Memorial Weekend Mitzvah

Aaron’s boss, Howard W., is going in for surgery. He has had a lot of abdominal surgery already, and he has a new infection that has to be removed.

Please say a prayer for his uneventful recovery.

Ask Pharaoh

I found an answer to my question regarding a way to store my spare magazines. If you enter “sunglasses pouch” in the Google Products form, you get microfiber drawstring pouches for 78 cents. That is pretty hard to beat. I would get them locally, but I have no idea who has them, and I would blow four dollars in gas just to find out. Then I’d have to pay tax.

I think the oil problem is going to crush bricks-and-mortar retailers. In the past, when you shopped online, you got better information, lower prices, and no tax. Now you get to save significant gas money. Tell me why I should ever leave the house again.

Very bad news, if you ask me. People will lose businesses and jobs. And what happens in the future when a hostile power effortlessly destroys our communications satellites and cables? Instant disruption of electronic shopping and transactions. Economic chaos.

In the meantime, good deals abound.

My great hope is that the oil mess is like the housing mess. Greatly inflamed by deranged speculators. Exacerbated deliberately by Muslims angry over our support of the only civilized nation in the Middle East. Temporary. People are saying it’s going to get worse, forever. I don’t see how that’s possible. It’s not like world demand for oil instantly increased to a degree that justifies current prices. Things are getting tighter, but we–the human race–could still pump and refine enough oil to meet demand, if we tried. And eventually, we will have to acknowledge that nuclear power is clean, safe, cheap, and abundant. A lie can’t persist for eternity. Some people say nukes are no good because it takes 20 years to build a plant. I say it takes that long because we’re not motivated. Kick the greenies out of the way, stop humoring the hysterical, and it probably takes more like three years. It didn’t take us 20 years to build the first plant at Hanford, when we were trying to create the first atom bomb. I very much doubt the construction of safe modern plants takes other countries 20 years.

I like to think our current hardships are a labor pain, to remind us of the horrors that lie ahead as the second coming approaches. Human beings increasingly accept the conceit that they run the world and that they can solve their own problems. In reality, God runs everything. If we have good harvests, if we have oil, if we have economic strength, it isn’t because Americans are superior. It’s because God chose to give these things to us. And He can take them away in a heartbeat. Maybe God is giving us a little prod to remind us that we can’t celebrate sexual perversion and let Israel down and indulge in idolatry and generally offend Him without losing our blessings. Lately we’ve been becoming more like Godless Europe. So it’s only natural that we should get a taste of their economic inferiority.

Could be worse. We could be on our way to slavery in Babylon, in chains. What has happened to us so far is pretty mild.

The global warming myth is probably the most ridiculous example of man’s belief that he is a god. Aside from the bad science, who could possibly believe in God and also think man could control the weather? Remember the book of Genesis. Who gave the Egyptians lean years and fat years? It wasn’t Halliburton.

I think our behavior has gotten so bad, we’re teetering on the line between “blessed” and “cursed.” The bad things that threaten to occur now are so ridiculous and avoidable, yet so possible, that they can’t be anything but the result of divine action. Who could be dumb enough to believe in ethanol, knowing it has to cause starvation and that it won’t help with our energy problems? Nobody with any common sense. Yet here we are, with food prices skyrocketing because we invested in this absurd, suicidal project. What nation could be dumb enough to refrain from using its own vast energy reserves, or from developing adequate refining capacity? Yet here we are, with gasoline threatening to hit twelve dollars per gallon and our own oil and uranium still in the ground.

Seems to me that one sign that a misfortune is due to a curse is that it happens even though it appears to be something that could be easily avoided. If man is so powerful and so smart, these things should not be happening. But they are.

In Exodus, God sent ten plagues to Egypt, and some scholars believe each one was intended to humiliate a particular Egyptian false deity, by destroying the particular blessings that false deity was believed to provide. Maybe what’s happening to us now is intended to humiliate the worst false deity of all. Man.

The other day I saw Dagen McDowell and Ben Stein on Fox, claiming we needed eleven-dollar gasoline. NEEDED. These are supposed to be experts. Imagine what life would be like if their prayers were answered. Bedroom communities all over America would be destroyed, because no one would be able to get to work. The wealth contained in the real estate in those communities would be annihilated; it would be as though it had never existed. Retail sales would shrivel. Food prices would climb out of sight, and production would plummet. Factories would close. Manufacturers would shut down. Goods would be unavailable. McDowell says mass transit is the answer. Tell that to people who live where mass transit does not exist, and where it’s not practical. And how do you build new mass transit with an economy destroyed by expensive energy? Where does the money to build it come from? Let me guess. Higher taxes. On people who no longer earn enough to contribute anything significant. You can’t starve the golden goose and then jack up the egg quota.

Economic prosperity comes from consumption. No sales? No prosperity. It’s that simple. And obvious. Yet intelligent people somehow believe the opposite. How can that happen, if something beyond the natural is not at work?

Some people say conservation is the answer. Some say increased production is the answer. Fundamentally, refraining from offending God is the answer. The world is too complicated for man to run. Without help from above, we can expect nothing but defeat. One of the big lessons I’ve learned over the last few years is that when things go badly for me, the way to start fixing them is to examine my own behavior and attitudes. Generally, that’s where the cause lies. And the same applies to Americans as a whole.

Cancer

I guess everyone knows about Ted Kennedy’s malignant brain tumor. Say a prayer. Let’s not be Democratic Underground.

Which End Does the Bullets Come Out of?

My copy of America’s First Freedom came this week. I was just flipping through the article on the Heller case. This is the second amendment case the Supreme Court is considering, regarding the draconian and totalitarian D.C. gun ban.

I saw something interesting in there. Justice Breyer tried to make the facially absurd argument that the second amendment only applies to militias. Mr. Gura, the attorney representing Mr. Heller, countered with facts, noting that research has shown that men familiar with firearms in their private lives make better soldiers.

The other day, I talked to my dad about his military service. He laughed about the tough Detroit street kids he served with. He said they turned out to be pretty disappointing. He mentioned one who cried when they cut off his greasy gangster haircut.

My dad grew up in Eastern Kentucky, where guns were–and are–a part of life. Like toasters and clocks and so on. For people like him, dealing with guns was not a challenge or a safety problem. But the Detroit boys were incompetent and dangerous. He said they had a bad habit of turning around at the range, with rifles in their hands, pointing them at instructors and other soldiers. You have to wonder what percentage of them got good enough to hit the enemy. Probably a very small fraction.

