Tisha B’Av Continues

It’s the Christian Sabbath. On the other hand, it’s also Tisha B’Av, the most calamitous day in the Jewish calendar. I guess the good news is that we’ll all be praying today. And boy, is it a good day for it. I was just watching the news, about the war between Russia and Georgia. I don’t know enough about the conflict to know who has the better claim to the disputed area, but I do know that Vladimir Putin is dangerous and ruthless. People are dying. Homes are being destroyed. And the Russians refuse to stop.

I wonder what the humanitarian aid situation is over there. We’ve had so many natural disasters over the last few years, I’ve gotten used to thinking of disaster relief as something that applies chiefly to things like hurricanes and earthquakes. But I suppose need is need, regardless of how it arises.

I’m checking, and predictably, World Vision has already reacted. These people are fast. Here is a link.

If there is one good thing about this mess, it’s that it lacks the scale of a natural disaster. It’s not another Burma. I have no idea what finally happened in Burma; they fought so hard to keep aid out, I quit reading about it. I can’t imagine a populous country nearly free of Judaism and Christianity. Talk about hopeless. If I lived in a place like that, I would expect a catastrophe every week. My personal suspicion is that the presence of believers is the only thing that keeps the world from being destroyed. I would not want to live in a country that contains fewer than 20 Jews and has an official government program to eradicate Christianity.

I have never understood what drives a person to oppose Christianity. Atheists make wild claims, with no evidence, that Christianity causes most of the world’s problems. What world are they talking about? The Inquisition and the Crusades were over a long, long time ago. The excesses and atrocities of atheist leftism continue to this day, and the horrors of anti-Christian Nazism (in many ways a form of leftism) are still fairly recent. And their scale dwarfs that of any problems caused by Christianity. As for the Jews, they’ve never been numerous enough to make trouble. On the other hand, they tend to provide us with inventions and vaccines and music and huge charitable gifts.

What’s the worst thing that could happen if Christians completely took over? Conversion by the sword is out of style, so that’s not a concern. You might have to sit through a prayer at the beginning of your next ball game. You would have a hard time finding pornography, which, as we all know, is essential to a healthy, happy life. If you’re a woman and you carelessly conceive a child, you might be expected to carry it to term instead of turning your womb into your child’s abattoir. The US would give a bigger percentage of its tax revenues to protect Israel. Can minor “evils” like these compare to leftist practices such as lining up hundreds of thousands of suspected political enemies and machine-gunning them so they fall into ditches? Can they compare to nearly wiping out the educated class of an entire country? Do they look bad juxtaposed with gulags and purges and forced abortions and infanticide? Those things are the rancid fruit of enlightened atheism.

Life tends to be pretty good in nations with a history of Christianity or Judaism, and it tends to be pretty awful elsewhere. There is a reason why countless people have risked death to move from the USSR and China and Cuba to the US, while virtually no one wants to go the other way. There is a reason why Muslims sneak into Israel and then refuse to leave.

I doubt anyone reading this today will live to see a wave of immigration to Burma. I feel safe making that prediction.

I think the US is facing its own slow-motion Tisha B’Av. The Jews lost their temples overnight. Americans have been watching God’s favor slip away since at least 2001. And our brilliant response was to legalize gay marriage and push Israel to give away more land. And half of us want a President who carries a Hindu idol wherever he goes. Even to the Western Wall, which is the foundation of the temple in Jerusalem.

Have you read about the idol Obama carries? The “god’s” name is Hanuman. He is the son–an incarnation–of Shiva. Many people consider Shiva to be the Hindu homologue of Satan. So what does that make Hanuman, in Christian terms? Figure it out. Here’s a hint: the incarnation of God is Christ.

Here’s a link to a story about Obama and Hanuman, with a photo of the large idol sent by Indian admirers.

Very creepy, for a Presidential candidate to carry the graven image of that particular heathen deity. Insignificant, to a person who doesn’t believe in God. But to a Christian? Highly disturbing. And taking it with him while praying at the temple…it’s like something out of a shlocky horror movie. An abomination.

It’s a strange type of Christianity Obama practices. It allows him to carry an idol and have a pastor who pals around with people who seek the destruction of the Jews. I’m having a hard time seeing the connection to the other type of Christianity, which says we are to have no graven images and no other gods, and that the Jews are the apple of God’s eye.

If only some nice leftist would put me in a camp and reeducate me, while distributing my property to local leftist officials. Then I might understand.

I Could Have Been Born in Yemen

I finished God’s Smuggler and started on Secret Believers today. The older I get, the more grateful I am that I live in America. And these books only reinforce the sensation.

Secret Believers is about real Christians living in Muslim countries. Some were born into Christian minorities, which is bad. Others are converted Muslims. That’s a whole lot worse.

One of these believers is a young man who piped up at a gathering of Muslim students. He asked the Imam why Muslims, who honor the prophets, did not honor the greatest prophet of all. And he was referring to Jesus. The others beat him, and the Imam turned him over to his father and told him to keep beating him until he recited the little prayer that supposedly makes you a Muslim. His own cousin told him, “God will be pleased when I kill you.”

Churches exist in many Muslim countries, but they suffer constant harassment and persecution. And Christians are divided, because the older churches resent the Protestants. It seems Protestants can’t convert Muslims very easily or safely, so they go after Catholics and Orthodox believers who are disenchanted with the less-lively spirit of their churches. And they succeed.

Here in the US, you can go to any church you want, you can get all the instructional materials you want, and people from different denominations get along very well. As long as they don’t talk to each other too much.

