for what God has chosen to reveal in Scripture. God has watched many millions of people turn away from God. It is time to awaken the Remnant and to turn to God. God willing, we will come through these difficulties. Amen.
My mom didn't like a particular vision she had as a youth, and turned away from the catholic faith. She would call herself an agnostic, and when anyone asked, would say, "I don't know if there is a God, and I don't think you know either." My dad wasn't raised in a religion, and he was taken in by Hans Reichenbach's "scientific philosophy" and regarded things he didn't know how to measure as "metaphysics." So I also came to Christ from the point of view that I was an agnostic. God has moved powerfully in my life in ways that I, having eyes, acknowledge seeing, and having ears, acknowledge hearing. I testify to my experiences of God. Amen.
I believe, with the apostles, that Jesus rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from where He shall come to judge the living and the dead. This set of events is described by us in our understanding of "chronological order." But I acknowledge that time is itself a construct onto reality that we seek to impose in order to have what we interpret as logic. We don't speak comfortably, and our language is poorly structured, for discussion of time as a dimension rather than a vector (having only one direction of motion). In fact, I believe, and quantum physics strongly supports the hypothesis that, what we call "time" is only one dimension along which events transpire, and which we might call "time-like dimensions." So, when we write "He shall come to judge the living and the dead" there is a tendency to imagine a future event at which all the souls are gathered for judgement. This "judgement day" is depicted in our literature, arts, and culture.
Thus, I believe the world is always under judgement. I believe that souls, as they die, experience a judgement and proceed along what might be regarded as a set of orthogonal dimensions toward Purgatory or Heaven or some other destinations. In this respect, I am reminded of a childhood vision of seeing along an unusual direction the approach of two human figures who, at first, seemed to be very tiny and, as they came toward me, were clearly full size men whose conversation I was able to overhear.
My belief is that there are scriptural misunderstandings involved in the "Left Behind" view of the rapture. I do believe we are all going to be together with the Lord. But we are here now and our work is here. It is a sort of truism that you are here to do work that your soul agreed to do before you came into this life, and that you being here in this life means that your work here is not complete.
So, when I read the first epistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, chapter 4, verses 14 to 18, I believe Paul was given the word of God. Paul says: "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Be thou comforted, amen.
That day is ahead of us, but it is not soon. Nor is it the case that those who sleep are awaiting that day and in any sort of "limbo" during that waiting. We can be assured and comforted that from the perspective of the soul that has passed away, the passage through to the spiritual realm from which our souls come and to which they return is not delayed. We know this fact from numerous spiritual experiences of direct interaction with the saints. I have myself heard the voice of St. Gertrude the Great reading my true name in the Book of Life.
God keeps the promises God has made. In Isaiah chapter 30, God says, "And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers: And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left." For me this prophecy is now true. It is available to all who seek God.
Further in that same chapter, God promises: "And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound." I believe this day "of the great slaughter" is near. But, I do not know the day nor the hour, and we are told that the timing of these sorts of events are not disclosed even to the Son. Only God the Father knows the timing.
God is with us to save us. We are here to do those things for which God intended us when we were not yet in the womb, when each of us was asked to come into a life in this earthly realm. God is just and merciful and each soul who is here came here willingly, in obedience to God, out of love, and with the choice to refuse. Furthermore, I would say that what we perceive as our entire being here in the earthly realm is an incomplete understanding - we are not bodies who have souls, we are souls which animate bodies. When your soul is done in this realm, when your soul moves on, your body ceases to be animated by it, and becomes your mortal remains. There are no souls buried in graveyards, only remains. I believe our souls are always connected to God the Father Almighty - like acorns are connected to an oak tree. We animate our bodies by the extension of our souls through a sort of dimension doorway from the heavenly realm to this earthly realm. Thus, we are always with God.
God made us in His image with free will, with the ability to choose, with the freedom to choose. And in that freedom, some have chosen to turn away from God and to worship demons. I pray that they choose to turn back and repent (which means, at its core, to turn back) their sins. May God have mercy on their souls. Amen.