My father won some sort of marksmanship prize. I doubt he was competing against city kids.

He said he liked the M1 rifle, but that he couldn’t hit anything with the .45 pistol he was issued. Apparently, a lot of people had issues with them. Maybe they made them loose so they wouldn’t jam up.

I was thinking I would like to get him an M1, but then I checked the prices. Wow. A thousand dollars, for a beat-up milsurp. I love my dad and all, but geez. I have to think about that.

Part of our military strength comes from the private use and development of arms. Consider that when you vote against the second amendment.

Kim du Toit has written a bit about the importance of Supreme Court justices. I wish he had mentioned the lower courts, which have much more power. It amazes me that talking heads and second amendment pundits almost never bring this up. Federal district and appellate judges run your life, very directly. Much more directly than the Supreme Court or Congress. And the President appoints them, and they can’t be fired. They stay in office for life. They’re like the Pope, except they have power.

If you vote for a Democrat President, you’re voting for dozens of judges who will implement his policies. You’re voting for gun bans, late-term abortions, open borders, the disarmament of our intelligence operations, the end of privacy, freedom for criminals, and the end of states’ rights. You are voting for totalitarianism and the eventual abolition of state governments. If you can’t get that through your head, you don’t deserve to be free. You probably don’t want to be free, whether you realize it or not.

I keep thinking about the mess the GOP is in. People say it’s because of the war. They say it’s because of the economy. The most unfortunate thing they say, in my opinion, is that it’s because we don’t have a “big tent.” As a Christian, I think they have it precisely backward. The GOP used to be a party that was more closely aligned with Christian beliefs. Now we’re all about sexual immorality and abortion and coddling Israel’s enemies and every other non-Christian notion presented to us. And we’re getting the reward people always get when they get away from God. Failure. It may come soon, it may come later, but it always comes. In the Eighties, we were much bolder about our religious underpinnings, and our President utterly crushed the opposition. This was at a time when the country was more liberal than it is now. Now we cower and kowtow before the rudderless swing voters, and we are getting thrashed. I have come to believe that we were given success because we tried to do the right thing. Part of faith in God is believing that if you do what’s right, you’ll get good leadership.

I am so sick of “socially liberal but fiscally conservative.” Doesn’t that mean “sinful but selfish”? Wouldn’t the exact opposite be less offensive to God? I’m socially conservative. Maybe if we please God with our behavior and our faith, we’ll be so prosperous it won’t matter if we’re fiscally liberal.

I’m not getting a bunch of convict tattoos. I’m not going to shave my head and grow a chin beard. I’m not going to smoke dope. I’m not going to sleep around. I will not grow a ponytail. I will not join the cult of self-esteem. I’m not going to imitate the lost. If I ever advocated buddying up to “hip conservatives,” I apologize, because I was insane. It was a mistake. I am not hip, and I never will be. I refuse. I just want to become a better Christian and be better to other human beings. When you die, you can’t take “hip” with you.

Man, do I need to get out of Miami.

I Want a Revolver With Wheels

Is this a beautiful day or what? Trust me. It is. Granted, the dryness of May is wearing off, and the horrific heat of summer is starting, but it’s sunny and bright, and I’m healthy, and Marv and Maynard are fine, and my new tomato plants look good, and I have a lot of useful things to do today.

Lately it seems like every day is beautiful. Life has gotten progressively better for me since I entered law school, but over the last year, as my relationship with God has gotten closer, things have improved even more. I can’t remember the last time I went to bed without thanking God for the beautiful day I just had, or the last time I woke up and didn’t give thanks for a beautiful day, in advance. And the feeling doesn’t seem all that closely related to whether I did or expect to do anything pleasant on the day in question. I feel the same way on days that, objectively, seem pretty bad. That is possibly the strangest benefit of Christianity. You tend to feel happy and at peace regardless of the circumstances.

I can’t explain it.

I learned all sorts of good things yesterday. I found out that Messianic Jews believe Satan is a rebellious, evil spirit, just as Christians do. That’s not what the Orthodox believe. I also read about Corrie ten Boom’s experiences dealing with spiritual enemies. This is one of the more confusing topics in Christianity, because the Bible is vague about it. Some people run around verbally exercising authority over spirits all day. Others think it’s crazy or wrong. And then there is the problem of wondering whether you’re talking to yourself. You generally can’t see supernatural beings. There must be occasions when we assume they’re around, but they’re not.

She said she spoke at a church in Poland, and that there was an oppressive atmosphere there, and she got sick of it and commanded the spirit responsible to leave. And the atmosphere changed. I am inclined to believe anything this lady says. Her track record seems too sound to doubt.

A lot of Christians think it’s fine to believe in God, but wrong to believe in Satan and demons. You have to wonder what Bible they read. I have no interest in arguing about whether spirits exist. I saw one a long time ago, while I was wide awake, on a very ordinary day. Conceited intellectual arguments can’t change that; don’t waste your time. Other people have seen them too.

Foul spirits seem to be associated with particular locations or people or animals or objects. The impression I get from reading and from personal experience is that they often work on a particular home or building. And it seems like they have a thing about doors and entrances. Maybe I’m wrong. Both times I drew closer to God, I felt an urge to clean up around doorways. I sort of think they like corners, too.

I don’t know. I wish I knew more about it.

I used to keep this stuff to myself, but lately I have ceased to care. We’re all going to be dead soon. What will it matter if wrong, lost people thought I was a kook? Also, many people thought I was a kook long before I mentioned any of this.

Talk about kooks…what about Jesus? He saw demons. He talked to demons. He said he was the Son of God. What about Moses? He claimed he saw God’s presence in a flaming bush. He said God handed him two tablets of stone. He said God spoke to him face to face. These days, that kind of talk gets you a straitjacket, a handful of happy pills, and a prime seat in front of the TV in the day room. It’s a little crazy for a Christian to call someone a kook, just because that person has had experiences consistent with those our revered predecessors have had.

I’m sure there are folks out there who have seen much more than I have.

I’m getting more reloading tips. I’m too lazy to look, but I apparently said I was putting sizing lube on primers. If I did, I was wrong. I meant to say I was putting it on cases. I gave Chris Byrne the impression that I was squirting primers right out of the brass tube on the press, but by “tube” I actually meant the clear tube attached to the brass one. The clear tube goes up and down and tends to come out of whatever container it’s in, spraying primers all over the place. Not sure what the best answer is; maybe I should get a tube six feet long and just not worry about it. Og says running a primed case through a decapper will set the primer off. I am happy to take his word on that, since the alternative is to put his statement to the test.

