Old Man with Kids’ Ailment

I guess I should blog about the physical issues I complained about last week.

On Thursday, I finished up the welding on my arbor press stand. It was my second effort. I had had a lot of problems with it. I’m still learning how to control welding warpage, and the first time I put the stand together, I found a significant bow in the top. It would not have affected the stand’s usefulness, but part of the purpose of welding is to learn how to weld better. It’s not just about function. I cut the top off the stand, added some crossmembers under the top, and put the stand back together. Now it’s much better. I’ve written about this already.

In the days prior to this welding session, I had noticed I wasn’t feeling quite right. One night last week, I felt as though a cold were trying to get ahold of me. I prayed and so on, and it went away. After that, I didn’t think much about it.

The night after I put the stand together for the last time, I started feeling a sensation in my left eye. It was as though there were a grain of sand under my eyelid. I assumed I had somehow managed to flash my eye with the welding arc. Welding arcs give off a great deal of UV radiation. You can actually get a severe sunburn from welding in short sleeves. If you let the radiation reach your eyes, you can get what’s known as a flash burn.

When you get a flash burn, you feel as though there is sand in your eyes. It goes away in a day or two and doesn’t do any lasting harm.

When I went to bed on Thursday, I knew I was not going to sleep well with my eye bothering me, so I took some painkillers. I always keep a few on hand. Doctors treat everyone like an addict these days, and it can be very hard to get painkillers when you need them, so if you don’t finish a prescription, it’s smart to keep the leftover pills.

Oddly, doctors don’t treat addicts like addicts. Every city has a bunch of down-and-out or foreign-born doctors who will gladly write painkiller prescriptions for people who are obviously addicts, but it can be very hard for the rest of us to get help when we need it.

People who abuse drugs can get them whenever they want. People who need them can’t get them. It’s a lot like gun control.

The first time I had a kidney stone, they sent me home from the hospital on a Saturday morning with 4 Percocets. A Percoset lasts 4 to 6 hours, and I had over 48 hours to go before I could get to my regular doctor. I had been on intravenous Dilaudid all night, so little Percocets, even in amounts corresponding to the time period in question, were not going to get the job done anyway. That’s never going to happen again if I can help it.

On Thursday, I took more than one pill, but they didn’t seem to help. I didn’t feel much of anything, except that I was drowsy. I took several doses, figuring I would know if I were taking too much. When you overdo painkillers, you don’t just drop dead instantly. You can tell when you’ve had enough.

The next day, I had some nausea early in the afternoon. I wondered if I had poisoned myself with the pain pills. I threw up several times. That wasn’t a big deal. Throwing up doesn’t bother me at all. After all, I went to college, where I learned all about throwing up.

The pain in my eye did not go away the next day, so I wondered if I had a really severe burn. I asked God if I should go to a doctor, and I felt the answer was “no.”

Yesterday, I finally figured out what was going on. It was pink eye, or an adenovirus infection. This is a condition like a cold which can affect your eyes, your respiratory tract, and your intestines. It can cause vomiting, diarrhea, eye pain, and lots of tear flow. My symptoms fit the description perfectly. I even had some weird, otherwise-inexplicable lower-GI stuff that was consistent with an adenovirus infection.

You can’t treat an adenovirus infection, so there was nothing to do but pray and wait. I would like to say I prayed and the symptoms disappeared instantly, but that has not happened yet. That’s not a problem. Apart from a slight annoying sensation in one eye, I feel fantastic.

I thought I had discovered a new way to get a flash burn while wearing a welding helmet and doing things right, but it appears that I was wrong. That’s a relief. A flash burn lasting for days would be a rare and serious thing.

I’m still waiting for my tool grinder to arrive. It’s exciting. If you have a lathe, a mill, a drill press, a tool grinder, and a surface grinder, you have everything you really need in order to claim you have a machine shop. After the tool grinder arrives, all I’ll lack will be the surface grinder. One day I’d like to have a horizontal mill, but that can wait.

While I wait, I’m fixing the shop up. Today I’ll be working on a new 50-amp socket next to the air compressor, and I’m planning to get an air line kit so I can run air lines all over the shop. Right now, all I have is one spool of air hose with a 3/8″ ID. It’s connected to my little compressor, which is only good for filling tires, running the impact wrench, and running a blowgun. I have a big 1/2″ reel I want to put on the wall, and I also want to have “drops” (local connections) in three areas of the shop.

Traditionally, people have used black iron pipe for air lines. I’m not doing it. It sounds like a pain. I don’t even know if Home Depot–my main resource–sells black pipe. I’ve never used it. I’m not sure what it looks like.

Some people use PVC pipe, which is cheap and easy to install. It’s great. Unless it explodes. When that happens, it sends sharp pieces of PVC shrapnel into the air at high speed. Most people agree this is a bad thing. It’s okay to run PVC underground, but if it’s exposed, it’s dangerous.

These days, a lot of people use hose. There is a company called Rapidair that sells kits for compressed air. You get 100 feet of expensive hose, plus some fittings. It will allow up to 175 psi, and you can get 3/4″ ID hose, which ought to be good for air flow. There is no point in buying a big compressor and using skinny hoses.

I’m thinking of getting a Rapidair kit. I considered buying PEX hose from the hardware store. It’s cheaper, and it works. The problem is that the connections are restrictive. That’s what I’ve read, anyway. I may want to upgrade my compressor eventually, and the last thing I want is to have to redo my air lines because the air can’t get through.

Adding electrical sockets will get cords off the floor, and adding air lines will get hoses off the floor. It all adds up to a more mobile shop. Moving wheeled tools is not easy when you’re constantly lifting cords and hoses.

In conclusion, things are going well, and my record of not burning myself with the welder remains unblemished.

Stop Comparing and Start Confessing

It looks like God doesn’t require the same things from everyone.

Jesus said he would require more from those to whom much had been given than from those who had received little. I don’t think I understood that until recently.

People always wonder what God wants from them. Is it enough to ask for salvation and then go on living the same way? Are there things you have to give up in order to make it into heaven? Can’t you just go on sinning and asking for forgiveness? That’s what most of us do. A lot of us have a clever plan: live it up, and then do a deathbed conversion. It probably doesn’t work. God is not mocked.

I think our natural tendency is to try to find out how much we can get away with instead of asking how God can help us give more. “Can I still watch this?” “Can I still drink that?” “Can I still have sex with my boyfriend so he won’t leave me?”

I watch Mark Hemans a lot, and it always amazes me how many people who are shacking up come to him and ask him for things, including special anointings. He exposes them and tells them to get married. How can any Christian think fornication is okay? When did God make this change? Where are the fornicating apostles in the Bible?

Jesus told a young ruler that if he wanted the kingdom of heaven, he should sell everything he had and give it to the poor. That’s scary. Do we all have to do that? The Bible says that after the Spirit of Holiness fell on Pentecost, early Christians pooled their wealth and helped each other out so no one needed anything. Are we required to do that? Do I have to sell my house and go live in an apartment so my Christian neighbor who blows all his money on liquor, strippers, drugs, and lottery tickets can pay his mortgage?

Are there different levels of Christianity? Is it okay for some people to just sit in church and try to behave, while others have to turn their lives upside-down and go out and preach and heal on the streets?

Are there different levels of favor? We like to think God loves each of us just as much, and the Bible says he loves us as he loved Jesus. What’s the real story, though? Are there people he just enjoys working with more than others? Every father has one or two kids who are more pleasant to be with than the others.