Atheists always say they don’t see how God can be good and allow suffering. That seems childish to me. If you want to ask a better question, ask why evangelism is allowed to fail. You would think God would assure the success of anyone who tries to spread the word. But there are very high barriers to evangelism, especially in Muslim countries, and progress is not exactly optimal.

It’s a curious thing. But I am not stupid enough to second-guess God. When I was younger, I was so smart I was able to do that, but it seems I have grown less intelligent with age, because I no longer feel qualified. I suppose there is a purpose to the multi-millennium human pageant, and if God forced everything to go right, it would all be over in about a week.

I think the most likely explanation is that God has some responsibilities, but He has put a lot of jobs–a lot of authority–in the hands of Man. And we screw up. There are a lot of things we could be doing to improve creation, and we fail, so the world is a mess. Now that I think about it, Jesus complained about it, saying the harvest was plentiful, but the workers were few.

I guess the question isn’t that hard to answer, after all.

God bless this country. I am happier than ever to be here.

Mail: a Bourgeois Luxury

I’ve been reading God’s Smuggler again. What a great recommendation.

One thing about the book that startled me was the way it illustrated the astounding cruelty of leftism. Brother Andrew said he went to Rumania to meet with the Christians there and bring them Bibles. A lady there was shocked to learn that Christians in other countries thought about Rumanians. They were not allowed to mail letters, and they hadn’t received any from abroad in thirteen years.

Maybe that doesn’t sound atrocious the first time you read it, but think about it. Sitting here on my rear end, I can contact people all over the world, instantaneously. If I felt like it, I could send and receive a hundred emails a day. And my penpals and I could attach photos, audio, and video. Now imagine going thirteen years with no contact with anyone beyond a few miles from your home. It would be like living in an aquarium, on another planet. It would be almost as if the rest of the world had disappeared. Even prisoners in the US can mail letters. And when we send our soldiers to war, we work very hard to make sure they can communicate with people here at home.

It’s true, the leftists provided a certain amount of “news.” Citizens of Eastern bloc nations heard wild stories about Holland being occupied by the USAF, and they were told that the Dutch were oppressed by capitalists. But people behind the Iron Curtain didn’t really know what was going on in the world.

If it doesn’t hurt you to think about millions of people cut off from the rest of the world, it ought to. But that’s how leftism is. People are objects; it doesn’t matter what you do to them, because the state…and CHANGE…are all that matters. Rumania, Cambodia, China, North Vietnam…it’s always the same. Only the degree varies.

It really is a shame God didn’t make human beings intelligent enough to see through the poisonous promises of leftism. We’re just bright enough, on average, to realize we like things like trees and clean air and fairness and freedom from poverty. Most of us are too dumb to realize leftism won’t bring us these things–that it has never brought these things to anyone. In fact, it makes life much, much worse. It tends to increase the very problems it purports to fight.

More and more, I think a good monarchy is better than a republic in which unintelligent people get to vote.

Time to Take Inventory

Sunday will be an inauspicious day. Tisha B’Av begins on Saturday at sundown.

I’ve written about it before. This is the Jewish holiday–funny word for it–which commemorates God’s pronouncement of a punishment on the Jews. On this day, He told them the generation that left Egypt with Moses would not enter the Promised Land. It’s also the date of the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 586 B.C.E. and the date of the destruction of the second temple in 70 C.E. And it’s a day on which other great misfortunes have befallen the Jews. You might think of it as Shavuot in reverse. Shavuot, the holiday of the first fruits, commemorates the gift of the Torah. Jews believe that without the temple, they are not able to enter the presence of God and receive and spread His blessings, in the manner in which they did it while the temples were in use.

It’s a tough day for observant Jews. No food, no drink, no sex, no bathing. Apparently, you spend the whole day thinking about what happens to rebellious people. It’s “Scared Straight” for people who believe in God. That’s a good thing. Mercy goes a long way, but eventually, you come to the end of it. And the result is things like the Diaspora. Or maybe your nation loses its political and economic dominance, and you find yourself paying Muslims and socialists $140 for a barrel of oil. A third of your corn starts disappearing into a wasteful ethanol scam, and the price of milk doubles as a result. Then you find your countrymen voting for a shallow, inexperienced, egotistical man who carries a Hindu idol with him wherever he goes. Things like that happen.

People wonder why God permits suffering. Here’s one reason. As soon as the suffering stops, we start to forget Him.

I remember a funny scene in a Burt Reynolds movie. He decided to kill himself, so he swam out into the ocean. Then he changed his mind. And he started promising God things, in exchange for help reaching the shore. The promises got bigger and bigger as he got more worried. Money and service, basically. Then as he got closer to shore, they started shrinking. And when he got close to the beach, he reneged on all of his promises, claiming he was close enough to make it without God’s help.

I don’t know about you, but that principle certainly applies to me. Maybe not as blatantly, but I always find it easier to be a good Christian when I’m in trouble. Religious people are like mental patients who go off their pills as soon as they start to work. They think they’re not crazy after all. When things go well for religious people, we think maybe we’ve been going a little overboard with the prayer and obedience. And maybe we got all that good stuff because we’re smart and we worked hard. We don’t think about all the smart, hard-working people in the world who live in squalor and misery.

I don’t know about you, but I expect to feel pretty uneasy until Sunday night. I was distressed by the predictable Muslim nutcake video, threatening destruction at the Olympics, and the sensation is exacerbated by the dream I had about the melting stadium. I’m not a psychic or a prophet, and the things I dream about almost never happen, but all the same, I don’t like it.

