Elmer Gantry Jr. Visited My Church Today

Today I walked out of church in disgust mid-sermon: my church had Elmer Gantry the Younger false teaching in front of my church family. We had Elmer Gantry the Elder as an assistant pastor a few years ago before we fired his ass. Somebody should have done as much research on he-whose-name-is-unworthy-of-mention-here and his heretical cult-like sect as I undertook tonight, before allowing him into our inner sanctum this morning. 

I "tried the spirits whether they be of God." I am skeptical of this fool's unsubstantiated claims about himself in regards to his alleged magical "healing powers." I was disgusted by his shameless self-promotion. I contemn his self-aggrandizing exaggerations about his education (he suggested he once could have demolished a particular critic in a theological throw-down but chose to take the high road when in fact his credentials are lightweight). I was appalled by his presumptuous, smarty, smarmy, glib, flippant, cocky demeanor and attitude. I experienced a violent lack of peace hearing his words and looking at his impudent face and body language. His own unsound doctrine was blatant to which Grandpa McGee back in the day would have skull-fucked him in a theological debate while I myself nowadays in such a situation would merely rip him a new asshole. Last but not least, the heretical tradition (a fringe pentecostal/charismatic healing cult) in which he has devoted himself should have excluded him from preaching in our church. 

Our church needs to do a better job of vetting who comes and talks to us. Or perhaps, I am in the wrong church.

Picture of the Day - God Is.....

Today into tonight I worked an 8-hour shift at a wedding at Avila Beach Golf Resort. The wedding party set this home-made lighted sign out on the lawn with the ocean as a backdrop. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Genesis Days as Thorns in the Flesh

Being an Old World Creationist I find this meme hilarious... and can't agree more with the argument it makes.

Oh That's Much Better...

From the pages of the Lexington Dispatch.... a village idiot in Kentucky comes out of the closet.
Image courtesy of the Washington Post (all rights reserved).

A Kim-aissance Dawning?

This morning I awoke stressed and overwhelmed by this mental-emotional bugaboo of a History 303 research paper due online tomorrow by no later than 5 p.m. PST. Add to that my ongoing spiritual battles and Kim-battles with myself and I found myself not a happy camper. I considered not going to church and just getting to work on the paper. Instead, I exercised my personal agency and Free Will and elected to go. I did this despite my overwhelming feeling of having too much to do in too little time and an instinct to just get to work.

Sitting in church I experienced a strange epiphany-like encounter with God. I don't vividly recall all details of it but I can assure it was NOT merely some charismatic/Pentecostal emotive eruption. I was minding Pastor Steve's excellent sermon but was drifting in and out of deep meditation. At one point there was the following projected onto the big Power Point screen above and behind the pastor: I Peter 5:7. As many of you know that goes "Give all your worries to Him for He cares for you." I recalled and realized on a much deeper level than before that God is sovereign and in control. I let go of my academic worries. I also realized that some things I have been struggling with personally I need to just let go of and give to Him... which I chose at that moment to do and have since done.

It seems that seemingly minor act of faith and obedience (attending church) opened up a portal to somewhere and through it an abundance of grace poured through. I feel refreshed, transformed, reborn, and ready to move forward. I had feared of late that I was stuck in my life. Usually in such situations if you have to ask yourself the question then the answer is already YES. Now, NO, I am no longer stuck. I feel like I'm on the verge of a personal breakthrough on multiple fronts headed into Finals Week at Cal Poly and Christmas vacation to follow. God is good!

Zealousness For Zeal

I have struggled for years since I reemerged amongst the human race from my long, early retirement from reality to get back to a faithful daily one-on-one with God personal devotional time. I used to do this faithfully all the whilst I chronically shunned corporate worship in a church context contrary to sound doctrine and the direct command from God to "forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is" command found in Hebrews 10:25.

I have now flipped that and chronically show up in church and at weekly bible studies but the vast majority of the time hit each day without sitting down with God and praying and reading God's Word for even five minutes to start my day (or end it). I struggle with the desire to do it as I start my day thinking about all the stuff I want to do and proceed to jump right into it (or am tired at the end of the day and ready to crash by the time I'm done on my damned computer. I have gone from one narrow extreme to the opposite self-limiting extreme.

My pastor once described it this way: there is horizontal worship we do with the brethren, otherwise known as corporate worship, and there is vertical worship one-on-one with God in a devotional context. Taking that further there is even Old Testament prophet-style worship by way of going out to some isolated place to encounter God. That is even something I used to do (or thought I did) when I was shunning corporate worship. My pastor also once sagely pointed out that if we love God's children we will want to be around them and be with them in corporate worship. If we don't do that then we don't love God's children and we don't love God regardless of what we think or say: end of story!

This morning I was listening to God to start my day (for a change) and right before taking the rare step of setting aside time for God in devotions I experienced a personal epiphany. Time and again the Psalmist asks God to give him zeal to seek God as if it wasn't always an automatic thing to desire it. I had not really noticed this before and it explained my own private dilemma. Not only do I need to do my daily devotionals but I need to first want to do them. I need to ask God to give me that desire in the first place as it is not always integral to our personality to wish that given all the distractions and diversions in our lives.