The other day I saw Mark Hemans tell a lady other people were hard on her because God gave her special favor. Spirits turned people against her and made them jealous. Ordinarily, you would not expect a preacher to say something like that. People don’t want to think other people are more favored than they are. I think he was right, though. I have experienced hatred because of the favor I’ve received. I can’t count the number of times it has happened. It’s normal for me.

If you’re an heir, you know parents treat their children differently, and very often, it’s justified. Jerky kids usually receive less, as they should. They are harder to raise, and they tend to suck up a disproportionate amount of resources and attention while their parents are alive, so when their parents die, they want to reward the kids who tormented them less. Also, a smart parent will give more wealth to his successful children, because the wasteful ones will lose it all. There is no point in building up an estate just so you can hand wealth over to someone who will destroy it in a year.

You’re not really entitled to an equal share of what your parents have. You’re not entitled to anything. An inheritance is a gift.

It’s understandable that a parent might want to give more money to a poorer child, to even things out, but is it really fair? If you’ve worked and saved, and your brother is a 50-year-old wannabe rock star who plays in local bars and has to have his parents cosign car loans, why should you be penalized? Your brother isn’t going to be financially secure just because your parents give him money. He’ll blow it on cocaine, age-inappropriate clothes, liquor, and women. He may already have debts, into which his inheritance will vanish as soon as he receives it.

Think of the prodigal son. His father divided his wealth and gave the prodigal half of it, and the prodigal lost it. When he returned home in disgrace, his father took him back. But look what he told his other son: “All I have is yours.” He didn’t write the prodigal into his will. All the prodigal got was food, shelter, a ring, and some clothes.

The concept of sibling rivalry is very prominent in the Bible. The first example is the envy Satan feels for the human race. We’re not his siblings, because he is not a son of God, but he was a son of God at one time, and he was rejected. Satan sinned and was cast out of heaven, and there is nothing he can do about it. He will burn no matter how much he pleads. We, on the other hand, can be saved even though we’re filthy. We can be saved, sin again, repent, and still be saved. He hates us for that.

Cain hated Abel. Esau hated Jacob, whom God helped. Ham’s children stole Shem’s land, which is why it was called “Canaan.” Isaac had much more favor than Ishmael. Joseph was favored above all his brothers, as was David.

The Bible says it’s not our place to question God if he blesses one person more than another.

It must be, then, that God feels more closeness to certain believers, and that he does more for them. If that’s correct, then he also asks more of them. Joseph was sold into slavery. Isaac was nearly sacrificed. Jacob had to suffer under Laban for many years. Samson could not drink wine, which was allowed under the Jewish law, and he couldn’t let a razor touch his head.

I keep trying to get closer to God, and it seems like he keeps asking me to give things up. I had to give up caffeine, which everyone else drinks all day. I had to quit reading the news. I had to give up certain types of movies. I had to stay out of bars. Now I think God is telling me to give up all movies, including TV shows, except for nonfiction.

The other day, on a whim, I rented an old Gary Cooper movie I thought was harmless: Sergeant York. It’s the story of Alvin York, a soldier from Tennessee. He captured 132 Germans single-handed, in one day, and he killed at least 25. The movie is mostly fiction, but it’s based on York’s experiences.

Afterward, I felt God telling me I was opening doors by watching movies that seemed completely innocent, and he explained why.

Imagine you have a problem with worry. This can be demonic, and it’s a serious problem. Worry is a sin, and we are commanded not to do it. Worry doesn’t make you a righteous person; it makes you a faithless person, and God equates faith with righteousness.

Now suppose you watch a movie about someone who has a problem. Maybe it’s Iron Man, and he has to save the earth (again). What happens when you watch the movie? You get worried. In fact, you watch the movie just so you can worry yourself temporarily.

What happens when you assume an attitude a demon likes? Every Christian knows the answer. If you stimulate your own lust, you can get demons of lust. If you stimulate your own anger, you can get demons of anger. The same applies to fear and worry. If you watch movies that put you under stress, you’re inviting spirits who will do the same thing, all the time. It’s like dumping garbage in your own yard. If you do it long enough, your neighbors will start doing it.

It’s obvious to us that we need to avoid pornography, but nobody seems to be aware that there are demons in areas other than sex. If you’re watching a movie hero beat people up and cut their limbs off, and you’re enjoying hating the villains and seeing them suffer, how can you not be opening doors to demons of anger, cruelty, and revenge?

In Sergeant York, the Germans killed Gary Cooper’s friends, and he killed Germans with a great deal of anger. Is that a healthy thing to watch?

Sports are unhealthy, too. Think about it. When you watch sports, you’re hoping one team will win and the other will lose. You’re hoping half of the people on the field will have a rotten day they may relive every day until they die. For many people, one defeat makes the difference between a life of ease and glory and a life of pity and financial hardship. That’s what you’re rooting for. Every game is a zero-sum event. You can’t have two winning teams. There have to be some losers.

When I was a kid, I made it to the national spelling bee, and I went down in the second round. I didn’t prepare at all. The pronouncer mispronounced a word I wasn’t familiar with, and I spelled it the way he pronounced it. Ever since then, it has bothered me to read about the national spelling bee. I could have won, if I had made an effort. I can’t imagine what it must be like to play for the Miami Dolphins or some other third-rate sports team that loses many times a year. I can’t imagine what it feels like to be Ronda Rousey.

In God’s system, everyone is supposed to win. We don’t get together to compete with each other. We help each other, and God helps all of us. It’s not a zero-sum game. It’s an extra-mile game.

It appears that I have a lot of favor. I seem to have a lot fewer problems than many people I know. I want to have even more favor, and I want to be closer to God. Should I feel bad because I can’t watch movies? Isn’t God just asking me to stop poisoning myself? Isn’t an improved relationship with God a colossal reward? How many people have wanted that and had no way to get it?

Most people I know cause their own problems, and they won’t do much to help themselves. They won’t pray in tongues. They won’t try to rid themselves of demons. They won’t try to shake their bad habits or to be filled with the fruit and gifts of the Spirit. They insist on hanging onto worldly entertainment and worldly culture. When you tell them about good teaching, they find fault with it even though they haven’t looked at it. Their pride makes them hang onto old doctrine that never helped anyone, simply because it seems more compatible with the culture of the world.

Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” and I see people proving it. They aren’t that hungry for God’s help or his company, so they settle for lives full of problems that never get solved. Then they complain as though circumstances were the cause. “I don’t have this or that blessing you have, which made it easy for you.”

When things are easy for me, it’s because I made a few little sacrifices for God. I’m not close to God because I’m blessed. I’m blessed because I’m close to God, and the same thing can happen to you. But it’s easier to criticize and envy. People like to be comforted, not exhorted. They love being told their problems aren’t their fault.

Like I always say, I must be the only Christian on earth who actually deserves his problems.

God told me this a long time ago: “Excuses are lies.” The Bible says liars will go to the lake of fire, and it probably applies mostly to people who make excuses for sin.

I suppose favor is like anything else. The favor you get from God depends on the favor you give him.