If the Muslim extremists want jihad, the Chinese will be happy to accommodate them. The Chinese don’t fear the ACLU, swing voters, Janeane Garofalo, or tort lawyers. They are leftists who don’t have to be nice, because they’re in control. They have never heard of due process or habeas corpus. Attacking the Olympics would probably be a really bad idea. But if it weren’t for bad ideas, jihadis would not exist.

The other day I listened to Brother Andrew, and he made an interesting point. He said that whatever we may think about Muslims, they are very sincere about one thing: trying to find God. If you can convince a Muslim that Jesus will save him, you will have yourself a very serious and dedicated Christian. He believes we should be turning that to our advantage. Appeasement is stupid–it’s surrender by inches–but what if you can replace a poisonous ideology with a fruitful one? George Bush says we have to fight terrorists abroad, to avoid fighting them here. Brother Andrew says we have to evangelize them abroad, for the same purpose. I guess we ought to be having prayer meetings all over the US, asking God to help us reach the Muslims. Are we doing that? I haven’t seen any evidence. I’m sure some churches are doing it. I know we pray for lower gas prices.

To get back to Tisha B’Av, I believe I have to improve myself while things are going well, to avoid being driven to improve myself by misfortune. My guess is that this is the point of the holiday. It’s a good lesson, and you don’t have to be a Jew to benefit from it.

More

If you have an interest in promoting Christianity in Muslim nations–or in helping existing Christians facing Muslim persecution–you should take a look at this page at Open Doors USA. It’s Brother Andrew’s site. It lists suggested contributions and tells what they will do with the money.

Sorry

One of the hardest things about being a Christian is learning to derive satisfaction from misfortune. Sometimes we are called on to do that. I was listening to Brother Andrew last night, and although I don’t remember exactly what he said, he pointed out that persecution is normal, and that we are told to be glad when it happens, because we will be rewarded for it. I suppose that principle applies to all types of mistreatment. When someone does you wrong or lets you down, and you end up holding the bag, you have to remember that it’s best to take one for the team instead of flipping out or looking for payback, and you have to remember that what has happened is actually a blessing and an opportunity, provided you handle it right.

Sometimes I manage to react the right way, and sometimes I don’t. Okay, a LOT of times, I don’t. But I’m more conscious of my obligation than I used to be, so I suppose things will improve.

This is a prime example of what is meant by “walking in faith.” Christianity calls on us to do things that are counterintuitive and appear counterproductive, but if God is real, He must be watching, and surely He is going to back us up and watch over us. That’s what Brother Andrew believed when he drove his VW into communist countries. There is faith of the mind, and then there is faith expressed in action, and if I understand things right, the latter is much better. It’s what enabled Abraham to hold a knife to the throat of the only son he had had by his one true love–the son through whom the promises of God had to be fulfilled–whom she bore, though infertile, when she was about 90.

How did I get off on this tangent? Might as well run with it.

There are so many counterintuitive obligations in Christianity. You have to give generously to strangers, which is something most unbelievers would consider irresponsible. You have to honor your parents, no matter how awful or how wrong they may be. In order to fully live, you have to count yourself dead to the world. You have to turn down opportunities other people would kill for. So often, you will be asked to do things which would be absolutely crazy, if not for the presumptions that God is there, and that He’ll make it work out.

I experienced this a long time ago, when I went to Israel. Got off the plane on a Friday. No idea how to get to the kibbutz where I thought Aaron was staying. A cab driver offered me a ride, and I hopped right in. He fed me some nonsense about how it was impossible to get a bus on Friday, and he said he would have to drive me to the kibbutz for about sixty bucks. And we would have to go convert some money first. Fine. I had this idea that God wanted me there, so I didn’t worry. We talked as he drove, and I told him how excited I was to be in Israel, and he had an attack of conscience, took me back to Tel Aviv, and put me on a bus for Afula.

I got to the kibbutz. Aaron was gone. It was Friday afternoon. I had nowhere to stay. Now what? They said they had a volunteer shack with an empty bed. So I got free room and board for the night, and I roomed with a guy from Brooklyn who was making aliyah. This guy had completely thrown away his life in New York, so he could become an Israeli citizen and be rewarded with two years in the IDF. I had a great time getting to know him.

Went to Jerusalem. Found Aaron’s shul. Surprised him while he was davening in his Clockwork Orange Purim outfit. Got to join in the Purim festivities. How many Gentiles get to do that? Found a hostel. Went to Tel Aviv and checked in with the Kibbutz Aliyah people–the ones who placed volunteers. Got a spot at a great kibbutz, right next door to the one where Aaron had stayed.

I just didn’t worry, and although I was an even worse Christian than I am now, things worked out and worked out and worked out. I suppose I should have kept it up when I got home. Faith has a kind of momentum to it. If you keep exercising it, it’s not hard to keep it working, but if you stop for a while, it’s hard to start up again. It’s probably easier to go on two missions with no break, than it is to do it with a big hiatus where you sit by the pool and rest up and forget what living by faith was like.

I can’t believe I’ve written all this. I was trying to write a short introduction to a topic, and that topic is persecution. While I was Googling around last night, I came across a site about the persecution of Christians. I thought I should link to it; you might want to see how Christians are being mistreated in other countries. The site is called Persecution.org, and you can probably guess the URL. Coincidentally, a reader emailed me about another site, which is called Persecution.com. It belongs to an organization that smuggles Bibles. I don’t know how reputable it is, but you can always check Charitywatch and Charity Navigator and Wikipedia. If there is anything wrong with a Christian nonprofit, you better believe a liberal will post it on Wikipedia.