Now I understand why the Psalmist makes that request and I need to make that request as well. My growth has been retarded and stunted by this shortcoming in my life and it has made me vulnerable to attack from you-know-who. By the way, Psalm 119 features great examples of what I am talking about in regards to the Psalmist... which was the passage I read this morning and will read before I go to bed (half earlier and half tonight).

Quote of the Day - C.S. Lewis

Tonight at my church "home group" (a bible study DELUXE) which has become my spiritual family, we continued reading C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. In particular, I read and we analyzed with my facilitation Book 2, Chapter 8 entitled "The Greatest Sin". It was the best chapter yet in the book and filled with highly repeatable quotes. Tonight I share with you this rather profound one:

"How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a penny's worth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound's worth of Pride towards their fellow-men." ~ C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

Random Musings of a Ramblin' Fool XLIX

Here I am again after an all-too-long interval since I last checked in with you about my life and general observations. The previous interval was about 7-1/2 months which is way too long and the interval this time since the previous Random Musings posting is a few days short of 8 months. A great deal has transpired in that time and I will attempt to cover a decent amount of it here. I realize I keep promising to post this column more frequently so I won't even bother to make that promise and instead just do it. Oh snap, that means I just made the promise again, no?

Anywho, this blog has now reached nearly 386,000 distinct visits to 1,330 postings. Some of the postings on this blog have became internet favorites as people hit them frequently each and every day in some cases (like the ones about my late grandfather) and others relating to book reviews (get hit during academic quarters and semesters as students refer to my blog presumably for ideas and inspiration.

I gave Google Ads a try but not a single referral was generated here so they dropped me automatically after a few months. I do not regret making the attempt. Therefore it appears this blog shall remain un-monetized for the foreseeable future.

For a great many weeks so far this year I have fallen out of the habit of blogging every day and in one instance in the merry month of March a whole 18 days transpired between postings which saw the monthly total of distinct visits here drop under 9,000 for the first time since May 2011. This month which ends tonight will have my blog down to under 8,000 visits for the month as a result of my lack of posting new content.

Cuesta Career Past

Last time we talked about my doings at Cuesta College it was the Fall 2013 semester and I was whining about how hard MATH232 (college algebra ergo terminal level pre-calculus) was and how I nearly dropped the class but elected to gut it out. Well, I did that and eked out a C in the class to go with A's in History 204A (Western Civilization Semester A) and Biology 220 (Environmental Biology).

Cuesta College Career Concluded

Last month I completed my final semester (Spring 2014) at Cuesta College. I took and successfully completed 12 units with six of those being in two 3-unit classes at the North County Campus in Paso Robles, CA, (History 204B (Western Civilization Semester B) and English 231 (Creative Writing)).

I also bit the bullet and took two 3-unit classes at the main campus in San Luis Obispo (Political Science 206 (Comparative Government) and Sociology 201 (Intro to Sociology)), something I had successfully avoided heretofore since coming back to school in the Fall 2010 Semester.

I had worried about gas consumption and wear and tear on my care and even time lost in-commute as I headed into the semester which things had also discouraged me from taking Main Campus courses previously since 2010. As it turns out I worried for nothing as most of the semester I commuted down and took the public bus home. Before the carpool developed with a returning student two of my classes (he is even older than I am) I had been taking the bus down to class as well. For the first few weeks I did drive my own car until car trouble forced me to look to alternatives and once the car was fixed I never took it down and back again until the very last day of finals last week when I needed to drive directly to work at Santa Margarita Ranch immediately after my last final at Cuesta College.

As for grades... drum-roll... I achieved straight A's in those four classes, a first for me on a single report card in my college career (not the straight A's part but rather having four A's as opposed to three A's or two A's). Next up, I await word as to if I was awarded the two degrees to which I previously applied and have qualified for per every counselor I talked to heretofore.  Last year I qualified to earn an Associate of Arts degree in Social & Behavior Sciences but made a rookie mistake filling out the form for it despite walking at graduation. This year I earned the units necessary to qualify for an A.A. in History and hope in the coming weeks I am mailed my two diplomas.

Along the way I completed units I had told Cal Poly I was taking this semester when I applied there last November 30th in order to be accepted there for the Fall 2014 Quarter. That brings me to the next topic: my plot to get into Cal Poly. 

I Am Officially A Mustang!

Last year for the second year in a row I applied to California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo and to my surprise both times was accepted. I feared my declining their offer last year would hurt me if I attempted it again which was unfounded, quite fortunately. As it turns out, I found out that my original conditional acceptance to Cal Poly was contingent upon my having a 200-level math class which I did not and at the time I thought I had slipped through the cracks. Subsequently, I learned that had I not declined my original conditional acceptance they would have withdrawn it anyway over that mathmatical detail so it did not matter in the end that I declined initial acceptance.

I applied again and was accepted again but this time I had not only completed MATH 232 but enough additional units to make my application even more weighty and got more units out of the way cheaper at Cuesta College. In fact, I played chicken with the system and stayed at Cuesta College getting so many units out of the way that I came close to the boundary of not being accepted to Cal Poly for having too many units under my belt since they want me to take a certain minimum number of units with them en route to a degree with them. In any case I am currently headed for Cal Poly this September and will receive a generous financial aid package of both grants and low interest (3.86%) and non-interest loans.