A commenter says target sights will do more for my shooting than match-grade dies. I ought to go to a gun shop and look at a gun with target sights. But if, as I suspect, they’re exactly like the sights on my .357, it would be a waste of time.

I’ve been told I should get plastic ammunition boxes for my reloads. But I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Every time I go to the range, I reach into the nearest trash can and pull out some empty ammunition boxes, and they seem to work fine. I already have a few plastic boxes; some of my .50 AE ammunition was packaged in them from the factory.

Speaking of that caliber, I’d love to reload for it. I can’t believe I can’t beat a dollar a round. My problem, however, is that I haven’t found cheap lead yet. The cheap stuff is heavy. I want 300 grain bullets. Oregon Trails (Laser-Cast) has .370-grain bullets. Not sure if they’ll work in a pistol.

Ay, caramba! It looks like the price of .50 AE ammo has doubled. Cheaper Than Dirt wants almost forty a box. Hmm…Midway says they are eventually going to have Hornady ammunition for about $25/20. I didn’t know Hornady made loaded ammunition. I’m not sure, because I’m not positive what diameter I need, but checking around, I think I can get decent bullets (jacketed!) for about 20 cents each. So–checking powder and primer prices–I should be about to make ammunition for about 33 cents per round.

For crying out loud. I have to do that. After a hundred rounds, the dies would be paid off. I’m disgusted that the margin is so high on .50 AE ammunition. Did I make a mathematical error? Three cents for the primer. Ten cents for around 30 grains of powder. Twenty for the bullet. I already have brass. Let’s see…new brass is 29 cents per round. I guess that explains why new ammunition would cost a dollar a round, but two dollars still seems high.

Geez. I can shoot .50 AE for less than the price of new .45 ACP.

I don’t understand why there is so much data for the S&W .500 and so little for the .50 AE. Both are excessively large, but the .500 takes you right to the “stupid” level. The .50 is arguably useful for hunting or for bear protection. Or whaling. The .500 appears to be too big and heavy and clumsy to be of any use for anything. I love silly, oversized guns, but even I don’t want this one. I guess the “mine is bigger” factor has proven irresistible to a lot of reloaders.

That’s the morning drivel. Use it as you see fit.

New Ammunition, in More Ways Than One

Today I felt like my head just would not hold any more religion, so I took a break and made 50 rounds of .45 ACP. Things went pretty well, although I am getting severely annoyed with Hornady’s spent-primer tube. This thing hangs off the press, and dead primers go into it. Sounds, great, but the tube goes up and down as you work the press, so it’s not easy to find a container that will catch the primers. Short containers don’t work because the primers bounce out or the tube drifts out. Tall ones fall over. I taped a Baggie to it, but one side of the mouth fell down, and the primers started spewing out on the floor.

I was thinking I might weight the bottom of an old 2-liter soda bottle.

I tried to put a little Imperial sizing wax in my brass, but I don’t think I accomplished much. I’m not sure how to do it. Maybe I should get a dedicated cloth bag and wipe wax on the inside of it and then toss the primers around in it. I know I don’t have to use it, but it seems to make things go more smoothly.

I still have 40 rounds I don’t trust, so I have been taking them apart. I thought I could spread out the agony, substituting one of these for every tenth casing while making rounds. But that doesn’t work, because you have to push the lever all the way down to charge the shell ahead of the one in the decapping die, and you can’t depress the lever completely when a primed case is under that die. Either you deprime a primed case and lose a good primer, or you fail to charge the case ahead of it.

Wish I could shoot on Mondays instead of Fridays, but they don’t ask my advice when they set the range schedule.

Can anyone give me advice on target sights? I’m not sure, but I think the single biggest problem I have right now is figuring out what the gun is aimed at. The front sights on my guns are too small; they don’t fill the gaps in the rear sights, so it’s easy to end up with the front sight off to one side or another. Also, the front sights are just too damn big. I can tell I’m shooting at the center ring, but that’s about it. Of course, once the middle of the bullseye is gone, you have to guess, anyway.

I know a lot of 1911s have target sights, and I wanted to get one. But then it occurred to me that “target sights” probably means the same thing I have on my revolver. A giant front sight coupled with an adjustable rear sight. I don’t think that would be any more precise than what I have now.

Someone suggested a peep sight. I’m not sure what a pistol peep sight is like. I’ve seen giant weird sights on race guns, but I don’t know if they’re suited for precision shooting, or just for hitting the same object over and over, quickly.

I’ll figure it out.

The Complete Jewish Bible and the related New Testament commentary are wonderful. They make me realize how lucky Gentiles are to know about Jesus, who is, after all, the Jewish Messiah. You can see from the commentary how much easier it would have been for Jews to understand and worship Him. Christians do their best, but we have had to guess a lot, and we’ve made mistakes.

As Bible translations go, I find this one easiest to read, except for one thing. You have to get used to the Hebrew names. A name will pop up, and you’ll have no idea who it is, and then it will turn out to be someone you’re very familiar with.

One fun thing about it: about half the men have names ending in “yahu.”

Another small quibble: the Christian tradition of printing Bibles in two columns, broken into verses, with annotations in the middle is very helpful, and you probably won’t understand how helpful until you see a Bible where the text goes clear across the page, with two or three annotations at the bottom.

I love The Spirit-Filled Bible, and these two volumes will take their places beside it now.

I am Master of the Press

Here’s a great tip for people who want to get used casings really clean before reloading them. Put them in a tumbler in the afternoon, turn it on, and then FORGET ABOUT IT UNTIL RIGHT BEFORE YOU GO TO BED.

Man, those casings look good.

I read a lot of Corrie ten Boom’s Tramp for the Lord today. Highly recommended, if you’re trying to get used to the idea of obeying God and living by faith.

Have You Even Showered Yet?

Today while refusing to get out of bed on time, I flipped from The Weather Channer to Fox News. I used to use Fox as my alarm channel, but there is something soothing about The Weather Channel, which Fox lacks. In spite of Heidi Cullen’s campaign to destroy the careers of meteorologists who disagree with her about global warming.

Greg Gutfeld and some other Internet personality were guests on Fox and Friends. The host said they were going to look at Youtube videos. He joked that Gutfeld scoured the Internet for material all day every Sunday, because he had nothing better to do.

I thought about that. Sunday is like that for many Americans. A wasted day. You get drunk and have fun on Friday night. You rest and recover from your hangover on Saturday. Sunday rolls around, and you lie in bed with a newspaper.