As long as I’m rambling, I may as well mention one of the experiences that makes it impossible for me to give up my beliefs. I guess you’ll think I’m nuts, but if you’ve been reading this blog for more than a week and you DON’T think I’m nuts, you haven’t been paying attention.

It was January or February of the year after I went to Israel. I had college friends in Milwaukee. I was staying with my grandparents in Kentucky while I worked at a bar and tried to find a real job. My friends invited me to Milwaukee for a few days of drunkenness, and I snapped at the bait. I got in the ’70 two-and-a-quarter convertible and hit the road. Spent the whole time unbelievably drunk and enjoyed myself. That’s how I was.

I started driving home, over the frozen highways. I believe I was somewhere near Indianapolis when it happened. I had a sensation which was consistent with what I later heard about panic attacks. For no reason whatsoever, a feeling came over me, and I was absolutely positive I was going to die that day. I wasn’t depressed. I was looking forward to traveling. But I had this feeling anyway. I knew I was going to die, more surely than I knew anything else in the world. So I pulled over to pray.

The craziest thing happened. While I was praying, something got in the car with me. Something I could not see. Suddenly, it was on the front seat beside me, in the middle of the seat. It was not inside me; it was very clear that it was just to my right. I could have put my hand within the area it filled and known when my hand was inside it. It was full of love and assurance and peace and warmth. It was a person. It had come to defend me. And while it was there, I realized I was going to be all right. While this person was with me, trouble could not be present, and I could not be harmed. That sums it up.

I have never been able to explain it. I can’t explain why I got upset to begin with. I don’t know why my problem was so important that it justified a manifestation like this. Was I really going to die? I had no reason to think so, and I knew that at the time, even while the feeling had me in its grip.

Afterward, I had the feeling that this was a visit from Jesus Himself. I don’t know why I had that impression. I suppose it could have been explained by an angel or the Holy Spirit, but that isn’t how it seemed to me, and I can’t tell you why.

It didn’t change my life instantly; this wasn’t a Spielberg movie. I didn’t swear off drinking. The visitor didn’t heal my warts or tell me the name of the next Pope. It just came and helped, and I went on with my life. The great value of the experience wasn’t that it suddenly made me a perfect Christian, or that it convinced me that I needed to change. The value was that I had one more inescapable peg to hang my faith on.

Experiences like this are why I think of myself as a prisoner of faith. They explain why I have no patience with people who make intellectual arguments, claiming they prove God doesn’t exist. Don’t even talk to me about it. I just don’t want to hear it. You might as well tell me my shoes don’t exist. People have called me dismissive. Well, if you want to see “dismissive,” try to hand me a stale argument you heard from some smart aleck atheist professor when you were in college. Don’t even waste my time. I may not be a great Christian, but I’m not an idiot, either. “There is suffering in the world, and God is supposed to be all-powerful, and God is supposed to be good, so how can He exist?” You know what? I will ask Him when I see Him. Right now, I don’t care in the slightest, and I am not impressed by the question. It’s not my problem. And when you waste your time trying to prove God doesn’t exist, you are only making trouble for yourself and your family.

Maybe I shouldn’t write about Christianity. Aaron says a man shouldn’t be a rabbi unless he has reached a certain age and had children. There is no way I would hold myself out as an example for anyone to follow. I am not an authority. I am not a scholar. I am sure I would not be a good role model. Still, as long as no one thinks more of me than they should, I think relating my experiences can be helpful.

That’s all I feel like saying. Take it as you will.

I Feel Like Lot

I made another Costco-cheese pizza yesterday. Blogged it at Manly Grub. I have no complaints. As far as I can tell, their shredded mozzarella is fine, apart from being part-skim. If you like part-skim, there’s nothing wrong with it at all. My one complaint is that the provolone is sliced a little thick. I used a single layer on top of the mozzarella, and I still got some oiling off. This is not exactly the end of the world, but I think the provolone would be better if you could cover a pizza with four ounces (four slices) instead of six.

In any case, the mozzarella is a good buy. If you have to get thin provolone somewhere else, you’re still saving money because the mozzarella is so cheap.

Here’s something that would be fun. Make a pie, add six ounces of mozzarella, and then add 4-6 ounces of very thinly sliced Swiss or Jarlsberg.

I can’t quite get used to Bonta sauce. It’s good, but Super Dolce is fifteen minutes away by car, and to me, it’s better.

People are still giving me comments on rifle scope choices. I have decided the best thing is to get a .22 with peep sights and practice at 50 yards. Once I feel like I can shoot a rifle, I’ll start worrying about the scoped guns.

A reader suggested .17 HMR, which is a fairly inexpensive caliber. The guns cost about what a .22 does, and the ammunition runs around ten bucks for 50 rounds.

I don’t understand ballistics at all. I don’t understand why some calibers are more accurate than others. You would think that if a caliber had accuracy problems, the people who design the ammunition and barrels would fix it, but I guess it doesn’t work that way, because some calibers shoot better than others. That is the situation with .17 HMR and .22 LR. Supposedly you can shoot the toes off a fly with a scoped .17 HMR, and you can actually kill vermin at three hundred yards. I’m starting to think a .17 HMR rifle might be a good move, once I feel good about the way I shoot with open sights.