It is difficult for me to know what to say. I believe that St. Paul was conveying the ideas he received from the Holy Spirit in his account of the return of Jesus Christ. On that day the dead in Christ shall rise first and the living shall be caught up into the sky. I believe, as the apostles believed, in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.
I believe that means that I believe there will be a "rapture" in the sense of your understanding. But, as I say, I don't know the hour and I don't know the day, and that's not knowledge I am going to have until it happens. Jesus says, (Matthew 24:16) "However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows."
If Jesus doesn't know the timing, I can say with complete certainty that the authors of "Left Behind" don't know the timing, either. So their imagination of people lifted bodily out of their clothing, of cars careening off the highways, of empty homes, and all the other stories they impart, is that wisdom? I don't know.
I do know that I am here now and that I agreed to come into this life and to experience this time. I know that as long as I am here, God has purposes for me to fulfil here, and that I agreed to do those things. And so I abide in faith.
As to the words of Isaiah chapter 30, I believe the traditional understanding of the "day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall" is an earthquake that rocks every city of the world as would happen if a super-volcano like Yellowstone were to explode, causing all the man-made towers to fall.. If that understanding is correct, people in those buildings and on the streets near them would likely be killed. But, in the era of nuclear weapons, other possible interpretations come to mind. A global thermonuclear war would also involve a great slaughter and would not leave much standing in the major cities.
We live on a planet in orbit around a variable star. We have only recently begun to keep track of sunspots, although there are ancient texts that report on some of these spots on the surface of our star. We know that there is an eleven year sunspot cycle. We also know that there are cycles in Earth's orbit identified by Milankovitch and Kondratieff that reflect significant changes in our weather. We also have evidence from rocks collected from the Moon that there have been very severe solar flares that melted some rocks on one side. So, the prophecy of God in Isaiah 30 of the sun being seven times brighter, as the sun of seven days, resulting perhaps in "one hour" the burning of the great city mentioned in Revelation 18, that seems consistent with what we know of the nearest star to Earth, our sun. And that same passage seems consistent with the words of Malachi chapter 4.
Dang, Jim, most EXCELLENT post, full of wisdom and spark! Thanks, brother!
Thank you for your kind words and for reading my stuff. God bless you. Amen.
Um, but, uh, well, the stoics said "abstain from beans" meaning don't bother with voting (which used to involve coloured beans and an amphora in the agora of Athens for example). So there is a sort of delightful cognitive dissonance for me in "Stoic Voter." So much irony in the diet!
Yeah, I've got a closet full of Beano.. but seriously, I'm not really a good stoic. Epictetus has a way of calming me down when my head's about to explode though. :-)
That's a truly hilarious image, my friend, of a voter taking Beano and then going inside the voting "booth" and closing the curtain. The true stoic will swallow that pill without water because reasons. lol!
"People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them." ~ that Epictetus fellow.
I also commend to you the meditations of Marcus Aurelius. For an emperor who slaughtered a lot of Christians, he had a certain repose in his thought process. May God have mercy on his soul. Amen.
Yes, Marc was a baller, no doubt. AND a slaughter. :-)
What were your thoughts on Þe Culture Series? Consider Phlebas is Þe first of Þe series.
"Consider Phlebas," wrote TS Eliot, "who was once handsome and tall as you." So much waste land, so little time. -smile-
Wait, where did you go? There was another user of the thorn orthography (thornography?) Þ here on the Stax not that long ago, but I didn't remember the Fafcist handle? Or am I thinking of another platform presence?
You’ve been miſsed over on þæt nasty other platform.