This is what people do, while refusing to give one weekend day to God. It’s what I’ve generally done. Lying in bed with a newspaper, or barbecuing, or watching sports, is better than a day of rest and devotion.

I am here to tell you, it’s no bargain. You can use that time to rest AND improve yourself AND heal and strengthen your family. Sleeping until noon, or slouching around drunk on a lawn chair is not a good substitute.

People have all sorts of stubborn problems. Addiction. Divorce. Bad relationships with their kids. Depression. Anxiety. Loneliness. Boredom. Miserable jobs. The sensation that life is meaningless. We look for answers all the time. Psychiatrists. Physicians. Prostitutes. Hobbies. Cults. Fast living. Oprah. My belief is that we have these problems because we don’t have proper relationships with God. These are problems to which God is the natural and effective solution. Without Him, we are SUPPOSED to have these problems. A miserable person will look for ten different inadequate remedies for ten different challenges, instead of praying to the one God who can fix everything. We get a little relief here and there, but it’s illusory. It’s usually temporary, or it’s not really satisfying, or it has a cost so high, it’s not worth it. The Godless life is like communism; it offers a promise it never keeps. The communists were supposed to take over the world, and every time they made a trivial bit of progress, they took it as encouragement. Now that’s all in ruins. The same thing applies to other ineffective solutions that come from earthly sources.

I remember trying drugs to fix ADD. What a disaster. It ruined my chances of becoming a physicist. And I thought I was a Christian at the time. I don’t know why I didn’t make a better effort to use my faith. Anyway, it’s a great example of a very hard problem that human solutions can’t fix. It was amazing, how resilient my ADD was. At first 10 milligrams of Ritalin fixed it. Eventually, I could take over a hundred per day and not get relief. Wellbutrin worked for a while. First thing you know, I was taking two and a half times the maximum dose in a desperate effort to make my mind work. After that, I found that a tiny dose of Prozac that most people wouldn’t even feel affected me right away and drove me around the bend for weeks.

Why didn’t I just find a church? At the very least, I could have prayed more and gotten my life right. Things would have worked out. Maybe I would have had to give up physics anyway. But I would have had peace, and a door would have opened eventually.

A weekly day of devotion would have helped me toward my goal. Instead, I lay around watching TV and playing Duke Nukem on the Internet. Wow, that paid off real good.

Businesses have meetings even when they’re going well, don’t they? I think the sabbath fulfills the same purpose. Meet up with God. Remember your priorities. Look for problems. Find encouragement. Fill out a TPS report.

Okay, don’t do that last part.

Obscure reference.

Maybe I should publish a Talmud to help people understand this blog.

The sad thing about earthly answers is that they work so well for short times. It’s hard to quit when you think you could get it right with just a little more effort. Ask the socialists.

It seems like every week, I get a new lesson on what Jews go through on shabbat. This week? How it feels when you think you didn’t get enough done during the previous six days. I would really like to make myself some .38 Super ammunition today; I felt like I was finally getting on top of the reloading situation. But it’s going to have to wait, most likely. I don’t rigidly enforce my policy of not doing anything that isn’t God-related, and if I feel like I need a break, I might spend an hour with the press. But at the moment, it’s not in my plans.

I hope some of you will give the sabbath a try, and also that you’ll find someone better qualified than I to teach you about it. You may be surprised. Like a lot of the things God wants us to do, it sounds like a tax, but it ends up feeling like a gift.

Skip to the Parts That Interest You

I have a lot of housekeeping to do today. I have been neglecting emails for maybe a week, and if I don’t catch up, no one will ever email me again, except spammers.

Speaking of spam, I got a really dumb one the other day. The subject line advertised “Oprah’s fat burner.”

Would YOU buy that?

“Yul Brynner’s hair restorer.” “Steve H.’s tips for picking up hot chicks.”

I was not tempted.

I complained that I can’t use my .38-caliber dies to make three different calibers, unless I am willing to adjust the dies every time I go from one caliber to another. People suggested using spacers. Thanks for the help, but I don’t see it working. If you put a spacer under the rim on the bushing, the bushing won’t seat. If you put a spacer on top of the bushing, the locking collar won’t work. At least I don’t think it will. Then there is the problem of finding something suitable and then figuring out how to grind it to within a thousandth of an inch of the thickness I need.

If only I had been a total man and made myself a belt sander. I think a belt sander with a disk on the side would do it.

Og says the sizing die doesn’t need to be adjusted for height. I thought that sounded crazy, but I guess it’s right, since the measurement on that die is from the bottom of the case. But that leaves me with two dies that have to be changed, and I don’t think I can buy them without picking up a sizing die in the same package.

I’m wondering if I should get a couple of match-grade dies. I don’t know how much difference it makes. I didn’t know they existed until I already had my plain old “custom grade” dies. I’m inclined to think that tiny imperfections in the bullets make more difference than dies. I shot one bullet yesterday that was a little dinged up, and I suspect it was the reason I got a wicked flyer.

When Mike was a kid, he used to hack up bullets and then shoot them to see what they did. He says they made wonderful sounds. Mike and I did a lot of fantastic, stupid things together. This is not one of them. Although he was there when I took a largemouth bass with a .30-30.

I’ve been reading about casting bullets. There are two reasons I didn’t start out that way. First, I’m not sure I want to screw with alloying lead to make it hard enough for 1400-fps rounds. Second, it looks like a huge pain. In The ABCs of Reloading, they talk about it. Apparently you have to get tiny molds that only hold a few bullets, and casting each batch requires pouring, cooling, and so on. It must take half a day to do 50 rounds. On the up side, this would make shooting nearly free. The brass and lead are most of the cost. And I don’t pay for brass, except eventually (when I run out) .38 Super.

So far, Laser-Cast has made a lead believer out of me. I don’t know if it was the Unique or the bullets, but the rounds I shot made me very, very happy. I am sorry to confess that I haven’t cleaned the gun yet, but I would be amazed if ~700 fps rounds left anything in the barrel.

I’ve been told that Hodgdon makes a powder that is interchangeable with Unique, yet which produces less crap. If I could confirm that, I’d go ahead and buy a large jug. I’d hate to put 5.1 grains of Hodgdon in a round and then find out it’s twice as powerful as Unique.

I’m sorely tempted to buy a 1911 with target sights. If I could narrow my groups by an inch, I’d be Boss of the Range. At least in my own mind, which is all that matters. I don’t know if better sights would get me there. I am not sure why I got carry sights on the SW1911. I wanted to be able to carry the .38 Super on pimp occasions, but generally, carrying a huge 1911 seems like a bad idea. Unconcealed, sure. Concealed? Less than ideal.