My hope is that I may be able to live off of all that and what I make at Vino Vice and working general labor for my clients all the while continuing to live in Paso Robles. If any or all of that does not work out in conjunction with attending Cal Poly then I shall make necessary adjustments such as moving to San Luis Obispo and/or finding more work.

In the past month I have sent Cal Poly my final Cuesta College transcript showing those four A's and just today I RSVP'd and paid for SOAR (Summer Orientation And Registration) in August in which I shall be debriefed on all the minutia I shall need to know heading into the Fall quarter of this year. At that time I shall also enroll in classes based upon the counsel of my department faculty.

On The Vino Vice Front

I began working security for this company 13 months ago starting at the bottom and working much of last year sans a guard card which often relegated me to parking duties but not always so. As I last reported in this column, I acquired my guard card late last year. Since that previous report I have worked my way up in the company in both seniority (turnover seems high given how many guards are looking for full-time work elsewhere and this is a strictly event-specific company meaning part-time work) as well as respect from my boss and co-workers. There is consistent talk of my becoming a supervisor at some point in the not-too-distant future. I choose not to think about that too much in case it does not happen and because it is of no relevance unless and until it happens. In any case, given how the path of my journey in life has meandered it is a pleasant feeling starting at the bottom of something and working my up by virtue of grit and determination and devotion.

A Wealthy Observation

As we all are well aware there are some rather potent stereotypes of the rich as being prone to conspicuous consumption and acting overbearing and elitist with those beneath them in the socio-economic food chain. There are those sorts of people out there amongst the rich who act like that. However, I have found while working security for Vino Vice, Inc. at what now feels like a myriad of events featuring elite Americans at play at weddings and winery events not one iota of that to be quite honest. Most of these people have been rather quite decent and not merely because they are getting their way but even when things have not been going their way in various sorts of minor crisis like being stuck in the mud and such. I have always been treated with decency and respect and in times of near hyperthermia and dehydration or hypothermia and being soaked like a dog I have received unsolicited care and concern from such people in regards to my well-being and likewise when I have appeared to be left all alone out in the dark while they are at play. Some might suggest that is a quirk of the local rich here on the Central Coast but so many of these people I have encountered have been visiting from outside the area. This trend seems to be endemic of the local vineyard and winery people as reinforced yet again at work this past weekend but also part of a larger trend that flies in the face of old stereotypes and class warfare rhetoric.

For The Record Family

Last Saturday evening I worked a wine pickup party at Record Family Wine's Paso de Record Vineyard out east of San Miguel with my buddy Mike. From start to finish and in between the Record Family treated us with decency and kindness and respect both with words and in their actions culminating in feeding us and sending us home with bottles of of their red table wine, "Randy's Red". Mike and I agreed that was the best feeling of any gig we have worked since starting this job and that is high praise because we have often left a job with a great feeling from the place and its people. I'm hoarding that bottle for now but will share here what I think of it when I do get around to trying it.

Mere Christianity

Currently in my church home group I am leading reading and analysis of C.S. Lewis' classic "Mere Christianity". I profoundly love it to my surprise. I tend to hate religious books which I thought this was. Actually, it is collection of radio programs that were an appeal to non-believers utilizing logic in the tradition of ancient Greek logic and debate and rhetoric. I enjoy his intellectual approach. The spiritual elements to God and Christianity are so deeply rooted that it is hard for me to talk about them viscerally to unbelievers who are dead on many of the levels I am alive and their frame of reference and mine are so different I sometimes despair to know how to approach them when discussing these matters. "Mere Christianity" addresses this very matter this very way. 

Speaking of God And All That

I realize I have not talked much about my relationship with God thus far this year (maybe not at all) nor much down the stretch last year. The same goes for my once and former and yet future column "Scripture of the Day". You will see it again soon! I have not lapsed in my relationship with God and continue to grow but chronic sloppiness in time management generally and specifically in regards to setting time aside each just for me and my Creator to commune both in prayer and in reading Scripture has led to some stunted growth issues. However, that is not to say I have not been growing and moving forward within God's plan and generally getting closer to him even if at times it has been an ugly and asymmetrical process to watch.

Older Than Dad Ever Was

This past April 15th I turned 44. It feels strange now being over five years older than my father lived to be. BTW, I can assure you 44 is the new 24. Just sayin'.

Oh the Horror!

I have begun to hear my peers refer to themselves (and worse yet, ME) as "middle aged". What dolts! Everybody knows middle age begins at 50... oh fuck, that is in six years. Nevermind! I'm depressed.

Something I'm Sick Of...

....my celibacy. I was not cut out for it... tis not a gift God gave me. My life has been one giant white knuckle experiment in celibate terror. If at any time you find me grumpy and abrasive now you know why. Of course, I don't exactly plan to go out and fornicate because the only thing that would make me feel worse than my ongoing self-imposed squandering of my sexual vitality would be to have unwholesome and unmeaningful sex with someone I am not madly in love AND lust with and with whom God does not approve I be with both generally and physically. That being said, although I don't have pending egg expiration issues like my lady friends my age, I do really, really wish to enjoy sex while everything still optimally works and I don't know how much longer that will be the case. Whatever! Thanks for bearing with me while I got that TMI off my chest.