I do have an account there, so if you direct message me at twitter.com/planetaryjim you can still hear from me there. The mElon has silenced me from tweeting, replying, or retweeting, but I can "like" posts and DM like a mf. lol In the fullness of time, God willing, I'll have restored access to a certain level of access for that account, or one of the enterprises I've been told to begin will form a new account. Until then, remember the important words of Buckaroo Banzai. "Don't be mean. There's no need to be mean. Because remember, wherever you go, there you are." And here we are. -smile-
It was 1997 when I invited Jesus into my heart. A great many things began to change for me that day. Jesus is the truth, the life, and the way (John 14:6) and I don't believe true understanding is possible without Jesus. With Jesus, all things are possible. (Philippians 4:13)
One of the strange times in my life was that Summer of 2001. I was in Africa, working at the port of Djibouti on a fishing industry project. Then, suddenly, I was sent back to Texas by the people I worked with (including a Dutch diplomat and lawyer named Michael van Notten) at the end of August. So I was comparatively safe on the morning of 11-Sep-2001 when I saw the video "coverage" of the second plane hitting the World Trade Centre. At the time, I distinctly remember thinking that the pilot had manoeuvred in a most unusual way right before impact. The footage shown seemed to be from the perspective of a helicopter hovering nearby. That same footage was shown a few times that same day and the next, and seems to have disappeared down the memory hole in the years since then.
It was really quite quickly after those events in 2001 that the creep of tyranny sped way up. By Autumn 2002 it was not rational, in my experience, for me to fly on the communist/commercial airlines. So I gave it up. To be fair, the idea Ted Kennedy had in 1978 to destroy freedom at all the aeroports was put in place with his "civil aviation industry reform" act, prior to which Americans were free to bring guns with them on their domestic flights. (The overhead luggage bins for the 737 were designed by Boeing engineers that later discussed the matter with me. In their design they considered the two most bulky sorts of carry on luggage: golf bags and fowling gun cases.) A few years later, I gave up on cross-border travel as well.
We cannot any longer go back to the way things were. But when you consider that the people who wanted to destroy freedom and enslave mankind began their ascent to power before the Second World War (as it is called) and murdered JFK in 1963 to complete their rise to authoritarian rule, there really isn't a time to which one would wish to go back and "start over" if we were given the choice. The only way out of this mess is by going through it.
Necessarily, in setting the stage to accomplish what they seek, they have left out of their considerations any expectation of intervention by God. In this eventuality they have erred greatly. Since they worship demons, they are aware of God, but are not willing to suppose God's great wrath descending upon them - or they wouldn't worship demons.
God makes better plans than me. I say that in complete humility. I have been paid quite handsomely for business plans and for project plans. And I know that I know nothing about what to expect and how the future will unfold except for what God has chosen to reveal in Scripture. God has watched many millions of people turn away from God. It is time to awaken the Remnant and to turn to God. God willing, we will come through these difficulties. Amen.
My mom didn't like a particular vision she had as a youth, and turned away from the catholic faith. She would call herself an agnostic, and when anyone asked, would say, "I don't know if there is a God, and I don't think you know either." My dad wasn't raised in a religion, and he was taken in by Hans Reichenbach's "scientific philosophy" and regarded things he didn't know how to measure as "metaphysics." So I also came to Christ from the point of view that I was an agnostic. God has moved powerfully in my life in ways that I, having eyes, acknowledge seeing, and having ears, acknowledge hearing. I testify to my experiences of God. Amen.
I believe, with the apostles, that Jesus rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from where He shall come to judge the living and the dead. This set of events is described by us in our understanding of "chronological order." But I acknowledge that time is itself a construct onto reality that we seek to impose in order to have what we interpret as logic. We don't speak comfortably, and our language is poorly structured, for discussion of time as a dimension rather than a vector (having only one direction of motion). In fact, I believe, and quantum physics strongly supports the hypothesis that, what we call "time" is only one dimension along which events transpire, and which we might call "time-like dimensions." So, when we write "He shall come to judge the living and the dead" there is a tendency to imagine a future event at which all the souls are gathered for judgement. This "judgement day" is depicted in our literature, arts, and culture.
Thus, I believe the world is always under judgement. I believe that souls, as they die, experience a judgement and proceed along what might be regarded as a set of orthogonal dimensions toward Purgatory or Heaven or some other destinations. In this respect, I am reminded of a childhood vision of seeing along an unusual direction the approach of two human figures who, at first, seemed to be very tiny and, as they came toward me, were clearly full size men whose conversation I was able to overhear.
My belief is that there are scriptural misunderstandings involved in the "Left Behind" view of the rapture. I do believe we are all going to be together with the Lord. But we are here now and our work is here. It is a sort of truism that you are here to do work that your soul agreed to do before you came into this life, and that you being here in this life means that your work here is not complete.