I don’t think you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor. When Jesus told the young ruler he should do that, he was showing him how hard it was to enter the kingdom of heaven under the old covenant. He said that with God, it was possible for a rich man to enter. I don’t think we have to pool our belongings and pass them around. The people who were present at Pentecost were given the grace to do that by the Spirit of Holiness, and we have not received that grace. But you do have to give yourself to God, withholding nothing. If he wants you to get rid of cable TV and stop going to Hooters, you should obey. If there is anything good he offers, you should try to get it instead of deciding it’s not worth the price. If someone you know is giving more up, and that person is doing better than you are, you shouldn’t spit bitterness and envy at that person and hold yourself out as a super saint God is mistreating. You should look at yourself and ask God what you’re doing wrong.

I am going to keep pushing forward. I know God wants to give me more inner improvement, and I am determined to go after it. If he blesses me outwardly in the process, better still.

Thoughts on an Ineffective Life

Yesterday, I learned that Terry Jones had died.

Jones was a member of the Monty Python comedy team. He also wrote a large number of children’s books and scholarly publications. He was an authority on Geoffrey Chaucer, the medieval British author who is famous for writing poems and a collection of coarse stories which appears to have been derived from The Decameron. Jones directed The Life of Brian, which was the story of a man who was misidentified as the Messiah by a confused public.

If you don’t know which member of the team was Jones, I can help. Here are some of his well-known roles: the prince who refused to marry Princess Lucky, the naked organist, Brian’s mother, Mr. Creosote, and Sir Bedevere. If that doesn’t help, maybe it’s best to say he was the second-least prominent of the six actors, after Terry Gilliam, who focused mainly on animation during the group’s early years.

When asked what he would like to have inscribed on his tombstone, Jones said, “Maybe a description of me as a writer of children’s books or some of my academic stuff — maybe as the man who restored Richard II’s reputation. He was a terrible victim of 14th-century political spin, you know. I think those are my best bits.”

Monty Python’s Flying Circus was a big deal to me when I was a teenager. It figured prominently in my list of toxic influences, along with Henry Miller, Fritz Perls, the cast of Saturday Night Live, and the staff of the National Lampoon.

I remember the day the first VCR was advertised in the Miami Herald. My best friend at the time–another very toxic influence–called me on the phone. He had seen the ad, too. Sony had created a TV with a built-in Betamax. We were ecstatic to think we would be able to record every episode of Monty Python. We had already memorized every line we could.

I was such a fan, I even bought Monty Python books. I bought the script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a film in which our loving God was depicted with the face of Karl Marx. I bought something called The Brand New Monty Python Papperbok, which was a print rehash of a lot of the TV jokes. I even bought Dr. Fegg’s Nasty Book of Knowledge, which was written by Jones and Michael Palin. Finally, I had my own copy of A Liar’s Autobiography, which was written by Graham Chapman.

This week people are praising Terry Jones for his life’s work. All I can think is, “Thank God I didn’t end up like him.” He has a lot to answer for.

When I was young, I thought my gift for humor was a big deal. I didn’t get over this misconception until I was middle-aged. I thought I was put on earth to make easy money making people laugh. I thought irreverence and verbal cruelty were wonderful things. I thought humorists did a lot of good by attacking people who behaved badly. I didn’t understand how sanctimonious many humorists, including the Python crew, truly were. Humor is a great cover for self-righteousness and ruthlessness.

People like Terry Jones, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, George Carlin, Bill Murray, John Hughes, Doug Kenney, and P.J. O’Rourke poisoned my life, and the lives of many others, with their immature views. I’m sure they meant well, or as well as a person can, in that state of ignorance and corruption, but they did a great deal of damage. Young people like me identified with them and emulated them. This may work out well when you have a Hollywood support system behind you, but it’s not so smart when you’re a typical young person who needs the goodwill of others in order to succeed in life. It didn’t work out well for me. I didn’t do much to build a decent life for myself. I fell behind other people.

I thought it was possible for a person who wrote shock humor to be a good human being. If I was nice to people I liked, and I didn’t steal or kill people, I was a good person. I barely knew God. I knew almost nothing about him. I didn’t realize I was supposed to be full of the Holy Spirit or that my purpose was to help people to be like God. I didn’t know verbal cruelty was the same thing as murder in God’s eyes.

Satan is like a three-card monte dealer. Three-card monte is a game played by criminals. They set cardboard boxes up on city sidewalks and use them for tables until the cops come along. In three-card monte, there are two black cards and a red card. The dealer holds the cards face-down and moves them around the box, and then he invites people to pick the red card. It looks easy, and to make it easier, the dealer will always have a shill who appears out of nowhere, plays, and wins. The game is rigged, however, so there is no way to beat the dealer.

Satan tries to get us to do unprofitable things with our lives, and he allows a few people to appear to succeed so we will be encouraged to keep trying. Example: there are very few successful rock musicians compared to the number of people who never make it. Most people who try to make it in rock end up playing in local bars until they die or get real jobs. We admire people like Steven Tyler, who behave badly all their lives and still become rich and famous. We don’t feel quite the same way about our 50-year-old siblings who dress like teenagers, sleep on our couches, and pawn our silver because they’re still on the verge of making it.

Jones, whether he knew it or not, was a shill, just like the rest of his team. For every humorist who makes it, there are millions who screw up their lives and their relationships with God. Many of the shills, for that matter, have lives that go bad toward the end, and many go to hell. John Belushi overdosed. Doug Kenney fell off a cliff and died. Douglas Adams, a fierce atheist, died young. Sam Kinison, a shock comedian who abandoned a career as a Pentecostal minister, died in a car wreck on his way to a casino town. For Satan, a few shills are a very profitable investment.

Jones wrote children’s books which were full of occult material. One of his book features a friendly goblin who offers to take a little girl to the goblin city. A goblin, like a genie or fairy, is just a demon, and demons are real. Reading stories about supernatural creatures like goblins can open doors to demons. Through such stories, your children can become ill or have severe psychological problems. When you write such stories for children, you’re literally evangelizing for Satan. You’re doing tremendous harm to people God created you to help.

If you watch Mark Hemans on Youtube, you will see him tell a woman to throw out the fairy books she got for her daughter. He says they opened the girl up to demonic attack.

Some people defend the Tolkien books because Tolkien wrote them with the aim of promoting Christianity. That’s wrong. You can’t use stories of sorcery and demons to help people serve God. Consider the hundreds of millions of people who love Tolkien. What percentage are even aware of Tolkien’s intentions? Surely less than one percent. It’s the same bunch of nerds who sit in basements playing Dungeons and Dragons. They’re not attacted to Tolkien because they love Jesus. They’re attracted because they love sorcery and demons.

I read the Tolkien books, and I was a Christian at the time, and it never occurred to me that they had anything to do with Christianity. Tolkien fooled himself. His friend C.S. Lewis made the same mistake, writing about witches and a magical wardrobe. No one should have a Narnia book in his house.

Jones was proud that he had written dangerous books for kids, and he was also proud that he had written about Chaucer. That seems very strange to me. How can you think Chaucer matters? Whose life have you improved by writing about a long-dead storyteller? What problems have you solved? It’s like being proud of graffiti. It’s meaningless.

Jones never grew up. He was spiritually stunted, and so are his friends. Take a look at what John Cleese said at Graham Chapman’s funeral:

Graham Chapman, co-author of the parrot sketch, is no more. He has ceased to be. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. He’s kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the great head of light entertainment in the sky. And I guess we’re all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence, should now so suddenly be spirited away at the age of only 48, before he had achieved many of the things of which he was capable and before he’d had enough fun. Well, I feel that I should say, “Nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries.” And the reason I feel I should say this is he would never forgive me if I didn’t; if I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf.