I know I’m boring 75% of my readers to death with guns. So here is some food stuff.

I bought a $6/pound rib roast at Winn-Dixie last week, simply because there was no way I could pass it up, and it has been aging since Sunday. I have decided I want to fix prime rib for me and my father, instead of cutting it into steaks. According to Bobby Flay, it’s a simple matter of roasting at 350 until it hits 135 inside. Does anyone know if this will work?

I plan to do 130. If it were just me, 120. But my dad goes nearly medium-well. I plan to cover it with kosher salt and mashed garlic. Wish I knew how to make horseradish sauce. Maybe I can find out.

I completely lose my mind over prime rib, but I’ve never made it. The rib steak is the main thing that justifies the existence of a cow. Everything else is second-rate. Well, except for ice cream. If I pull this off, in the future, it will be tough for me to choose between steaking and cooking whole roasts.

Let’s see. Religion. I’m all excited about my new books (Aaron: don’t look!). First, I bought The Complete Jewish Bible. The leather version isn’t all that much more than the paperback, and it should last longer, so that’s what I got. I also got The Complete Jewish New Testament Commentary. These books were written by and for Messianic Jews. I started reading in earnest last night. It’s fantastic. I can’t recommend the OT/Hebrew Bible part so much, because it has no commentary book to go with it. But I’ve been reading Matthew (Mattityahu) with the commentary on the side, and it’s wonderful.

I’m inadvertently learning a lot about Hebrew. Before I got these books, it had occurred to me that Jews described Hebrew as if it were basically a giant collection of puns. And so far, these books bear out that suspicion, in spades. It’s no wonder the Jews go crazy interpreting the Bible. The layers of meaning in Hebrew scripture are worse than The Matrix.

I keep getting little bursts of illumination. For example, I figured out that the birth name of the singer Matisyahu is probably Matthew. The name Matthew is “Mattityahu” in the Bible I bought, and Jews in Israel tend to use “T” where American Jews use “S” (shabbos/shabbat), so Matisyahu is probably the same as Mattityahu. Am I right?

It’s very slow going. It took me about an hour to get through three or four chapters of Matthew.

Sometimes it’s annoying, because the guy who edited the Bible and commentary (Daniel H. Stern)corrects beliefs Christians accept without question. But that’s what I bought the book for, so I shouldn’t complain. Christians often have an unhealthy pride about their relationship with God, as if we were chosen to know all the answers, because we’re so much nicer than the Jews. But the reality is, Messianic Jews have a much better background for understanding the New Testament. We need to accept that and realize that when Christianity drifted away from its Jewish roots, we lost things only Jews can restore to us.

As Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein–not Messianic–likes to point out, prophecy says a time will come when ten gentiles will grab the hem of a Jew’s garment and ask to be taught about the Torah. Looks like that’s happening.

It’s amazing how often Stern confirms things I already suspected. For example, I think “the Kingdom of God” often refers to God’s dominion inside us. I assume God has been helping me along, providing me with insight.

For about 20 years, I’ve suspected that Zerubbabel, in the book of Zechariah, was a type of the Holy Spirit. I wish I knew what Stern thinks about him. And sometimes I wonder if the Third Temple will be a physical building. It’s clear that Jesus expected his followers to be a living temple. And Paul used the word “temple” to describe the human body. I think that when Jesus drove the money-changers out of the Second Temple, it symbolized the Holy Spirit driving counterproductive earthly motivations out of believers.

I also got a copy of Corrie ten Boom’s Tramp for the Lord. It takes up where The Hiding Place left off. She was supposed to be killed in a concentration camp, but the Germans released her by mistake, and she went on to become a traveling evangelist. A “missionary to America.” Is that a humbling phrase, or what?

Wonderful book. Too short.

The more good stuff you expose yourself to, the easier it is to be a Christian, and the more peace you have. Something to think about the next time you buy a book or turn on the TV or listen to music. This lesson has been helpful to me.

Let me know what you think.

Too Tactical for Words

I’m getting unbelievably cocky. I’m considering running into the garage, slapping the .38 caliber dies on the press, and making some .38 Super ammunition for tomorrow.

Am I insane? Don’t answer.

I had some idiotic and truly ludicrous personal business to take care of this week, and it has been dragging me away from blogging and my hobbies, but I’m back, and tomorrow is RANGE DAY.

I’m thinking I may wear a face shield for the first 50 rounds of each caliber. I already look stupid with my giant tactical rolling toolbox, so a face shield will not make things worse.

On other news, my messianic-Jewish Bible and New Testament commentary arrived. I had to order it. There is some stuff in the Bible–okay, a lot–which only Jews get. I can’t wait to sit down with it.

I’ve been so preoccupied, I’ve let emails slide, and I even forgot to change the cloth on the beef I’m aging. I guess one day won’t hurt it. It’s a rib roast. I think I’m going to make prime rib instead of steaks. I need to ask Mike how he prepares it.

Life is sweet. Have I mentioned that? Well, it is. If I manage to move out of Miami, it will be TOO sweet.

Too tired to type. Even Marv lacks the energy to blog.

Hard to be Glad About This

I am having a hard time figuring out exactly how badly Obama got beat in West Virginia, but it looks like “severely” is accurate. I’m sure the talking heads are positing theories. “Voters with middle-American values.” “Conservative blue-collar Democrats.” Whatever. Here’s the answer: racism. Appalachia is full of racism. I was born there, and I’m honest about it. Certain parts of the country just have not caught up with the civil rights movement. End of story.

I wonder if I can find results for the coal counties in the Kentucky primary. No, it’s next week. But the polls for the entire state have Hillary up about 27 points. Does anyone seriously believe it’s because people think Hillary is a better candidate? A bad Yankee carpetbagger lawyer who screwed up health care reform and then went on to be a professional housewife and then a lackluster junior Senator? No way. It’s because she’s white.

And it’s happening in other areas, too. Canvassers are encountering some vile responses in northern states. Yankees always claim to be immune to racism. Tell that to the people who got their windows shot out in Chicago’s Airport Homes development. Bring up that topic in a bar in South Boston or Little Italy. Obama is doing well as a candidate for nomination. He’s winning over the far-left types who participate in primaries and caucuses. But in the general election, he’ll have to deal with people who are more diverse. And my bet is, his race will cost him 20% of the votes a Democrat candidate would otherwise get.