 Personality Patterns In Conservatives & Liberals

As some of you well know, I can be a real pain in the neck online when people are speaking or acting stupid. Just today I got accused of being a troll by some social conservatives who not once addressed the substance of anything I said... but at least they did not block me or unfriend me or report me. I generally don't suffer fools gladly.... well, except my own self quite obviously. I have noted that in very general terms with the understanding there are plenty of exceptions, that a great many Conservatives are pig-headed and stubborn not to mention more likely to be less-educated than their smarty and smug Liberal counterparts. Conservatives seem more prone to arguing to the bitter end even when they are dead wrong and getting exposed as such.  However, with that being said, I have also noted a rather quite distinctive behavioral trend and cultural personality trait in Liberals: they are complete pussies! I am losing track of how many of them have unfriended me on Facebook or blocked me on Twitter or banned me from their Yahoo Group or their sub-reddit on Reddit. At least Conservatives, for all their flaws, will face you and take their lickings instead of taking their ball and going home like petulant children.

Don't Assume A Rainy Winter

There has been a lot of talk in recent months about the ongoing evolving El Nino Southern Oscillation condition in the Pacific Ocean. It has great promise and at times this past spring looked even more potent (to an ominous degree) than the 1997 event at the same time of year. That being said, we are in the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and when that goes on El Ninos are less frequent and less potent than in the positive phase of same. The 1990's was during the positive phase and we all remember all the El Nino winters of 1991-1993 and the infamous El Nino of 1997-1998. By 2009 we were in the negative phase of the PDO and guess what happend to the El Nino that year? It got gobbled up by the PDO and nothing noteworthy happened precipitation-wise in California that Winter. That is not to say this El Nino will suffer a similar fate but it does mean we should not count our chicken before they hatch in regards to the precipitation possibilities this coming rain season.

Rockhounds Roundup Is Moving!

The Santa Lucia Rockhound's show committee voted tonight to move our 24th Annual Rockhounds Roundup show (of which I am it's chairman/director) from the Pioneer Park and adjacent Pioneer Museum (where it was held the previous 23 years) up the street to the Mid-State Fairgrounds. This has set in motion a great number of tasks for me as planning for his change will begin in the morning when I meet our club president at the fairgrounds to discuss our options with the fairground management.

Scripture of the Day - The Stand

Earlier tonight I finished watching, for the very first time, the second half of the made-for-television movie "The Stand" adapted from Stephen King's novel by the same name. The relevance of this factoid here is that the very title (an apt title for the work I might add) caught my attention. It brought to my mind the fact that in Ephesians in Ch.6:10-18 (glibly known by some in Christian circles as the  "varsity wrestling" passage) Paul the Apostle uses the word "stand" three times and "withstand" once. Metaphorically-speaking I have not been "standing" enough lately and this spiritual malaise and complacency is reflected in the dearth of postings in this blog that relate to my spiritual life. This is ending tonight!

"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. Put on the complete armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the tactics of the Enemy. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against wicked authorities, against evil power structures, against the rules of the darkness of this world, against supernatural wickedness in the spiritual realm. Therefore, put on the complete armor of God so that you may be able to endure in the evil day and having done all you can, make your stand. Stand therefore, wearing your belt and the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparedness of the Good News of peace; foremost of all, taking hold of the shield of faith with which you shall be able to turn back the fiery projectiles of the Enemy. And use the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is a word FROM God. Praying in the Spirit constantly and diligently making supplication for all the brethren:"

~ Ephesians 6:10-18 (Kimicus ad Absurdum translation)

Jeremiah's Lamentation ~ My Lamentation - Pt. 2

Last November in this blog I posted PART ONE of this two-part series. Tonight I will cover the second part of the passage in question, to wit, Lamentations 3:22-47. By way of review I repeat my previous preface.

Back in the time of my wandering in the wilderness (biblically, metaphorically-speaking) during my 20's and much of my 30's I was lost inside my own head and lost from the world as I suffered under the heavy burden and dark oppression of mental illness and spiritual desolation. This was the direct result of  both spiritual as well as social things in my environment such as my father's untimely death when I was 15 and then losing Grandpa McGee when I was 18 just three years later which makes this time of year difficult. All the while I was dealing with the social drama on both sides of my family (and within it my immediate family) along with all the crap that comes with coming of age at that time. The real topper on this story was my having God actively in my life yet wanting little to do with Him. This placed me in direct conflict with the Him which is never a great idea.

There were multiple levels of environmental causation for this as well as spiritual causation from my losing my dad and not having any males in the family step in and be my mentor and father figure to my being under God's reproof for my pride, stubbornness, idleness, selfishness, and unthankfulness. My mental illness took the form of major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder that I know of and perhaps others I don't yet realize.

I have turned back to God and I am doing ever better on all fronts, spiritual, mental-emotional-psychological, physical, social, academic, etc. This is not to say I don't experience up and downs and plateaus and an occasional two-steps-backward-to-get-three-steps-forward any different than anybody else. However, at least I am in a consistently healthy place yet with room to improve in some areas that continue to bedevil me and yet I am still ever growing and evolving.