Cleese, a grown man with a law degree, then went on to toss out the F-word, to the general approval of those assembled.

It reminds me of the way Dan Aykroyd behaved at John Belushi’s funeral. He showed up in a ridiculous biker costume (picture Dan Aykroyd trying to fit in with real bikers), and when the mourners entered the church, Aykroyd made a show of stepping off the sidewalk and climbing over the church’s picket fence, as if to honor his dead friend’s contempt for authority. Meanwhile, somewhere else, Belushi had already learned the fate he had earned through his own contempt.

People like this led me away from God and his peace and into a life of humiliation, failure, guilt, and depression. Their kind is still at it today. When one generation dies and goes to hell, Satan raises up a new one, and we continue to lionize them while they feed us poisoned sweets.

I wish I had had someone to tell me the truth when I was young. I had a cornucopia of voices telling me all the wrong things, but there wasn’t one person who knew the Holy Spirit and wanted to introduce me to him. I had Henry Miller, John Cleese, Joseph Heller, and the rest, but there was no Derek Prince. There was no Mark Hemans. When I tried to find God, I ran into goaltenders like Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn, who were actually put in my way to make sure I never found the path. I didn’t stand a chance.

Think of the contrast between Terry Jones and Mark Hemans. Jones made naughty, sophomoric jokes, like a mischievous schoolboy, and he led other people into iniquity. He wrote books about a dead man no one cares about. He made himself rich, he bathed himself in glory, and then he died. Mark Hemans shows up in churches, and he frees people from things like paralysis and autism. He delivers desperate believers from cancer. He helps people to know the Holy Spirit. He helps them and their families to live in peace, good health, victory, and the knowledge of eternal salvation.

Who is the real success?

When someone like Jones dies, Satan makes sure lots of people honor him. He wants the rest of us to want to go out the same way. I’m not fooled. In all likelihood, right now, Terry Jones would give absolutely anything–even his limbs–to be where I am at this moment, with one more chance to repent. If Graham Chapman could have spoken at his own funeral, he would have begged people not to follow him.

I’m just glad God helped me come around before I died, and I’m glad I didn’t have great success when I was pursuing the wrong things. Had I succeeded, I would be just as smug and confident as the many damned humorists who preceded me. Thank God Jones and his colleagues failed to ensnare me. I forgive them all.

Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam are still here. Maybe some of them will wake up while there is still time.

My Car is my Church

Obviously, I have not been blogging much over the last week. I think the reason is that I have been spending a lot of time ripping CD’s.

A while back, I found myself listening to audio Bible files on Youtube, and I realized how useful they were. I decided I should get myself an audio version of the King James Bible, turn it into MP3 files, and put the files in all my devices.

Finding a good Bible was not easy. There is no perfect translation, but there are definitely some bad ones. I don’t want a feminist/socialist/environmentalist/anti-male/hipster translation. I want the paternalistic/cisgender/heterosexual/privileged Bible. I want God to “mansplain” to me. I’m pretty happy with the King James and the New King James, and the King James is the only translation which is a great work of English literature as well as a solid reference book, so the King James is what I picked.

Once I had chosen a version, I had to look through different editions. I finally opted for the Zondervan dramatized audio Bible. It doesn’t add to the text, but it does use different actors for different voices. It uses a woman’s voice for the book of Esther, which is moderately annoying, but overall, it was the best audio Bible I found for a decent price. The Royal Shakespeare Company did one that is supposedly phenomenal, but it’s only available on used cassettes.

Ripping the disks (Why do so many people insist on “disc”?) is taking quite a while. The Bible is a very big book. I’m doing one chapter at a time and then combining the files into single-book files. I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes me 10 more days.

Meanwhile, I have been watching a lot of Mark Hemans videos. It seems like the stuff I watch keeps increasing in quality. I watched a guy named Tom Fischer heal a lot of people, and it was great, but he got married and wandered off into talking about the health benefits of essential oils. I watched Tom Loud, Doug Collins, and The Last Reformation, and they were better. Mark Hemans is on the next step up.

Here’s what you usually see when charismatic preachers talk about healing. Some money-lover like Jerry Savelle will say someone he knows in Africa touched some person who was full of tumors, and that person was healed instantly and started running circles around the church. You won’t hear the preacher’s name or the name of the person who was healed. There won’t be any follow-up. Then the person you’re listening to will ask you for money.

Mark Hemans is not like that. He’ll say he healed someone of, for example, autism, and then he’ll say, “And you can find the video on Youtube.” Then you’ll find the video, and sure enough, there will be footage of some kid who used to be completely messed up, talking and behaving normally. You’ll see footage shot before the healing, proving the child had problems. You’ll hear the parents talk before and after the healing. You’ll see the kid doing things he couldn’t do before.

It seems like everyone is autistic these days. I have a small social circle, but I have four friends who have autistic kids! Four! And one of them has a parent who may well qualify. Autism is such a hot topic, I’ve had people try to tell me I have Asperger’s. People are blaming vaccines, pesticides, power lines, global warming…everything except demons. Why is that? We’re embarrassed to talk about demons. We think people will think we’re ignorant savages.

Here’s something interesting. Not only are demons involved in many, many conditions; they are involved in problems that seem to result from injury. You may think symptoms that follow injuries are purely physical. Mark Hemans healed a paralyzed boy whose are was injured during an emergency delivery, and he said a demon was the real reason for the paralysis. Go to Youtube and watch the video. You will see the boy raise his arm normally for the first time in his life. I know someone whose child has this problem. What if it could have been healed 25 years ago, simply by casting out a spirit?

Here’s something obvious which God showed me: even if you don’t believe diseases are caused by demons, it is definitely true that infectious diseases have spirits and that they live inside you. How do I know this? Every creature has a spirit. You can read Ecclesiastes if you don’t believe me; I know some Christians teach that animals have no spirit. Think about this: God puts life into inanimate matter by breathing his Spirit into them. There is no other way? How, then, can a living thing not have a spirit?

The Bible says there are horses in the supernatural realm. Remember the horsemen of the Apocalypse? If there are horse spirits in heaven, why would you think a horse here on earth can’t have a spirit?

If you have bacteria, fungi, viruses, mycoplasms, prions, parasites, or other types of living matter in you causing disease, you have spirits in you. All these creatures have spirits. I don’t know why this wasn’t obvious to me years ago. If the things that are in you causing disease have spirits, how can you not believe getting rid of spirits will improve your health? If you can make the spirit of a bacterium leave you, how can you not be healed of the disease it causes? It’s funny that no one ever teaches this.

Hemans healed a lady of bowel cancer, and then he forgot all about her. A year later, he returned to her area, and she showed up and surprised him. She brought a file of medical documents, including color photos. Whoever does the production work for Hemans dug up the footage of her initial meeting with him, and it’s part of the video in which she produces the documents.

This is not how healing preachers traditionally work. Generally, no one checks up on them. There is no documentation. There is no film, except for the film of the initial prayer and alleged healing.

These films are like those awful holiday newsletter cards some families send out. They always say Bobby got straight A’s again and George’s business opened three new locations. They never say Bobby turned gay and George got convicted of driving while intoxicated, even if everyone in town knows.

Many people have gone to meetings featuring Benny Hinn and Oral Roberts, to name two, claimed they were healed, and then either lost their healings or turned out not to be healed at all. This is what Christians are used to. We make no effort to check up on the healed. We don’t want to hear about those who didn’t get healed after all. They make us uncomfortable, so we ignore them.