In connection with this caliber, I found what may be the greatest website in the universe. I am referring to Varmint Al’s. This guy shoots pest animals for money, and he has some crazy gear. He lives in Northern California, where they have a ground squirrel problem, and ranchers pay him to go out and pop ground squirrels on their property. He’s also a machinist, and he has all sorts of skills. He seems to like the .17 HMR a whole lot. You can go to the site and see photos of his many victims.

Last night I tried to find Brother Andrew’s book, God’s Smuggler. The B&N site said a local store had it, but they were wrong. I tried another store, and of course, they didn’t have it either. But if I had wanted books on witchcraft and idolatry, or if I had wanted books by shiny-haired, disappointing televangelists, I would have been all set. They had plenty.

It’s peculiar, but it seems like bookstores down here really push the occult stuff. For years, I’ve noticed that they tend to put it on the eye-level display areas behind the checkout counter. And the kids they hire always seem to be creepy little Goths. Am I the only one who has noticed this?

The second store had Corrie ten Boom, so that’s good.

I took a look at The Screwtape Letters. I don’t think it’s for me. It just doesn’t speak to me. It seems like it’s about an intellectual approach to Christianity, whereas I see Christianity as a matter of faith, character, and emotion. I’ve had certain types of experiences, and I want guidance from other people who have been down the same road. I don’t see how a completely fictional book could serve that purpose. When religious writing becomes too theoretical, it loses me. Even Christians can be effete. I want to hear about things that have worked in practice, in the real world. A real-life example is worth more to me than a library full of theory.

I had to order God’s Smuggler online. I wonder if the US is becoming a country where you can get any kind of porn you want locally, but you have to have a computer to find religious instruction.

A reader sent me a link to some downloadable sermons, and I listened to a Baptist preacher who said he had slowly been squeezed out of the public eye. When he was young, people used to ask him to pray at public functions, but the invitations dropped off with time, and people even turned down the free use of a building belonging to his church, because he refused to cover up the scripture on the walls. In the sermon, he flatly stated that America isn’t a Christian nation any more. Man, that is scary. God made us great, and he can take it all away. It’s strange to realize that the United States needs evangelism. This is one reason I want to move to a nice backward area where you can have a flag in front of your house and go to a church with a heterosexual pastor. Maybe that’s wrong; maybe the proper thing to do is to try to improve the area where you live. But I don’t like being in a place where people are beginning to see Christians as evil. If things continue to deteriorate, I can see us winding up a persecuted minority within 25 years, at least in some areas.

Can Anything Good Come From the Internet?

The other day I asked for book recommendations, and someone mentioned Brother Andrew. I got a ton of good recommendations, and this was just one of them. I’m checking him out online, and I plan to see if I can find his biggest book, God’s Smuggler, locally.

I know almost nothing about this man. People suggested I read his books because I said I enjoyed Corrie ten Boom so much. His story is somewhat similar. He was born in Holland, and he converted to Christianity while recuperating from a war wound. Then he dedicated his life to spreading the Gospel. He is famous for smuggling Bibles into countries where Christian materials were banned. He used to drive through customs checkpoints with Bibles on the seat beside him, in open view, and God saw to it that he wasn’t hindered. Wonderful stuff. I can’t wait to take a look at it. It’s easy to read the Bible, and it’s easy to pray, and it’s easy to go to church. In my view, from what little experience I have as a serious Christian, the thing that divides your life between real Christianity and phoning it in is proving you trust God, by your actions. When you’re not doing this, you’re really almost dormant. When you are doing it, God seems to come alive. Obviously, that’s a trick of perspective. It’s like saying the world seems brighter when you open your eyes. But it’s true.

While Googling Brother Andrew, I just found an exciting website. It’s exciting because it deals with an issue that has been bothering me. I gripe a lot about the way Muslims behave these days, and I support the war on terror. But I never get around to mentioning something else that has been on my mind. These people need evangelism. They think they’re doing right; they are completely lost. They are being used. We have to fight them militarily, but hard as it may be to say, we should also be trying to help them out of their ignorance. I believe that, but I have done virtually nothing about it. And I am not alone, among conservatives. Maybe this is a sort of Achilles heel for us; it’s so easy to talk about nuking them and turning their cities to rubble that we may have forgotten we are talking about human beings. The leftist approach of unconditional forgiveness, appeasement, and self-blame is completely wrong. But Christians should be reaching out to these people. The terrible obstacles that have been thrown up should be a clue that this is something the enemy really doesn’t want us doing, and that it will have a powerful effect.

It turns out that Brother Andrew has a website called Secret Believers. I’ll bet a lot of you knew about it way before I did. It’s a site that helps believers in Muslim countries. They can’t get up on Sunday morning and go to church, but maybe they can use the Internet to help them find their way. This is fantastic. Things like this redeem the Internet. They almost make up for the constant flood of porn.

According to Charity Navigator, almost 80% of donations to Open Doors, the parent organization for Secret Believers, goes to programs. Not administration or fundraising. That’s pretty good. A really efficient charity will be in the high 80s.

I guess people wonder why I have been drawn back to my faith. Why I say I can’t get away from it. I generally keep that kind of information private, largely because I have never succeeded in convincing a single person that God existed. I really don’t have the gift, and I have found sharing my experiences with unbelievers to be a colossal waste of time. But I am getting older, and I care less and less what people think, so I have started to feel more willing to talk about reasons why I believe. I can’t pin it on one or two things. It’s a big three-dimensional matrix of facts and observations, and when you add them together, the sum is faith. It amounts to proof.