Far-left kooks are very good about accepting minorities, although they are openly bigoted toward Israel, men, white people, conservatives, Jews, and Christians. Give them credit. Nominating a black candidate is genuinely “progressive,” unlike the backward-looking policies to which liberals generally apply that oxymoronic label. But it’s probably bad strategy. I think Obama is going to end up like Martin Luther King. Not dead, I hope and pray. I simply believe he will help open a door for other people, and that he himself will be unable to walk through it. I think he’ll lose big in the general election, and Democrats will have to be satisfied with a moral victory. Which will be a first for them.

I don’t like the idea of winning an election this way, but winning is winning, and it’s not the right’s fault that racist Democrats won’t support their man, and Obama will be very bad for the country, so I guess I’ll get over it. We’re probably headed for a fairly good result. Republican in the White House; black man nominated by Democrats. Two things that are both blessings.

My father thinks black people will vote for McCain if Hillary steals the nomination. Could be. I would not blame them. Well, yes I would. You don’t frag your nominee over something like that. I am highly critical of childish people who vote for the opposition out of spite. But I would certainly understand why black people would feel cheated.

One thing no one is mentioning: the possibility of riots. If Hillary cheats her way to the nomination, it’s not unlikely that we’ll see video of burning cars and broken windows. We’re not supposed to talk about it, but unless the folks at the DNC are completely out of their minds, they’re thinking about it. They’re thinking about the difficulty of succeeding with a black candidate, they’re thinking about ways to give Hillary the nomination, and they’re considering the consequences.

My father also thinks putting Hillary in the VP slot would be good for the Democrats, but he feels–and I agree–that it would be career suicide for Obama. Put the Obamas and Clintons in the White House, and nobody will even notice the Obamas. The Democrats may get scared and insist on it, but it will cause them problems down the road. And supposedly, Michelle Obama refuses to tolerate a second queen bee. Thank goodness for female competitiveness.

The only thing I know for sure about Obama’s running mate is that he or she will be white. And he’ll probably be male.

Things could be worse. If McCain can survive “gook” video, he’ll win the election. And hopefully he’ll appoint sane judges. If that happens, only Congress will be a problem.

From a Christian perspective, let me point out that the Bible says God chooses our leaders. That doesn’t mean all leaders are good. Sometimes it means we get bad leaders we deserve. So pray for revival and good leaders. That’s my advice.

“Childish Superstition”

I guess it’s predictable that I would have something to say about the Drudgebart.tv.com-linked story about Einstein dismissing religion as “childish superstition.”

I don’t think anyone should be surprised, assuming the story is true. Einstein was a leftist who had a childish superstition of his own: that the world could be a man-created utopia ruled by a single central government. And many of his fellow physicists, scientists, and mathematicians shared his superstition.

As I have noted many times before, mathematically inclined people tend to be a lot like idiot-savants. All the brains are packed into one side of their heads, leaving little grey matter to deal with things like humanity and human relationships. They typically have very childlike ideas about human nature. They often lack the capacity for empathy, which explains a lot of the misery inflicted on us by people who write code. They often have gigantic egos. They are among the last people we should turn to for advice regarding subjects like love, ethics, or religion.

Some people swing both ways, but they are rare. It’s not uncommon at all to see people who score 800 on the math SAT and around 500 on the verbal side. In fact, unless things have changed since I was a kid, the vast majority of the really high scores are mathematical, period.

Aside from his basic nature, consider Einstein’s qualifications. From a fairly early age, he was a pampered, prized, tenured academic. Why anyone would expect a person like that to know anything about life is beyond me. Think of the academics you’ve known. How would you like to live in a world where their kind ruled? It would be like Cambodia under Pol Pot. Academia attracts the petty, the cruel, and the naive. As professors and instructors, they’re harmless and amusing. As rulers? Horrifying. The end result is piles of bloated bodies decaying in the sun.

I do not suggest that Einstein was cruel or petty. But naive? Absolutely. Before you give me someone like Albert Einstein to tell me how to live, give me a pastor or rabbi or priest chosen at random, any day. Someone who has married and raised children and lived with adversity, without giving up his or her faith. Someone familiar with other people’s suffering. Not an academic who has never known anything but a big, warm, permanently attached university nipple. A nipple which tends to flow more freely–more liberally, if you will–when the beneficiary attacks God.

I have never understood why academics get tenure. Presidents don’t. Engineers don’t. What’s so special about academics? We give them so much security, it warps their minds. They forget what life is like for the rest of us. No wonder they make up such a huge portion of Democrat delegates. Social engineering is all theory to them. They can’t understand what it’s like when people are forced to become their gamepieces and endure the consequences of their inept theorizing. It’s only natural that socialism and purges and so on make sense to people like that.

The Apostle Paul (a reformed academic) supported himself as a tentmaker while traveling the ancient world on foot, to spread the Gospel. He was flogged repeatedly; the skin and flesh were ripped from his back. He was stoned. He was shipwrecked. Finally, he was murdered. Corrie ten Boom survived on offerings as she traveled the world telling the world that she loved God, in spite of the fact that the Germans killed most of her family for saving Jews. I respect their humbly expressed opinions more than the pompous, sterile, conformist musings of a professor speaking down from the invulnerability of an ivory tower.

To put it in terms Einstein would have understood, to enter the heart of a brilliant, feted, Nobel-prize-winning scientist, a particle of faith has to make it into a very high-walled potential well constructed of ego. The odds are on a par with those of a camel passing through the eye of a needle. To steal an analogy from a source I respect a great deal. To stretch the analogy even further, in quantum mechanics, the seemingly impossible becomes possible. And with God all things are possible. However it looks like Einstein did not benefit from that iota–that quantum–of hope.

To me, the odd thing about all this is that Einstein himself laid the groundwork for experiments that seem to demonstrate that observation and belief alter the material world. In other words, his work seems to support the notion that faith has power. I don’t remember enough about it to write about it with any degree of competence, unfortunately.

When I see intellectual theories put forward to deny the existence of God, I always think of what Archie Bunker said to Michael “Meathead” Stivic, when Stivic said he had renounced his baptism. “Renounce your belly button! You still got it!” It’s pointless to raise arguments in a cerebral vacuum, to convince people of the nonexistence of things they have personally witnessed. Give me a word processor and a week, and I could probably prove I have three arms. Would that make it true?

Render unto Einstein when it comes to science. When it comes to religion, listen to someone who has been there.

Sorry About That

I am so mad. I drove all the way to the gun range, and it looks like they’ve changed their rules again. Their sign now says they’re closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I’m completely positive it was Tuesdays and Wednesdays a month ago. It seems like they do this all the time. And checking their website is pointless, since they don’t update it.