It’s a new experience for the church when God confirms a healer’s work. We’re not used to that.

It’s important to note that Hemans doesn’t run around begging for money and threatening people with poverty if they don’t pay up. He’s very unlike the healing preachers Americans are used to.

Hemans is coming to America this year. He’ll be in the Eastern United States part of the time. I plan to go see him in action. I don’t worship men, and I don’t chase signs, but I need to see people doing things right, in person. Cessationists, who think God inexplicably turned selfish in about 200 A.D., criticize anyone who likes to see miracles, but how can you have Christianity without them? God is love, among other things. He loves healing his children. Miracles aren’t the foundation of Christianity, but Christianity without miracles is anomalous and crippled. It’s sick. God promised us signs and wonders would follow us. He promised we would heal the sick and cast out demons. If we’re not doing those things, something is amiss.

Cessationists amaze me. Miracles clearly take place today, and there is proof. How, then, can cessationism be correct?

I know some cessationists say all miracles and other manifestations of the Holy Spirit come from demons. That’s amazing. What lower form of blasphemy is there than calling God a demon?

God says people who call evil good and good evil will have serious problems, and he says he will not forgive those who speak against the Holy Spirit. Look it up for yourself. Even if you thought all miracles performed in the name of Jesus might be demonic, why would you say so if you weren’t sure? Like Gamaliel said to the Jewish leaders of his time, you might be fighting God himself.

A long time ago, God showed me that one of the curses on man is that we have to work very, very hard to get things he wants to give us simply for being his children. We struggle and suffer for millennia, trying to solve problems he can, and will, solve instantly.

What is technology? Like hard work, it’s a substitute for God’s help.

Consider cancer. We still can’t cure it. We have been building our medical knowledge ever since we were created, and there are many forms of cancer we can’t cure. Even if your cancer is curable, you may have to go through terrible things in order to be rid of it. Doctors may simply amputate things until you’re cancer-free. They cut off limbs. They cut of breasts. They cut out eyes. They cut off penises. Doctors castrated Bobby Riggs, and he died anyway. Now think about God’s way. Either he prevents you from getting cancer in the first place, or he drives it away and cuts the root instantly. No surgery. No drugs that make you vomit and lose your hair. No disfigurement. No loss of function.

I have known more than one man who had to wear diapers because of prostate surgery, and some also became impotent. All became sterile. After thousands of years of medical progress, that was the best human effort could do for them. I know a lady whose leg was removed at the hip. I would hate to guess how many women I know who are missing ovaries or their uteruses because of cancer or other problems man can’t fix.

God created us to be heirs, and heirs don’t earn. They simply receive. When man fell, he cut himself off from his inheritance. When Jesus came and made people well, he wasn’t giving them special favors. He was simply showing them what every human being was originally supposed to have, all the time.

We can’t cure a cold, the flu, arthritis, allergies, migraines, high blood pressure, diabetes…all sorts of common diseases. We can treat viral diseases, but we can’t really cure them. This is where we are after thousands of years. It’s pathetic, really. But God heals every type of problem, and he does it free of charge. Why aren’t we pursuing his help?

I’m going to pay about $8000 this year for medical insurance, even though I probably won’t see a doctor or receive any treatment. I don’t smoke. I barely drink. I’m not obese. I don’t have diabetes. I don’t have circulatory problems. I don’t take prescriptions. I still pay a fortune, because the government says I have to. That’s what man’s curse has done to me, and I’m much better off than most Americans my age. It’s remarkable that we pretend God won’t help us, considering what we spend and endure as a result.

Mark Hemans is the real deal. I’ll stick my neck out and say it. How much proof do you need? If he’s the real deal, I can be, too, and so can you. And we’re supposed to be.

One of the powerful things Hemans teaches is that you need to confess your faith. Very often, before he heals someone, he says, “Do you believe Jesus will heal you?” If the person won’t say yes, he won’t pray for them. He makes people sit down until they get their faith working, and he has people help them. They can’t weasel around, either. They can’t say, “I think he might.” They have to say they believe he will.

These days, when I pray, I say, “I believe you will do this,” and it makes my faith roar through me. Very good thing to know.

Here’s another useful practice: pray for people throughout the day. You may be busy, and you may be frustrated because you feel you can’t do anything for God. You don’t have to feel useless. Just pray for people. If you’re in a grocery store, pray that everyone on the property, and their families, will be saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. If you’re driving to work, pray for all the people in all the cars you can see. Make a point of praying for people who offend and mistreat you. Pray for obnoxious people. You may think it’s a sorry excuse for a ministry, but that’s an insult to God. Your prayers do more for people than your human effort could ever do. It’s better to pray all day, all by yourself, than it is to go to Africa on a mission and build a latrine or dig a well with your own strength. Elijah shut off the rain for several years by praying alone. Try and top that with your mission trip.

God’s power is like electricity. It needs a path. It has to have a destination. When you pray for people–especially people no one else wants to pray for–you open a channel for God’s power. When all you do is sit and beg God to help you with your problems, you’re like a wire that isn’t connected to anything. The current doesn’t want to flow.

I’ve found that praying for other people–anyone I can think of–during the day increases God’s faith and peace in me. It makes sense. Why would he make his power and virtue flow through someone who only wants to help one person?

Right now I’m working on ripping Isaiah. I look forward to having this job done. I want to be able to hear the Bible when I’m driving and here at the house. Once I’m done, I should be more communicative.

Crooked Pastors Dog my Dreams

I have a lot of dreams that seem to have no significance at all, but last night I had one which seems to have come from God.

I was living in my childhood home. My mother was there. She had an unconscious animal she thought was a rabbit. She had drugged it for some reason. She gave it to me. I put it on a little table, face-down with its limbs hanging off. It lay there oblivious, like a fat kid sleeping off Thanksgiving dinner.

I felt that I was supposed to shoot it, because that’s what you do with wild rabbits in your yard.

As I looked at it, I wondered how a rabbit could be so big. It looked more like a fat, neutered dog. I thought my mother ought to know what a rabbit looked like, but it certainly seemed like she was wrong.

I realized the animal was really a young coyote. Now I knew what to do with it. I went to get a gun. I walked toward my bedroom.

The coyote woke up and started menacing me and standing in front of me. I found myself wearing one of those protective outfits attack dog trainers wear. I held my arm out in front of me. I wasn’t really afraid of such a small animal, but I didn’t want to be bitten. The coyote showed its teeth and barked at me. It had very long jaws. When it barked, it actually said, “WOLF!”

To get to my bedroom, I had to go down a hall full of tool stations and big, stationary tools. I had to twist and turn to get past them. In the bedroom, my gun safe was full of disassembled pistols. I found a slide here and a body there, but I couldn’t put a gun together. I picked up the assault rifle I keep by my bed and tried to shoot the coyote. The trigger didn’t click, and nothing came out of the barrel. The gun was coming apart in the middle. I tried to pull the forestock toward me to put it back together, but I didn’t get anywhere.

A bunch of coyotes ran into the house from across the street. Some came in the bedroom window. I realized they weren’t pure coyotes. They were part dog. Such animals are called “coy-dogs.” I was surprised to see how many there were. I had thought there were only a couple in the area.

They really didn’t like me. They were united against me because I was a threat to their predation.