So, when I read the first epistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, chapter 4, verses 14 to 18, I believe Paul was given the word of God. Paul says: "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Be thou comforted, amen.
That day is ahead of us, but it is not soon. Nor is it the case that those who sleep are awaiting that day and in any sort of "limbo" during that waiting. We can be assured and comforted that from the perspective of the soul that has passed away, the passage through to the spiritual realm from which our souls come and to which they return is not delayed. We know this fact from numerous spiritual experiences of direct interaction with the saints. I have myself heard the voice of St. Gertrude the Great reading my true name in the Book of Life.
God keeps the promises God has made. In Isaiah chapter 30, God says, "And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers: And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left." For me this prophecy is now true. It is available to all who seek God.
Further in that same chapter, God promises: "And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound." I believe this day "of the great slaughter" is near. But, I do not know the day nor the hour, and we are told that the timing of these sorts of events are not disclosed even to the Son. Only God the Father knows the timing.
God is with us to save us. We are here to do those things for which God intended us when we were not yet in the womb, when each of us was asked to come into a life in this earthly realm. God is just and merciful and each soul who is here came here willingly, in obedience to God, out of love, and with the choice to refuse. Furthermore, I would say that what we perceive as our entire being here in the earthly realm is an incomplete understanding - we are not bodies who have souls, we are souls which animate bodies. When your soul is done in this realm, when your soul moves on, your body ceases to be animated by it, and becomes your mortal remains. There are no souls buried in graveyards, only remains. I believe our souls are always connected to God the Father Almighty - like acorns are connected to an oak tree. We animate our bodies by the extension of our souls through a sort of dimension doorway from the heavenly realm to this earthly realm. Thus, we are always with God.
God made us in His image with free will, with the ability to choose, with the freedom to choose. And in that freedom, some have chosen to turn away from God and to worship demons. I pray that they choose to turn back and repent (which means, at its core, to turn back) their sins. May God have mercy on their souls. Amen.
God bless you and keep you. Amen.
It is difficult for me to know what to say. I believe that St. Paul was conveying the ideas he received from the Holy Spirit in his account of the return of Jesus Christ. On that day the dead in Christ shall rise first and the living shall be caught up into the sky. I believe, as the apostles believed, in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.
I believe that means that I believe there will be a "rapture" in the sense of your understanding. But, as I say, I don't know the hour and I don't know the day, and that's not knowledge I am going to have until it happens. Jesus says, (Matthew 24:16) "However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows."
If Jesus doesn't know the timing, I can say with complete certainty that the authors of "Left Behind" don't know the timing, either. So their imagination of people lifted bodily out of their clothing, of cars careening off the highways, of empty homes, and all the other stories they impart, is that wisdom? I don't know.
I do know that I am here now and that I agreed to come into this life and to experience this time. I know that as long as I am here, God has purposes for me to fulfil here, and that I agreed to do those things. And so I abide in faith.
As to the words of Isaiah chapter 30, I believe the traditional understanding of the "day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall" is an earthquake that rocks every city of the world as would happen if a super-volcano like Yellowstone were to explode, causing all the man-made towers to fall.. If that understanding is correct, people in those buildings and on the streets near them would likely be killed. But, in the era of nuclear weapons, other possible interpretations come to mind. A global thermonuclear war would also involve a great slaughter and would not leave much standing in the major cities.
We live on a planet in orbit around a variable star. We have only recently begun to keep track of sunspots, although there are ancient texts that report on some of these spots on the surface of our star. We know that there is an eleven year sunspot cycle. We also know that there are cycles in Earth's orbit identified by Milankovitch and Kondratieff that reflect significant changes in our weather. We also have evidence from rocks collected from the Moon that there have been very severe solar flares that melted some rocks on one side. So, the prophecy of God in Isaiah 30 of the sun being seven times brighter, as the sun of seven days, resulting perhaps in "one hour" the burning of the great city mentioned in Revelation 18, that seems consistent with what we know of the nearest star to Earth, our sun. And that same passage seems consistent with the words of Malachi chapter 4.
God bless you and your family. Amen.