On a morning a month ago at church I found myself reading my Bible in the cafe and opened to this passage and was blown away by it as it caused me to recall that dark place I know so well but have not been in for some time now. I am dividing this up into two parts for the sake of functionality on this blog and ease of perusal for you, the reader. The FIRST PART offered an insight into the place I was during those dark years, a place which I realize others have been in although in a different context and for a different purpose. This sequel offers the upshot resolution to my ongoing story, to wit, what I had to do to get back on track with God.

"It is of God's manifold mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassion fails not.

They are renewed every morning: how great is your faithfulness.

The Lord is my portion, I say to myself; therefore will I hope in Him.

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him.

It advantages a person to both hope in and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

It is beneficial that a person bear their yokes in the time of their youth.

They sit in silent solitude, because He hath laid this yoke upon them.

They put their face in the dirt, if yet there may be hope.

They offer their cheek to them that smite it: they are fully reproached.

For the Lord will not cast us away forever: but though He inflicts grief upon us, yet will He show compassion according to his manifold mercies.

For He does not enthusiastically cause harm to people.

Crushing underfoot those in bondage in the Earth, depriving people of justice before God, and defrauding people in their endeavors, the Lord does not approve.

Who says anything at all and it happens when God has not commanded it thus?

Out of God's mouth proceeds not things both bad and good?

Why do the living complain about the punishment of their sins?

Let us examine ourselves and  judge our ways and turn back to God.

May we offer upward our hearts to God in the heavens.

We have transgressed and rebelled and you have not pardoned us.

You have enveloped us in your anger and persecuted us: you have killed us seemingly without pity.

You have obscured yourself from us as if with a cloud so that our prayer should not reach you.

You have relegated us to the status of scum and garbage in the eyes of other people.

All of our enemies have criticized us.

Fear and hazard has come upon us, desolation and destruction."

~Lamentations 3:22-47 (Kimicus ad Absurdum translation)

Jeremiah's Lamentation ~ My Lamentation - Pt. 1

Back in the time of my wandering in the wilderness (biblically, metaphorically-speaking) during my 20's and much of my 30's I was lost inside my own head and lost from the world as I suffered under the heavy burden and dark oppression of mental illness and spiritual desolation. This was the direct result of  both spiritual as well as social things in my environment such as my father's untimely death when I was 15 and then losing Grandpa McGee when I was 18 just three years later which makes this time of year difficult. All the while I was dealing with the social drama on both sides of my family (and within it my immediate family) along with all the crap that comes with coming of age at that time. The real topper on this story was my having God actively in my life yet wanting little to do with Him. This placed me in direct conflict with the Him which is never a great idea.

There were multiple levels of environmental causation for this as well as spiritual causation from my losing my dad and not having any males in the family step in and be my mentor and father figure to my being under God's reproof for my pride, stubbornness, idleness, selfishness, and unthankfulness. My mental illness took the form of major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder that I know of and perhaps others I don't yet realize.

I have turned back to God and I am doing ever better on all fronts, spiritual, mental-emotional-psychological, physical, social, academic, etc. This is not to say I don't experience up and downs and plateaus and an occasional two-steps-backward-to-get-three-steps-forward any different than anybody else. However, at least I am in a consistently healthy place yet with room to improve in some areas that continue to bedevil me and yet I am still ever growing and evolving.

This morning at church I was reading my Bible in a freelance fashion (in the cafe, NOT the sanctuary during the service) and opened to this passage and was blown away by it as it caused me to recall that dark place I know so well but have not been in for some time now, thank God. I am dividing this up into two parts for the sake of functionality on this blog and ease of perusal for you, the reader. This first part offers an insight into the place I was during those dark years, a place which I realize others have been in although in a different context and for a different purpose. The Second Part offers the upshot resolution to my ongoing story, to wit, what I had to do to get back on track with God.

"I am the man who has seen troubles by the rod of His wrath.

He has led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

Surely against ME is He turned; His hand is turned against me all day long.

My flesh and my skin has he made old: He has broken all my bones.

He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and travail.

He has banished me into a dark place as one who has been long dead.

He has walled me in so that I cannot escape. He has placed heavy chains upon me.

Also, when I cry and shout out to Him for help, He shuts out my prayers.

He has placed roadblocks of hewn stone in my path, he has made my paths crooked.

He was unto me as a bear stalking me, as a hidden lion crouching.

He has derailed me and torn me asunder and left me in ruin.

He has drawn down upon me with his bow and targeted me with his arrows.

He has caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my heart.

I was a derision to all my people and their taunt all the day long.

He has filled me with bitterness, made me drunk with gall.

He has shattered my teeth with gravel, buried me in ashes.

You removed me far away from peace: I forgot what prosperity felt like.

I said to myself: "My strength from and my hope in God have died",

When I remembered my affliction and misery along with the bitterness and gall.

I still remember all of this and am humbled.

My memory of it all gives me hope."

~Lamentations 3:1-21 (Kimicus ad Absurdum translation)

Is Drinking Wine Sinful?