A big one that was really just an old sheepdog came in through the window and stood on the sill. It was not aggressive. It seemed tired of the coyote life. It wanted help. It had a collar and tags. I tried to read the tags so I could call the owner. I also saw a pure German shepherd walk through the room.

I never managed to shoot any of the coy-dogs. It was frustrating. I knew my neighbors hated them, and here I was with a chance to get rid of a whole pack.

I don’t know everything about the dream, but God told me a few things.

My mother, as usual, represented the church. The coy-dogs were pastors. The word “pastor” literally means “shepherd,” so it makes sense that the coy-dogs were pure herding breeds and crosses. The pastors were wolves, in the Biblical sense. They were hypocrites who only cared about eating the sheep and taking their money. They were like Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Steve Munsey, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, John Gray, and the rest of the usual suspects.

The old sheepdog was a pastor who wanted to go back to serving God. He was very unhappy with what he had done with his life, and he wanted to change. He was haunted by the knowledge of the waste.

The coy-dogs were not real wolves. They were smaller, except for the shepherd and sheepdog. They were not scary. They might have seen themselves as big, frightening, powerful predators, but you could injure and drive one off pretty easily with a good kick to the teeth.

The one that was mistaken for a rabbit reminds me of Richie Wilkerson, Kanye West’s young hipster pastor. He was frisky and bursting with confidence that he was a big, bad wolf, but he couldn’t back it up with any real strength.

I believe God was showing me that there are crooked pastors out there who are not to have their ministries completely destroyed. God will not help his children destroy them. They’re part wolf, but they’re also part shepherd, and God will not annihilate their ministries. They will come around eventually. My mother represented churches that enable such people. They fawn on them and give them money, and that puts them to sleep.

There are corrupt preachers who are completely irredeemable, but some preachers can be saved.

The pastors ganged up on me because I threatened their income and reputations. This has actually happened to me in real life, so no surprise there. Business as usual. It means nothing to me, because like the animals in the dream, these guys bark but aren’t man enough to bite. Preachers have lied about me and conspired against me, but they never had the guts to confront me. When you want everyone to think you’re a sheep, you can’t go on the attack in public. You have to sneak around at night, behind closed doors, like a cockroach or a termite.

I’m not sure why my mother thought the first coy-dog was a rabbit and not a sheep or sheepdog. It may be because rabbits are unclean by kosher standards yet very edible. A rabbit could symbolize a gentile.

It’s an interesting dream. The only real revelation in it–the only thing I didn’t already know–was that so many hypocrite pastors could be saved. That’s very good news, but I am tired of these people and their lies and slanders, so it also means I have to more patient than I want to.

Back to the Mire

The further along I get in Christianity, the more I find wrong with this world.

Human beings have a nearly endless capacity for getting used to things. I suppose this is why there is no part of the world, no matter how unpleasant, which we have not settled. People who live in deserts and in the frozen north adjust pretty well, even though the places where they live are, objectively, disagreeable. People in prison have good days. Because we can get used to nearly anything, we see the world as a beautiful place full of opportunity when, in reality, it’s a cursed planet packed with disease, cruelty, and disaster.

Here on earth, babies are born with AIDS and cancer, in addition to birth defects so horrifying just seeing them can give an adult nightmares. Everyone born here ages and dies. A big percentage of the species on earth survive by killing other creatures and eating their bodies. If you look at the earth with clear eyes, you can’t help but conclude that it’s a terrible place. You may be feeling okay right now, but all over the world, countless rapes and murders are taking place. Millions of people are screaming in agony. Innumerable creatures are being torn apart, alive, by other creatures. The fact that you’re used to it doesn’t make the earth a nice place.

Sin, which is the fundamental cause of all suffering, is one of the things we’re used to. We’re blind and deaf to it. Things we think are normal and acceptable are actually extremely evil and harmful.

Most Americans think sex outside of marriage is harmless. That’s amazing. Think of all the unwanted children it produces. Think of the diseases it spreads. Go look at photos of syphilis and AIDS patients and tell yourself fornication is okay. How many people are in prison right now for murder and battery because fornication made them jealous? Since Roe v. Wade, Americans have murdered so many babies, the number tops the American casualty count from the Vietnam War, and the vast majority of the murdered babies were conceived through fornication.

Many Americans think recreational drugs are harmless for most people. Astonishing. Every time you buy drugs, you subsidize murder. I had a friend who tried to tell me his dope was acceptable because he only smoked homegrown. Of course, he was a terrible liar. I personally overheard him trying to get weed through a dealer. He was also an alcoholic, he had terrible debt, and he had alienated many of the people who knew him because he was so self-centered and abusive. I’m one of those people. I removed him from my life because he was obnoxious to me, and I never heard from him unless he wanted something.

Drugs invite demons, and demons cause physical problems, mental illness, and increased sin. Furthermore, like fornication, drug use is explicitly condemned in the Bible, so it’s not really necessary to argue about the ill effects. If God says it’s wrong, we should not be doing it.

Lust is now something we don’t even try to fight. We see it as healthy. We’re even proud of it. We encourage and celebrate it. We enrich slutty entertainers and treat them as though they were Ashtaroth and Athena.

We love anger and cruelty. Look at the kind of humor we pay to be subjected to. Look at the gruesome, sick movies and shows we watch.

When I turned back to God, I didn’t understand how polluted my life was. I listened to jazz and the blues, and I thought it was fine with God. I watched violent movies with no moral qualms. I thought it was fine to stare at women and fantasize about them as long as I didn’t try to get them into bed. I thought self-confidence, which is pride, was desirable. I didn’t know the Bible said God fought the proud.

A decade or so ago, I became aware of the concept of sanctification, and I started asking God for it. I knew Christians had demons and iniquities–evil habits–and that we needed to be purged. My pastors had no interest in sanctification. They were sinners, and they were afraid they would lose money if the sinners who made up their congregation were confronted with the need to repent. I was shown that I was unwelcome at the last two churches I attended, and the reason wasn’t that I was an unrepentant sinner or that I didn’t try to be helpful. They ostracized me because I stood up for sanctification and told other people they needed it.

Sanctification has been a very slow process for me, probably because I had pastors opposing me instead of teaching and helping me. My pastors loved their sins and demons. They wanted to stay filthy, and they didn’t like it when anyone else tried to get clean. Nearly all the help I’ve received has come from God himself, through private revelation and deliverance. That’s sad.

Sometimes, when I questioned what I was doing, other Christians encouraged me to continue. Can you believe we’re that ignorant?

Last year, I gave up watching action movies and shows. I should just say “movies,” because TV shows are just short movies. I had enjoyed mindless movies like John Wick and the Tarantino films. God told me watching these things was no different from watching pornography. In fact, these films were pornography. Most pornography is sexual. I was watching violence and revenge porn.

We get very worked up about porn and porn addiction, but the other things we watch are just as bad or worse!

God also showed me I had to give up superhero movies and a lot of science fiction. Superheroes are really false gods. The things they do in movies are physically impossible, and many superheroes have occult roots. Thor is an ancient false god; how much more obvious can it be? Science fiction movies are full of occult ideas, and almost none of them acknowledge God. Star Wars and Avatar essentially promote new religions. There are probably millions of people in this world–some grown–who think the force is real and try to cultivate it.

Earlier this month, I went to a Last Reformation event in North Carolina, and I asked someone to cast spirits of worry, fear, and unbelief out of me. I had been having inexplicable anxiety, especially between midnight and dawn. It annoyed me, because unlike many people who worry, I do not like to worry. I see worry as a sin. I am not proud of it, the way many people are. I consider it disgraceful. It’s an insult to God. It’s faith in Satan.