I got an interesting comment RE prophecy:

With respect to prophets, pardon me for not having a cite, but in the gospels Jesus said that John the Baptist was the last of the prophets. The next true prophets will be the two old testament saints that return to Jerusalem during the first 3.5 years of the tribulation. Anyone who claims to be a prophet during this current church age is at best misguided. That’s not to say that God can’t or doesn’t use dreams to speak to people, but my view is that it would be more for personal revelation and not true revelation of future events.

Naturally, I mentioned the New Testament prophecies. Response:

You’re correct Steve, you definitely have to account for the prophetic revelations of John of Patmos. Perhaps the distinction is between the definition of a “prophet” vs. someone whom the Holy Spirit reveals prophetic information to.

I don’t think “prophecy” is something Christians have defined all that well. I always thought a prophet was someone who could function pretty much like a P.A. system or a ventriloquist’s dummy. The prophet’s mouth moves, but God says the words. But having read the book of Numbers and the bulk of the New Testament, I’m inclined to think that “prophet” is a term that can apply to a wide spectrum of people, from Moses, who spoke to God face to face, to Stephen, who died after seeing into heaven. My best guess is, anyone to whom the Holy Spirit gives the ability to perceive things ordinary people can’t perceive is a prophet. And if that’s true, then there are super-prophets like Moses, above-average prophets like Jeremiah and Zechariah, and so-so prophets who occasionally get a revelation which may or may not be of great importance. So I guess that if you have a few bona fide inspired dreams or visions, you’re a prophet. Not the best prophet around, but still, a prophet.

I am among the Christians who believe that the Holy Spirit is being meted out much more generously than it used to be, and that we are supposed to connect to it and be changed and empowered by it. I believe this is what prayer in tongues is all about. I think modern Christians who refuse to admit that this is happening are like divers who want to go down with knots in their air hoses. Doing God’s will and fighting on His behalf have always been extremely hard. I don’t believe we were ever expected to succeed on our own. If anything, God has made a point of proving we can’t do it. The Holy Spirit is the power supply mankind has been lacking.

God is strange. He plants a seed, but doesn’t reap the harvest for thousands of years. He established the Jews and allowed them to ruin Israel and be cast out, and He let them turn Israel into a wasteland inhabited by inept, barbaric squatters. He established a powerful Christian church and let it give up on the Holy Spirit and become worldly and weak. And apparently, He plans to bring it all together toward the end of time. Israel restored, the Church reconnected to the power of the Holy Spirit, and so on. You have to wonder. Why not just make us do it right the first time around? Why let Satan get away with so much for so long?

Regrettably, I was not involved in the decision. I don’t know why God never asks my advice.

God is always letting us screw up and then giving us the power to fix things. It’s a constant pattern.

I sometimes think the story of Samson presages the history of the church. Samson started out strong, because the Spirit of God was in him, and then he was seduced by worldiness and lost his power, and then he was blinded, and in the end he regained his power and destroyed the temple of his enemies, killing them in the process. The church started out full of the power of God, but it became corrupt and full of idolatry and pantheism, and it lost its power and its ability to perceive God’s will. And it ended up serving the enemy. And maybe now the power is coming back.

There are other hints, like the bit about releasing foxes to burn the grain of Samson’s enemies. Jesus compared people to grain. I suspect the foxes symbolized evangelists, destroying the harvest of the enemy.

I dunno. I always see the world in terms of symbols. For that reason, the Bible has always driven me crazy.

One thing I believe very strongly is that Christians need to get over feeling superior to Jews. I believe Jews missed the boat, with regard to the Messiah. But Christians threw away and even reviled the Holy Spirit, which is probably worse. It’s the power to change the world. What we did was like losing the Ark of the Covenant, and the result was pretty much the same. We lost battles we should have won. And a lot of people who feel superior to Jews would have been clamoring for the Crucifixion as loudly as anyone, had they been around to do it.

I can tell you as an eyewitness that the Holy Spirit is still here, and that things that qualify as prophetic events still happen, and I am sure I’m one of many. If I were you, I’d be wary of ignoring what is happening, because to do so is on a par with failing to recognize the Messiah.

I’m not qualified to teach, and I am not fit to be a spiritual leader, but I feel safe in saying that much.

I really will catch up on emails soon. Sorry.

ISO9000 NOT

Marv is somewhat disappointed in his adoring fans for not asking him questions, so he has gone off on a rant about human intelligence. You can read it here.

I am going to try to get my butt to the range today. I have decided I don’t totally trust the first box of ammunition I made, so I’m going to have to make more. I dread taking the first box apart, but I think it’s a smart move. I’ve read about the fun things that happen to people who overcharge their rounds, and I am not interested in destroying a magazine and possibly damaging the gun and my precious self.

One nice thing about shooting with Mike is that we went to an indoor range, so we were able to find and recover almost all our brass, including nearly a hundred precious nickel .38 Super cases. Mike wanted to shoot .38 Super; what can I tell you. In the end he liked the .45 a lot better, and vice-versa. Don’t know why. They seem to shoot about the same, from my perspective.

I hope he’ll be able to shoot more often. The only thing more fun than shooting with a good friend is shooting with a good friend who shoots really well. Mike was a little rusty, but he would still be in the 95th percentile at Trail Glades.

I want to get into shotguns. When Mike and I were kids we used to go to arcades and wear out the skeet machines, shooting from the hip. I’d love to get proficient with the real thing.

You would think we could go ten days without a new natural disaster, but it looks like it’s not going to happen. As I’m sure you know, there was an earthquake in China, and they think it has killed 3,000-5,000 people. It’s particularly unfortunate that it happened right on the tail of the Burma cyclone. Ordinarily, a disaster like this earthquake would be big news, but with Burma death-toll estimates ranging up to a million, it will be harder to get the public excited about earthquake donations. I am sure World Vision will be all over this, and here’s where you can find them.

While looking up information on China and Burma, I found a moving story on Yahoo! News. Irena Sendler has died at the age of 98. If you don’t know who she was, don’t feel bad. Neither did I. She was a Polish woman who saved the lives of thousands of Jewish children. She delivered them out of the Warsaw Ghetto. The story is a little sparse, but it says she was arrested by the Nazis, who broke her arms and legs for her troubles.

I will never understand how violent people can take pride in brutalizing the weak. I suppose you can derive a sick sense of accomplishment by harming someone who has the capacity to hurt you. But how can you be proud of breaking an unarmed woman’s arms and legs? I think I would vomit for a month.