Well of course not! However, some of my Christian brethren are confused on this matter having been leavened by the false teaching of a pernicious ascetic element which arose in both the Catholic Church and later within some sects of Protestantism. Below are my remarks in argumentation with a pastor friend of mine in regards to this matter. I do not include his private remarks but he gives the usual Protestant song and dance as to why drinking any alcohol at all is sinful. What follows are my remarks related to the drinking of alcohol and not my broader remarks before and after as part of the overall conversation thread. The discussion of alcohol being sin or not came up as a result of a broader discussion on the topic of God's people chronically tending to project their own personal and cultural biases onto their interpretations of God's Word and how they proceed to practice their faith accordingly. Knowing he is fundamentally opposed to any alcohol consumption whatsoever I realized this was a perfect example of this wholly human phenomenon to which I was referring.

***, if there are not ever alternate interpretations of God's word by people who believe they are right then please explain how YOUR generation invented out of thin air or at least continued to promulgate what you culturally inherited of the lie that Jesus never drank wine and that drinking alcohol is taboo or in any way a no-no! Are you going to tell me with a straight face that Protestant tradition is not a cultural invention of man, in particular, a relic of your generation's time and place, projected onto God's word and with a bit of creative stretching made to seem like actual scripture when in fact it is a false history and a false teaching rooted in legalism? I agree with you that God has one meaning in what He says (except when He has more than one meaning in what He is saying). My point is that we all (including YOU), tend to subconsciously project our own baggage into these discussions, be it generational baggage, or gender baggage or political baggage or social status baggage or sectarian cultural baggage. And you still have not responded to large segments of my previous remarks. You still don't know what it is you are even arguing against of the article that started this discussion in the first place. That is the primary problem here. In continuing to do that you are bringing a knife to a gun fight metaphorically-speaking.

***, I brought this topic up to make my point and you have finished my point as I anticipated and intended. Although I undoubtedly have my generational biases they are not manifested here as they are with you. Your views on alcohol which were shared by Grandpa McGee and my remaining Grandma Noyes and all of your particular sect of Protestantism are views that did not exist over most of the history of God's church (until various extremist sects of Protestantism came about such as the Puritans and Quakers and some Methodists and other assorted holiness movements). This is so for good reason as there is no foundation for this alcohol phobia in sound doctrine, archaeology, history, or logic and reason. The only "juice of the grape" that any ancient societies produced from grapes was wine. NOBODY dabbled in grape juice for multiple reasons not the least of which is the little matter of grape juice being perishable (there was NO refrigeration) and there being no preservatives aside from fermentation itself. There is NO factual/empirical evidence that anybody in that part of the world or anywhere else on Earth where grapes were grown (which is basically anywhere on Earth there was civilization) ever made grape juice and not wine. In fact, the very types of grapes being grown were grapes bred for wine, NOT raw juice and not table grapes for eating (in other words, NO Welches).

However, this is all superfluous when compared to the doctrinal gyrations that your generation (and those holiness movements) had to make in order to create this legalistic myth or rather perpetuate the older preexisting myth. You and your segment of your generation seem to confuse drinking alcohol in excess with drinking any alcohol at all. How did this come to be? You don't seem to mistake gluttony and basic eating or compulsive sexuality and sex in general! In reference to Psalms 104:15 please explain to me how Welches grape juice makes glad the heart of man!? I've had plenty of grape juice and never received that effect. The entire story of Christ making wine of water makes absolutely NO sense if it is grape juice. If it is not grape juice but rather wine he made then how is all alcohol inherently bad if our Creator and Savior is not only making wine but making really excellent wine and being complimented for it? Please explain to me the logic behind Christ being accused of being a winebibber if he was only drinking grape juice?! That would be utterly illogical and nonsensical were that the case which it is not. Following that logic we would have to conclude that the gluttony charge suggested he was not eating actual food for the same line of reasoning to be consistently maintained. How does any of that make any sense?

As for yeast in bread-making being symbolic of evil, that is so and yet it is only a symbol. Yeast is not actually inherently evil as evidenced by you eating fermented dough throughout your life without being corrupted by it. However, you had to contort and stretch quite a bit to connect fermented dough and it's Biblical symbology of sin with fermentation of grape juice which is not even Biblically referenced as symbolic of sin which is worth noting in light of your belief that all alcohol is evil don't you think? Why isn't fermentation of fruit (or wheat or hops or anything else the like) associated with sin but fermentation of dough (a food product) is? That is not an arbitrary coincidence my friend. Yet it another inconvenient fact that gives the lie to the legalistic false teaching that some extremist Protestant sects leavened into God's Church a few centuries ago and continues to be promulgated by some individuals and congregations and denominations.

You state (quite correctly) that we should take God's word "at absolute face value". However, you aren't obeying that if you are encouraging people to disobey God's edict to enjoy the things He has created for us to enjoy as He stated in I Timonthy 6:17. Psalms 104:15 if taken "at absolute face value" makes it clear that He has given us wine to enjoy. Yet your unsupported teaching on this DOES NOT submit and accept and adhere to God's word "at absolute face value". That means you and others who are like-minded are interpreting God's Word arbitrarily to fit your own personal and group mores and values as handed down to you from previous generations through various mental-emotional and cultural filters. It is fine to not wish to drink alcohol yourselves. To forbid other people from doing it is not acceptable. To suggest you are speaking for God in this matter is adding words to his Word and placing words in His mouth which He never uttered.