After my trip, I felt much better. I wasn’t completely calm all the time, but I felt good. I stopped waking up and having problems falling asleep again. It was great.

Last night, I did something dumb. I was getting ready for bed, and I got hooked on videos from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. I used to watch these shows. They’re about miserable, selfish people who descend into self-destruction as a result of their involvement in the methamphetamine business. These shows are full of violence, cruelty, and sick revenge. There are no godly characters. None of the characters care about other people. They never do anything kind.

After I watched the last video, I felt worry coming back to me. My heart throbbed. It was very unpleasant. I realized I had opened the door. I asked God if this was the case, and he confirmed it. I cast out the spirits behind the worry. I repented. I asked God to forgive me.

He allowed me to feel the worry for a while, to let the lesson soak in, and then it was gone. I understand that. Sometimes you need to suffer a little in order to learn. I was grateful for it.

Today I’m wondering what life is supposed to be like for modern Christians. How many things do I have to give up? I can’t have coffee or tea. I can’t watch most movies. I can’t listen to most music. There are many things I can’t let myself think about. There are many things I can’t let myself say. I can’t go into a bar. There are many places I shouldn’t even visit. What would my life be like if I were completely free of things God hates? I can’t imagine, because I’ve never lived that way. People who are born blind can’t imagine sight.

I’m not talking about rules or legalism. A legalist thinks God has given us a list of rules and that he grades us based on how many points we score. That’s wrong. In reality, God has simply shown us what is good and what is harmful. If you tell your 4-year-old son not to put his hand on the stove, you’re not a legalist. You’re just telling him to avoid something that causes serious problems.

Jews who are not Messianic think God has a scale and that he weighs our good deeds against our bad ones in order to decide who goes to heaven. Muslims believe the same thing. It’s wrong. Holiness isn’t a sport or a game show. It’s a way of being. We don’t get into heaven by doing good things. We get into heaven through the punishment of Jesus. He paid our bill. The point of being good isn’t to win admission to heaven; it’s to be like Jesus, increase God’s victory in our lives, help others to be saved, and avoid defeat and misery.

I don’t watch TV any more, except for Forged in Fire. I have no interest in movies. I watch Youtube for Christian material and videos which are relevant to my hobbies. Sometimes something counterproductive pops up on my feed, and I end up wandering off. That’s what happened last night.

I don’t want worry, disease, financial problems, loneliness, depression, subordination to obnoxious people, or any of the other ills that come from opening the wrong doors. I want to open the doors to heaven and close the doors of failure and oppression. Many of our problems persist because we give the enemy legal authority to afflict us. We wonder why we don’t get God’s promises, even while we’re inviting Satan to fulfill his. That’s amazing.

Sometimes when I sign into Youtube, before the system knows it’s me, the algorithm shows me a bunch of things other people are watching. It makes me want to throw up. Video games, the Kardashians, professional sports, vapid, unhappy celebrities, snotty late-night hosts, rappers with disgusting lives, martial arts events…it’s nauseating. How can people care about or even endure this garbage? It’s like looking at other people’s food in a grocery checkout line. When you see a mountain of Pop Tarts, chips, sugar cereals, light beer, Hot Pockets, sugar drinks for kids, and frozen entrees, you wonder how they can eat it and not die in a month.

We complain that God doesn’t do what the Bible says he will do, but we haven’t given him a chance. We swim neck-deep in the world, subjecting ourselves to its power. You have to wonder how good life can be for those who are willing to be set apart. It’s not like we can look around and see how they live. They are too few in number. I don’t know anyone like that.

Without God, life is utterly pointless. Everything we do that God doesn’t command will be destroyed in front of us. The things we do in obedience last forever. When you serve God, you walk in love, helping others in ways that are permanent. Compared to that, earthly accomplishments are like sandcastles made from infected manure. People love to think they’re creating legacies. We put our names on buildings. We try to accomplish as much as we can in our professions. We strive to become famous. It’s all filth. None of it will survive. Even the oldest ungodly public figures will be forgotten before long. The pharaohs will be forgotten, but a Burger King employee who serves God will do things that will be remembered in heaven forever.

I’m going to keep going forward. I know things will get better and better if I do. I don’t care what I have to give up. I’m going to be dead soon no matter what I do. A couple of decades of light self-denial won’t amount to diddly in the long run.

The Years I’ve Wasted!

Yesterday I had a discovery that left me with a mixture of joy and deep regret, as well as a sense that I had been cheated. I discovered that mustard greens are actually the best greens.

Here is the problem: I had never had properly prepared mustard greens. I had always had undercooked, bitter greens. I figured they always tasted that way. They were okay, but I saw no reason to go out of my way to cook them for myself. I thought my results would be no better.

This week I picked up what I thought was a package of collards. I was going to use them for salad. Collard greens make excellent salads. I mix them with grape tomatoes and feta cheese, among other things. They’re a little tough compared to lettuce, but that doesn’t scare me.

When I got the greens out to make salad, I was alarmed to see that I actually had mustard greens. I tried them, and I discovered they had a strong, sharp flavor. I guess the chemicals that make mustard pungent go all through the plant. There was no way to make a decent salad from them.

The next day, I decided to cook the greens, just to get them out of my life. I didn’t have any bacon grease; I had exhausted it while cooking for the holidays. I found a couple of old slices of country ham in the fridge, and I also had leftover scraps from the sugar-crusted ham I made for Christmas. I put this stuff in the pot with the greens and simmered them for over two hours. I also added powdered garlic (I was out of the real thing) and a little sugar.

I expected greens that were merely edible. I got something completely different. They were delicious. Best greens I’ve ever eaten. Better than kale, spinach, and collards. The sharp flavor was gone, and the taste of the wilted greens had mingled with the pork to create a whole new experience.

I got so excited, I made cornbread. I couldn’t help myself. I could not allow myself to eat greens this good without it.

I didn’t have buttermilk, but I had some whole-milk plain yogurt I needed to get rid of. I did something crazy. I used about a cup of yogurt, and I made up the rest of the liquid with whole milk. I also mixed about half a teaspoon of citric acid with the dry ingredients. Because I was out of bacon grease, I made a half-and-half mixture of lard and butter.

The cornbread was excellent. It would have been better with bacon grease, but it was still wonderful.

It seems to me that the reason I didn’t know how good mustard greens could be is that no one ever cooked them correctly for me in the past. Most people undercook their greens. There is a terrible prejudice in favor of undercooked vegetables these days. It works for some things, but greens need to be cooked to death. If you undercook them, they don’t develop any flavor. Greens should be cooked until they’re completely wilted but not dissolved.

I ordered myself a new country ham, as well as 6 country ham hocks. It will come out to around $5 per pound overall, which is not bad for a delicacy. The next time I want to make mustard greens, I’ll throw a hock in with them, and I may chop some sort of ham steak into them. Country ham can be overpowering in greens, so it’s okay to mix it with plain old grocery store ham.

Now that I think about it, this is a good development. I keep looking for vegetable-heavy, low-carb dishes for lunch and dinner. Mustard greens with ham will fill the bill. I should probably omit the cornbread, though. Greens are simple to cook, and they improve in the fridge, so you can eat them for several days after you prepare them.