I was thinking about one of the reasons yesterday. Back when my mother was alive, she dealt with a person who had become delusional due to drug abuse. And this person was in my mother’s house. And this person hallucinated. Some of my memories of this are a little fuzzy, but as I recall, this person saw little beings on a TV screen, communicating with her and doing various things. She had names for them and so on. It was a complex hallucination. Maybe “hallucination” is the wrong word, since it implies the perception of something that isn’t real. Later, away from the TV, she claimed they were trying to contact her using the phone wires. By making little noises. The phones were on the hook, you understand. But this person heard the noises.

My mother told me about that not too long after it happened. But much, much later, she admitted something to me. She said that when this person claimed the beings were trying to contact her from the phone wires, she was in the same room. And she heard their voices, too. Coming from the phone wires.

It probably doesn’t mean much to you, but you don’t know my mother. She was an honest woman, and she didn’t make up stories to get attention. She was clearly reluctant to let anyone know about it.

That’s just one of many pieces of the matrix. One of the few that don’t come from my personal experience. If it were true, would it prove God existed? No, but it is consistent with the notion that there are evil beings assigned to certain families, to vex, separate, and destroy. I think my family has always had more than its share. When I was very young, I used to wake in the middle of the night and see hideous creatures crawling over the bed and across the ceiling and up and down the walls, and I have never been totally convinced they weren’t real.

One nice thing about hearing things like this from me is that you are reading the words of a person who has absolutely nothing to gain from this. I have no yacht to maintain. No pink silk suits. No private jet. No giant church with forty-foot ceilings. No airtime bills to pay. I will not lay hands on you. I do not want to send you a free book in exchange for a love gift. I may be the worst Christian in my entire zip code. In an odd way, maybe that makes me more credible.

Anyway, Secret Believers looks very interesting. If you know anything about it, let me know. It’s hard to imagine a better cause to give money to.

More

Here’s a link to some mp3s of Brother Andrew’s sermons. I’m listening to “Unhindered.” Very good, so far. Funny, he hasn’t said anything about me sending him a thousand dollars and God making me rich as a reward.

Sick List

Seems like I am constantly putting up prayer requests. How about one for Morgan Freeman, and one for Bernie Mac?

Freeman was in a car accident, and he and his passenger were injured. Bernie Mac is being treated for pneumonia.

I expect to be re-establishing my titanic web presence later today. Take heed.

Thanks, all who responded to last night’s request.

Sunday Drifts By

I hope everyone is enjoying Sunday as much as I am. I read the book of Romans, and I’m wandering through the Psalms.

Do me a little favor, if you feel like it. Last week I was working on a problem that has been taking up my time. I’m hoping the work I did will put it behind me, once and for all. If you would be so kind, say a little prayer that I succeed.

Can’t Wait any Longer

Keep the Sabbath, and every week you will learn something new about it. This week, I am learning how much it is possible to look forward to it. Have you ever had a week when you just couldn’t wait for your day of rest and worship? For me, this has been one of those weeks. I am looking forward to telling the world to get lost. In fact, I’m starting a little early.

I was just reading Isaiah 49, which is a wonderful chapter. It’s all about the Messiah and the restoration of Israel. I don’t mean to put Israel down. It’s a wonderful place, and a lot of it is very beautiful, but the only place where I’ve seen more dry rocks and dust is Utah. And a lot of Israel is empty. I hope I’m alive to see those things change.

I found an interesting page about Isaiah 49. I don’t know anything about the site. It suggests that Isaiah 49 refers to China when it talks about Gentiles coming to Israel and helping put it back together. Funny thing, and probably a coincidence, but for some reason I’ve felt compelled to keep China on the prayer list lately. I read about the growth of Christianity there, and it affected me. The Chinese people who were interviewed for the article I read made it sound like the Chinese had no commonly held moral drive to treat others well, and that the principles of Christianity had a profound effect on the way converts behaved toward their fellow human beings. I don’t know if that could be true; surely the basic notions of kindness and honesty and humanity and trustworthiness aren’t limited to the West.

Although we did get those toys full of lead, and the poisoned pet food.

I believe Hal Lindsey used to say China was mentioned in the Revelation. Someone used to say that, anyway. The Revelation mentions an army of 200 million soldiers, and I believe the eschatology buffs claimed the army had to be Chinese because of its size. But it may not be a human army.

Anyway, the page I linked to says some people think Christian influence is going to move from America to China, just as it moved from Europe to America. I can’t say we don’t deserve it. We have gotten pretty disgusting. And I suppose it would be a wonderful thing. I mean, China is the most dangerous nation on earth, and the Chinese don’t treat each other very well. So the more of them become Christians, the better off the world will be.

The Chinese may be better material for the church. We may be ahead of them in some ways, but we’ve been exposed to God, and an awful lot of us have decided we know everything, and we’ve chosen to reject Him, sometimes with amazing hostility and even a ludicrous sort of enmity. As if we can teach God a lesson, for not giving us everything we want and letting us live like one-percenters. Many people in Asia haven’t really been exposed to God, so presumably, a lot of them would react better to evangelizing than rebellious Westerners who think God is “over.”

Great Uncle Passes Away

I just found out my great uncle is dead. He was my grandmother’s younger brother. I wrote about him recently; it was July 2. I referred to him as “Bill” because I didn’t want any problems with some people I was criticizing. Some relatives had taken him in; something about caring for him in exchange for a house.