If as you suggest we are to mindlessly and without questioning what He means follow a path of "simple acceptance at absolute face value God's high, holy, happy, Heaven-sent Word" then why are you not out burning witches alive as God's Word commands in the Old Testament if followed in a non-interpretive "simple acceptance at absolute face value" of his command "I suffer not a witch to live?" I know what your answer will be and you will be quite correct which thus proves my point.

My point is that in real life on this Earth with all the complexity of human nature and the human experience as well as God's inestimable complexity and unfathomable greatness the truth and understanding of truth and how it applies "where the rubber meets the road" is so very much more complex and layered and nuanced than trite, hackneyed, jingoistic, one-dimensional, close-minded and overly-simplistic interpretations and explanations of reality and truth and sound doctrine can account and even begin to understand without God anointing us with wisdom and understanding and insight and at times revelations and epiphanies. The more we think we know the more we probably don't know. We need to beware getting stuck in our own thinking and walling off learning more and growing and ultimately becoming intellectually and mentally-emotionally and spiritually constipated and ultimately moribund. I have already lived in that sort of necrotic constipation but have been given release from it and never wish to go back to it.

This latter quote from my remarks tonight on Facebook comes in response to a sister in Christ who came upon this debate and made a few remarks that were largely neutral which was appropriate on her part.

...myself and *** love each other and are arguing as spiritual father and son... at least that is how I realize it and appreciate it and I hope he does as well. However, I also don't pull punches when accused of carnality. If I am condemned I will gladly fall on my sword. If, however, I am falsely accused, especially in regards to something that is a hot-button issue with me as legalism is then I am prone to throw an elbow or two along the way if the initiator of the allegation is playing rough and tumble, too. I can give as good as I can take. When I speak to *** on these things I am speaking as much to his entire generation and that entire Protestant tradition and collection of sects of Protestant Christianity whose legacy is mixed at best with some great theologians and leaders and their writings but also a long legacy of legalism and apocalyptic millenarian darkness that was the antipode to the carnal excesses of the Catholic Church. Extremism and reactionary movements are hardly ever a good thing. Another irony in this topic is that the concept of Christian hedonism is not a contradiction in terms as would seem to be the case if one is to blindly adhere to the more dour traditions of some of the more extremist elements of Protestantism. However, in reality Asceticism is not not a particularly Christian (until the Catholics popularized it) or even Jewish practice with some notable exceptions like the Nazarites. On the whole, Asceticism is more rooted in pagan Greek Stoicism in the context of Western Civilization not to mention the teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism and Zoroastrianism and such further east.

Quote of the Day - C.S. Lewis

At church this morning Pastor Steve read the following C.S. Lewis quote within his sermon making an excellent point as always. I was blown away by this quote in and of itself apart from the sermon having never read it or heard it before today.

"By Love, most of us mean kindness—the desire to see others than the self happy. And not happy in this way, or in that; just happy. What most of us mean by God is not so much a Father in Heaven, as a grandfather in heaven—a senile old benevolence who, as they say, liked to see the young people enjoying themselves, and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be said at the end of each day, that a good time was had by all.

But if God is Love, then He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. To ask that God’s love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God. Because He is what He is, His Love must be impeded and repelled by certain stains in our present character, and because He already so deeply loves us, He must labor to make us more lovable.

When Christianity says that God Loves man, it means that God really actively Loves man. Not that he has some disinterested and impartial concern for our welfare, but that in hard to swallow and unbelievable surprising truth, we are the actual objects of His great Love. You asked for a Loving God, and you have one. The great Spirit you so lightly invoked, the ‘lord of terrible aspect,’ is in fact present. Not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy; not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate; not the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests; but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made worlds, persistent as an artist’s love for his work, provident and venerable as a father’s love for a child, and as jealous and inexorable and exacting as the love between a man and a woman."

~ Excerpted from "The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis

Scripture of the Day - God (John 14:6 & Acts 4:12)

At church this morning Pastor Steve briefly referenced the doctrinally compromising and overly-inclusive broad sweep of  Universalism  and its tradition of deludedly believing and falsely preaching that God is incapable of actually punishing his children in this life let alone throughout all eternity in damnation in the world to come. These Universalists proclaim that all the religions of the world are like "spokes on a wheel all leading to God in the middle" as if there is no specificity or exclusivity to God and all faiths are equally valid as modes of acquiring enlightenment and interacting with the divine. The Bible being either all true or all untrue as is its nature states emphatically in John 14:6 and Acts 4:12 that the Universalists are lying to themselves and others.

"Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father directly, but first by way of me." ~ John 14:6 (Kimicus ad Absurdum translation)

"Neither is there salvation in any other entity: for there is no other name under heaven given among men, through whom we may be saved." ~ Acts 4:12 (Kimicus ad Absurdum translation)

Quote of the Day - Anonymous

While I don't agree that God does not exist as a separate object of intellectual knowledge unless the author means that differently than I take him to mean it but in any case there is much wisdom and insight in this quote. An online acquaintance forwarded this to me via email for purposes of intellectual and philosophical reflection and discussion with other's in our little clique. He won't tell me the name of the author who prefers to remain anonymous but I am told he is amenable to anonymous public quotings. 