As for Mrs. Sendler, wouldn’t you love to face God with a record like hers? As eternal resumes go, hers is hard to top. Most of us pack our lives with pleasure and goods, and then we die, and it all disappears. Mrs. Sendler packed boxes and suitcases with Jewish children and smuggled them to freedom. And her deeds will live forever, and they will continue to give dividends in the form of the new lives of the descendants of the Jews she saved. There is hope that the rest of us can be as lucky as Mrs. Sendler, or maybe less lucky, but in the same general way. If you send Jews to Israel via the IFCJ’s On Wings of Eagles program, the good consequences of your act will continue to flower as long as the world endures. The people you send will have children, and their children will have children, and so on. As charitable donations go, that is a real bargain. Helpful tip: if you specify the country to which you want your donation to go, you’ll receive a card identifying the people or person you helped.

Mrs. Sendler’s story reminds me of another one. I doubt most people are aware that the physicist Niels Bohr was instrumental in saving around 6,000 Danish Jews. And he was Jewish himself, although I don’t think he thought of himself that way. His mother was Jewish, so that made him Jewish, too. If you’re not a physicist, that may not mean anything to you, but if you understand how great Bohr’s contribution to physics was, it’s interesting. Gentiles have done a lot of good work in physics, but for most of the 20th century, you could accurately have referred to physics as a Jewish science. Bohr, Einstein, Teller, von Neumann, Szilard, Meitner…the list is very long. Their work changed the world by giving us nuclear weapons, and sadly, many of them were instrumental in helping the Soviets get the same technology, resulting in the Cold War. So they reshaped the political world at the same time. Mainly in the name of socialism, the primary, seminal exponent of which was a German Jew.

Always at the center of the world. So strange. Scientifically, politically, in matters of religion, and even physically. Check a globe. If Israel isn’t at the center of the world’s land masses, I don’t know what is.

But the Bible is a fairy tale, right?

In related news, via Stand for Israel, Victor Davis Hanson questions Jimmy Carter’s bizarre human rights priorities. Don’t we all? I would hate to have to explain to God why it was that out of all the people in the Middle East, the Jews were the ones I felt most compelled to criticize and hinder. I guess they’ll never be as humane as their progressive neighbors, who are shelling Israeli civilians as I type this.

Pray I don’t blow myself up at the range. Or that if I do, I survive long enough to write an amusing blog entry about it.

Sabbath Ends too Soon

Here is a weird end to my sabbath. I went over to check on Leah Friedman, who has been recovering from respiratory arrest for some time now. Looks like she continues to improve, and she credits prayer, and I know a lot of my readers prayed for her and left comments. I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you doing this for her. A lot of fine people read this blog. And you enabled me to do something good with it.

While on her blog, I saw this Matisyahu video.

This guy is a Lubavitcher chassid who sings reggae. Go figure. He calls himself a rapper, but he’s doing himself a disservice, because he composes his own music, and he sings. It sounds nothing like rap.

I was very impressed. Because I grew up in Miami, my friends were getting me into reggae back before Reagan, and I’ve heard a lot of stuff. Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, and so on. And I think this guy beats them all. I wonder if all of his stuff is this good. You can sense the crowd wanting to laugh at him at first, but he bulls his way through and ends up slaying them.

Coincidentally, I read about the Jewish denominations in How Firm a Foundation this week, and Rabbi Eckstein wrote about the chassids. One thing he pointed out, which had not been clear to me before (in spite of knowing a one-time Lubavitcher) was that the chassids are passionate about enjoying life’s pleasures and spreading love. So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised to hear Lubavitcher reggae.

The sabbath was good. I’m still trying to polish the rough edges off of my sabbath technique, however. I think every week I’ve learned a little bit more about what Jews go through. This week, I’m learning how it feels for the sabbath to end too soon. I’ll bet Jewish readers have been having this feeling since they were born, or since they became observant.

Thinking about observant Jews and dance music, I remember dancing with the rabbis and students at Yeshiva Ohr Somayach, in Jerusalem, in 1984. What a strange night. Maybe the awful beard I had grown gave them the impression that I was Jewish. Who would grow a ratty beard like that if his religion didn’t force him? Anyway, I got drawn into a big circle, and a little boy with sidecurls grabbed my leg and made me put him on my shoulders.

Which reminds me of this:

14 But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.

15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.

16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.

17 Thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee.

18 Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the LORD, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth.

19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.

20 The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.

21 Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?

22 Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.

Okay, it says “daughters,” not “sons.” I realize that. But men and women were segregated. Cut me a little slack. And Isaiah was talking about Gentiles bringing Jews back to Israel, not dancing on Purim. But now we Gentiles are part of that, too.

Whatever the drawbacks of living in this turbulent era are, it is one of the few times since the Crucifixion when people have had the privilege of seeing that they are mentioned in prophecy. That’s really something. If I can see myself and others like me in the book of Isaiah, how hard should it be for me to believe that I am also mentioned in the Book of Life?

We are living in a remarkable time of cooperation and understanding between certain Jews and certain Christians. Some beliefs separate us, but in an unprecedented way, we are in agreement about many things. We agree that the Messiah is coming soon. We agree that the Temple will be rebuilt. We agree that all of the prophecy of the Hebrew Bible is true, and some Jews are even willing to concede that bits of the New Testament are true. Such as the part about Christians being grafted onto the root of Judaism.

When the Messianic Age begins, it won’t really matter who was wrong or right, will it? Eventually, everyone will agree on the identity of the Messiah. And there is little for us to fight about in the meantime, as far as I can see. So there is no reason why cooperation should not continue and increase. Jews are more cautious about eschatology than Christians are; nonetheless, eschatology is turning out to be a powerful uniting force. And I think it’s becoming easier for Jews to tell the difference between the classes of Christians they can trust and the ones they can’t.

I learned one more interesting thing today. In the book of Numbers, God Himself describes the difference between Moses and every other prophet who had lived until his time. He spoke to Moses face to face, but He communicated to prophets in dreams and visions. I didn’t realize that. I had always assumed prophets opened their mouths, and God’s words came out, and that dreams and visions were fairly useless, because they may mean a lot or nothing at all. So maybe there are a lot of people out there who are prophets, yet don’t realize it because they discount the things they’ve seen. Maybe the fact that something happens to you while you’re sleeping or drowsing doesn’t mean it has no meaning. That gives me pause, when I think about things that have happened to me.

I’m up too late. Talk to you tomorrow.