He got pneumonia and became emaciated, and my aunt found out about it and had him moved to a nice nursing home in her town. We were able to put him in better surroundings, and he got visits, and he had a roommate he liked. And we got him some creature comforts. But he didn’t last long. We should have been looking out for him; he has closer relatives whom you would expect to watch over him, but apparently they chose not to, and for one reason or another, we didn’t take up the slack very well. I can sit here and write about how I’m a thousand miles away and no one keeps me in the loop, but the final conclusion is that he had relations who could have helped him sooner, and he fell through the cracks.

The way Americans treat the aged is a disgrace, and I am sure we are judged for it. I’m glad I figured that out in time to be good to my father. I’m also glad I never had the opportunity to neglect a close relation of advancing years, because I might well have done it, had I had the chance. It’s so convenient to pack them off to warehouses and visit them once a year. I have done a lot of selfish things in my life; I can’t say that would have been beyond me.

It’s sad that we learn these lessons so far into life. Sometimes, by the time you learn, you’ve already done a great deal of damage, and it can’t be undone.

My mother did not live to enter old age. I was good to her, but not as good as I should have been, and not soon enough. I will always regret that I didn’t do better. But because of her, I will always be conscious of the need to do well by others who are older than I am.

If you’re in the same boat, or worse, I have something that might make you feel a little better. You can go to the website of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and donate money for the care of elderly Jews in the former USSR or Holocaust victims in Israel. You’ll never know who you helped, but at least you’ll know that you are doing what ought to be done. Some of these folks have no relatives, and I suppose some have relatives who just don’t care. Maybe there is someone you didn’t treat right when you had the chance. The IFCJ can help you show that you’ve changed.

By the way, the Manly Grub Forum has a board where people post the names of charities they like. Most of them are new to me. If you ever feel the need to give, the board might be of some use to you. You can find it here.

I talked to my aunt on the phone tonight. Apparently, people in the town where my mother and many of my relatives are buried look down on you if you don’t keep flowers on the graves of your loved ones. I guess I’m awful, but I have never cared much about putting flowers on graves. I always think of the dead as spirits who are far from the grave, so I don’t feel like it’s meaningful to put flowers on tombstones. Maybe that’s a character flaw.

She told me about an old mountain tradition called “Decoration Day.” People up in the hills used to make flowers from crepe paper and dip them in paraffin to protect them from the rain. Then on Decoration Day, they’d put them on the tombstones of people they knew. I had never heard of it. People up there must think my father and sister and I are barbarians, for failing to look after my mother’s grave.

My aunt told me that someone had placed American flags on the graves of my grandfather and her husband, my uncle. Probably for the Fourth.

A long time ago. someone in the family put a dogwood tree on one of the graves. My other aunt’s, I think. On the next visit, there was no tree on the grave. But there was one just like it on another grave, up the hill.

So tonight I told my aunt things were looking up. They used to steal our landscaping, and now they were making contributions to it. You have to wonder what kind of person puts a stolen tree on a grave.

Take a look at those charities. Might bring you some comfort.

She is a Mean Old Thing

I did a short Mancow spot this morning, and I was thrilled to get it. I will make Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man – The World’s Unhealthiest Cookbook famous if it kills me.

Right now, I’m taking a break. I always need to wind down after a radio bit. Somehow, I ended up Googling typhus and typhoid. Evidently, the British used to confine carriers in mental asylums, and some were not released until about sixteen years ago. You would think these miserable people would have been freed once antibiotics were available, but not all of them were. And some went crazy from confinement, assuring they would never be released.

We are so spoiled now. So lucky. For millennia, the world’s population increased slowly, and then in recent centuries, it took off. Why? Because life is so easy now, compared to the old days. Technology has given us so much protection.

I once read a book on the black plague. I had always assumed the plague was a one-time thing, but boy, was I wrong. Once plague epidemics began in Europe, they came back over and over. You probably know that the disease was carried by fleas, but it was also possible to contract it by being near a person who coughed or sneezed. Then you died in misery, and you stood a good chance of infecting your loved ones in the process.

And we worry about gas-price spikes.

Typhoid bore similarities to the plague. Some believe the “plague” Thucydides wrote about was typhoid, and some believe it was typhus. You can spread typhoid by failing to wash your hands after you use the toilet, which means about 75% of American men are potential carriers. Typhus is no fun, either, and it’s spread by lice. Before the modern age, there was no way to fight lice, and even in the 20th century, lice managed to infect many, many people.

People used to die from the flu, by the millions. And the bird flu scare reminded us that it can happen again. Now that I think about it, millions of people have died from malaria, which is preventable, because we haven’t used DDT responsibly. It’s funny; the hippies call the earth–an inanimate object–“Gaia,” and they claim it’s our mother, and that it wants to take care of us. The truth is that the earth has been working hard to kill us since the dawn of time, and it succeeds in numbers that would make Hitler and Stalin and Mao weep with admiration. Does your mother want you dead? Mine never did. I’d like to hear Gaia’s loving explanation for Katrina or the Dust Bowl or locusts or cretinism. And how about radon? The earth doesn’t love us, and it doesn’t take care of us. The earth is our enemy, and we continue to exist because we made it our slave. We survive because we fight the earth every day.

It’s funny; we see ourselves as precious and important, but in the past, we were downright ephemeral. Life was unbelievably perilous.

These days, if you avoid heart attacks, car wrecks, and cancer, you can pretty much expect to reach 80. At least, that has been true for the generations which reached that age in recent decades. It may not be true of the current generation; there may be a problem ahead of us which will change the picture.

We feel entitled to grow old. How strange that would have seemed to a person living in the nineteenth century.