"An unknown is within the universe which gives it order and predictability.
It does not exist; it does not "not exist". God does not exist as a separate
object of intellectual knowledge; but neither does the atheist's nullity.
Imagine a huge junk yard with one million parts scattered around. Over
time, these parts assemble themselves into a perfectly functioning 747
aircraft. The atheist wants us to believe that this was the result of chance."

Ghosts Aren't Dead ~ They're Displaced

Tonight I responded on Facebook to a thread about an acquaintance experiencing an old haunted government building and all the weird things people who work there have experienced over the years. That conversation thread got me thinking about the topic of places being "haunted" and I felt inspired to comment there thus:

I love old historic well-storied buildings myself and there are both falsely and genuinely haunted places. What haunts them are not dead people because dead people are gone from here forever. However, things not physically rooted or manifested here which used to possess an abiding presence with their Creator and were once bathed in His glory, since rebelled and were forever banished from that abode. In many cases these creatures tend to haunt/manifest themselves in places where things of interest to them occurred and/or are occurring or perhaps linger in places where things happened in which they played and/or continue to play a mischievous if not at times downright malevolent role. These things they do because they hate us because we are created and loved by that from whence they rebelled and hate, and we possess many things they can never know or have and thus envy.

Cal Poly Next Time

For those of you wondering about my decision regarding enrolling at Cal Poly SLO this Fall, I had no peace about heading to SLO this year and starting my university experience. That fact alone is all that matters above all intellectualizing and rationalizing. I serve the Lord Christ and it is incumbent upon me to follow instructions diligently and faithfully. If I was supposed to have gone this year I would have known it in my gut and in my heart and had great peace about it.... but I did not. At the outset I was flabbergasted I was accepted given that I was short a math class. Also, I was flattered to no small degree that I was approved to attend.

However, God has something else planned for me... even if merely to reapply to Cal Poly the academic year following. My understanding at present of God's plan for me is that I am to take two more semesters at Cuesta College. Financial aid in the form of Pell Grants and BOG Waivers will be available to me through those two semesters... as well as beyond (I have used less than half of my lifetime FAFSA alotment). This will make the remaining transferable units I can take there before transferring to a university significantly less expensive... actually free... to me. This will allow me to delay getting into debt by way of student loans until I transfer to university in two years all the while getting stuff done for free (to me) that I would otherwise being paying beau coup bucks for over the course of many years. That being said, I do not believe financial aid is the primary factor for why I am to follow this course. There are undoubtedly deeper and more profound principles and factors at play here which will reveal themselves over time.

For those of you who feel I should have accepted the Cal Poly offer I assure you that this is the correct course for me at this time. My desire at present (for what it is worth) is to reapply to Cal Poly for Fall 2014. However, unlike this last time, next time reach out to the history department literati and introduce myself to them and get them on my side. After that I'd like to see what they can do to increase my probabilities of getting into Cal Poly the year following by way of letters of commendation from my Cuesta history professors and by way of strings being pulled at Cal Poly on my behalf (Cal Poly).

Decision? Discernment!

Tomorrow is the deadline for me to give Cal Poly - SLO an answer as to if I'm going to attend there this Fall. Today I am working through the facts as I find them and take this before God and get my answer by tonight to pass along to them. My only decision in this matter is will I submit to my Creator and listen to His instructions and then follow them. I have given the decision itself about Cal Poly to God to determine and He undoubtedly made that decision an eternity ago. Now I must effectively LISTEN!

Scripture of the Day - I Agree With Peter

This morning at church Pastor Steve at NCCF gave a great little sermon that centered around this passage:

 And as they walked along the way He asked His disciples, "Whom do people say I am?" and they answered "some say you are like John the Baptist while others say you are like Elijah while yet others say you are like one of the other great prophets." He answered them and said, "But whom do YOU think I am?" Peter answered him and said, "You are the Messiah". ~ Mark 8:27-29 (Kimicus ad Absurdum translation)

Scripture of the Day - Paul (Eph.4:26)

Those of you who have been following this blog of late know I have had an unfortunate and in some respects outrageous falling out with a friend this month. The outrageous nature of how this has played out is beyond the pale of decent behavior. My friendship was betrayed by this person who turned out to not be the sort of friend or man I had once thought. Et tu, Brute? To be quite honest I have had to deal internally with issues of bitterness and anger that transcend righteous indignation and descend into wanting to sully myself by confronting this person and verbally putting him in his place. That was sort of the main point in writing him a letter along with the fact I did not wish to be interrupted as would have been the case had I spoken to him as well as the fact I wanted him to be able to repeatedly look at the letter and take in everything it contained which would not have been possible had I simply spoken to him. Of course, all of this is a moot point as he rejected the letter and returned it without reading it, a letter whose contents would have answered a lot of questions my friend has shared with me over the past three years about a great many things. His loss!

In any case, a week ago today I was struggling with my anger and bitterness. I attended two different sermons at two different churches: North County Christian Fellowship and Paso Robles Bible Church. Both Steve Calagna at the former and Dave Rusco at the latter touched on topics that spoke directly to my issues. I realized during both sermons that I was being spoken to directly by God and felt both blessed and a bit chastened. Interestingly and not coincidentally they BOTH quoted Ephesians 4:26 which goes:

"It's okay to be angry but don't descend into the wrath of man. Do not let your day end on an angry note." (Kimicus ad Absurdum translation)