I have to wonder if our illusion of invulnerability contributes to our immorality. If you’re 35 and you’ve never been to a funeral, maybe it’s only natural that you would ignore God and do whatever you want. Adversity changes people’s attitudes. They say that during the plague epidemics, people would throw their jewelry and money over monastery walls, to bribe God. And the monks threw it back, fearing it carried disease.

One of life’s great challenges is to maintain faith, gratitude, and obedience, in times when life is easy. There is a perpetual cycle. Faith and obedience beget prosperity, prosperity begets pride, pride begets sin, and sin begets misfortune. Which begets faith and obedience.

I wish I hadn’t started Googling! Sometimes a break can take more out of you than work.

I Have Been Too Hard on Myself

I got a few comments yesterday that were so favorable, they were somewhat embarrassing. Of course, I am grateful. I’m not complaining.

One of the dangers of addressing an audience is that people may begin to think too highly of you. So you can start out with good intentions and end up moonwalking on top of an SUV outside a courthouse, because you have become convinced you can do no wrong. I sincerely espouse solid Christian morals and principles of good character, but that doesn’t mean I do a good job of living up to them.

Since I started trying to write for a living, I have become concerned that I would eventually become something of a public figure, and that people might treat me with more regard than I am due. It’s a funny thing; if you have even a little fame, people you don’t even know will start trying to give you things and do things for you, and some will treat you as though you are more than human. I can’t help being concerned about that. I think glory is like wealth. A certain amount is okay, but if you get too much, you face the risk that it will corrupt you. I have always wished I could write books that were famous, without becoming famous, personally. I know that’s not realistic; it’s a hard trick to pull off. Especially when you have to do interviews in order to get where you want to be.

Some people desire fame. I think it’s one of the worst things that can happen to you. If I could sign a contract right now that assured that I would make a good living from writing, but that only my friends and family and professional contacts would know who I was, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

I sometimes think one of the reasons lower beings are supposed to glorify God is that the alternative is to accept the glory for themselves and become poisoned by it. There are some things you are supposed to hand over to God. Vengeance, for example. A portion of your time. A portion of your income. I believe we’re supposed to be like oxen that tread out corn. We’re allowed to take a reasonable amount of what we produce–we’re not muzzled–but we’re not supposed to keep everything.

If things go well, I will try not to allow my head to be turned.

In other news, Baldilocks has bought a domain for the site she intends to put up to get PR for her efforts to fund the Kenyan school Barack Obama abandoned. But she needs a web designer. Someone give her a hand.

Must Have Had a Fair Wind

I am mystified. I ordered a box set of Horatio Hornblower DVDs on Friday at 11 p.m., and they arrived today! How is that possible?

Unfortunately I’m already sucking them up way too fast. I could not keep myself from watching the first two today.

I think that if you have any potential inside you for the development of character, you will find it impossible not to be moved by Horatio Hornblower. What wonderful lessons you can learn from his adventures. Don’t whine. Don’t make life hard on those in authority over you. Don’t forget that you have to serve your subordinates more than they serve you. Admit responsibility for your errors. Look for ways to solve problems and improve things, beyond what your duty requires you to do. None of this stuff will get you far in an average workplace; politicking is the way to get ahead. If you want advancement, learn to control others. If you want self-respect, competence, resourcefulness, and satisfaction, learn to control yourself.

How much we are cheated of, when our parents let us raise ourselves. How slim the likelihood that we will find the strength and the inclination to teach ourselves the lessons overlooked by our parents during our formative years. Oddly, the best way to make up for your parents’ mistakes is to refuse to blame them, and to treat the mistakes as though they were your own.

Maybe that’s the true magic from which God wanted us to benefit when He told us to honor our parents. When you choose to stop blaming them, and you put yourself out to compensate for their shortcomings, and you try to help them lead as they should lead, you will find that you become what you wish they had been, and you are likely to improve them, too, by example.

I know Hornblower is a fictional character, but it’s not unrealistic to emulate his virtues. They’re not superhuman.

I enjoy these DVDs for the same reason Christianity is exciting to me. Christianity offers self-improvement. The New Testament doesn’t just say you get eternal life. It says that while you live, provided you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, God will build you up from the inside and make you a better person. More disciplined. More courageous. Kinder. More patient.

I only have 8 more DVDs. I know I’m going to burn them up by Friday.

If you have kids, you couldn’t ask for better entertainment to share with them. You could pause the DVDs here and there and explain why Hornblower makes the hard choices he makes. Sure beats Grand Theft Auto and R-rated movies.

Life is beautiful, if you know what kind of beauty to look for and where to look for it. I think that’s one of the lessons of maturity. We think we enjoy our venal pleasures while we’re young, but they always come with a high price, and we don’t even know what enjoyment is until we’re old and we have suffered and learned. Maybe God gives us old age and infirmity to keep us from growing to love life so much we refuse to die. The older you get, the more you are able to see what there is in life to love.

Thoughts like these increase my sadness that we are becoming a nation of degenerates and barbarians. I’m just glad I’m managing to pick up a few clues while I’m still young enough to make use of them.

Prayer Request

I just read the news story about Bob Novak’s brain tumor. Unbelievable. This makes two famous people and one blogger I know, who have been diagnosed recently with brain tumors. Ted Kennedy, Bob Novak, and Linda SOG.

I invited everyone to say a prayer that Senator Kennedy would be healed, and I did the same for Linda. I hope you will take a moment to repeat those prayers, and to add a new one for Mr. Novak.