I don’t have a lot of interest in cooking these days, but it seems like I still get pulled back into it by circumstances. I ate way too much over the holidays, because I was doing the cooking, and the food was tremendous. Now I want it all behind me ( instead of in front of me).

I had a wonderful dream last night. I keep asking God to invade my dreams. I don’t have bad dreams, but I have dreams that are sort of dismal. It seems like I almost never pray or think about God while I’m dreaming. It’s very strange, considering my waking mindset. Last night, I had dreams which seemed to reflect his presence in an indirect way.

I dreamed I was driving in the country, on a dirt road, in an area where there was at least one house. The area around the road had been cleared of trees. It was covered with deep grass and flowers. I couldn’t see any of this, because it was pitch black outside, and I didn’t have my headlights on.

As I drove, the grass and flowers in front of me, where my headlights should have shone, lit up as I approached. They filled up with shimmering gold, green, and red light. It was as though God was lighting up my path. I felt happy and peaceful as I watched. There was something very comforting about the nature of the light.

I had my window open, and my hand was outside. I felt something bite down on it. It was a firm bite, but not painful. Whatever was biting me had no teeth. It held on. For some reason, I had the idea that it was a big baby bird.

I drove out of the darkness into an area where the sun was bright, and I saw that a biracial baby girl was holding onto my hand with her gums.

I took her into the car and drove to the front steps of a school, which was also a courthouse and hospital. Friends of mine were situated around the steps. They were very happy to see me carrying the baby in. I was happy, too. I was very glad to be looking after her.

I don’t know what to make of the dream, but even after I woke up, I felt God’s love pouring through me like sunshine. I’m trying to hang onto that. Trying to love people with your own strength is better than nothing, but what you really want is to have God love through you.

Various people claiming to be witnesses say there are no shadows in heaven. They say everything is transparent, so the light that comes from God, and which contains his character, including love, pours through all. I believe we’re supposed to be like that. Yesterday I saw Mark Hemans preaching about how the word says we’re not supposed to have darkness in us. Every corner should be clean and illuminated.

I hope God gives me dreams in which he is less subtle. I don’t want to think like a Christian during the day and like an unbeliever while I sleep.

But I Do Believe I’ve Had Enough

I don’t blog my travels in real time, so I am writing this on January 4, in Hickory, North Carolina, and I will publish it when I get back to Florida.

Today I went to an open house held by The Last Reformation near Connelly Springs, North Carolina. This is their second open house. They are leasing a new headquarters in hopes of buying it. They kept quiet about the location for a long time, but now it’s no secret, so I will tell you about it. It’s a former resort in the hills. It used to be known as Pine Mountain Resort, and it’s located beside a golf course which belongs to a gated community called Pine Mountain Estates.

It’s not clear to me how much property they own. An Internet source says something about 50 acres. They have a big hotel and a three-story restaurant which is maybe 200 yards away. The hotel is like a circa-1960 Holiday Inn. It’s a long building made of concrete and corrugated steel with Spartan rooms opening onto verandas. There is an office/lounge/cafe area in the middle, and they have a pool out back.

The main building needs a roof very badly. It was raining for part of the day today, and water was pouring in through various areas. They had rigged sheets of plastic up to divert it away from the building. If they can get the roof together, my guess is that they will have a perfectly serviceable headquarters. I’m not sure they understand how important a roof is. It’s more important than walls or a floor. When your roof leaks, everything under it will eventually be destroyed.

I don’t understand how the roof ended up like this. I know roofs deteriorate, but this one is like a sieve.

The restaurant’s roof seems to be in much better shape. I did not see any obvious problems.

The land is very nice. It’s in a very hilly area. The woods have obviously been timbered in the not-too-distant past, so most of the trees are under a foot thick, but there is a variety of hardwoods, and there are tall white pines. There are also lots of mountain laurels.

I drove to a hotel in South Carolina yesterday, and today I finished the trip. When I started out this morning, I was not all that far from Savannah, which appears to be situated in a swamp. As I drove, the landscape developed a little altitude, and I started to see real trees. At some point, there was a transition that marked the beginning of real Appalachian scenery, and I felt like getting out and kissing the ground. Given that mindset, it was a real treat to see mountain laurels. I considered grabbing a leaf to take home with me.

I don’t know why Appalachia is suddenly so attractive to me. It has to be God. I felt a thrill of relief when I crossed the Florida line on the way north, and it disturbed me. I love Ocala. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for my home. It’s perfectly normal to be glad you’re north of Miami, but I’m surprised to see that I was happy to get away from northern Florida.

It was a real treat to drive on the twisty roads on the final approach to the resort. I learned to drive on roads like that in Kentucky, and that’s why I don’t drive like a tourist up here. My family had a cabin in North Carolina in the 1970’s, and there were a lot of Florida people up there. My mother used to make fun of them for riding their brakes and creeping around curves. They had no idea what they were doing. I’m grateful I know how to drive here. It would be really nice to have a manual transmission here. Automatics don’t really work well with hills.

When I got to the property, there were a lot of cars there. TRL has students, and they live on the property, so they accounted for some of the cars. There was also a bus belonging to a family of Mennonites. Yes, there are now Mennonites who speak in tongues. I have to wonder how that goes over with their relatives.

There were a lot of people there. Kids were everywhere. I introduced myself to some people, and a lady named Christina took us for a tour. She’s from Denmark, like Torben Sondergaard and a lot of the TRL early adaptors. She showed us the roof issues.

Torben and his family live in one end of the hotel building, which, I suppose, is now a dormitory. Other rooms contain students and visitors.

I spent quite a while talking to a lady from somewhere on the North Carolina coast. She’s a student at the school. We had a long conversation with a local Chinese lady who became a Christian in 2015. We tried to give her guidance. She belongs to an Assemblies of God church, but that denomination, while tolerant of the Holy Spirit, is not in great shape. It spawned a lot of the money preachers.

At around 4 p.m., Torben gave a talk. He brought up a young man who went through their Luke 10 school. They have more than one program. The Luke 10 people divide into groups and go out and evangelize, relying on God to provide them with things like food and shelter. The young man had a wild testimony about the things God did for his team. I’ll just link to a video in which he tells the same story. There is no point in rehashing it in print.

Torben said TLR was about to come to Florida for a long campaign. They’re looking for people to let them stay in their homes. I asked God if I should volunteer. I have a big house, multiple bedrooms, and a pool for baptism. I felt the answer was that I should not offer, but that I should agree if they asked. No one asked, so that’s how that went.

They put a portable hot tub on the deck at the restaurant, and a bunch of people got baptized. It was below 50 degrees outside. I was impressed with their determination. Everyone came out of the tub speaking in tongues.

They also prayed for people in the restaurant. I wanted prayer. I have been having pain in the joints at the bases of my thumbs, and I think whatever spirit gave my mother rheumatoid arthritis has been after me. I wanted help with that. I also wanted deliverance from spirits of fear, unbelief, and worry. Seems like they come for me every morning.

A young Dane named Matt prayed for me. As he prayed, the problems with my thumbs got so faint I could not be sure they were still there. Oddly, almost all of the joint soreness went away about two days ago for no clear reason, so it was not easy to find it today in order to give Matt feedback. Anyway, he was very helpful. I feel some soreness now, so I think more work has to be done.

I have asked God if there is some problem with my personality that gives joint problems a right to bother me, but I believe he has told me that it’s just an opportunistic spirit that has no right to be here. Not every illness or evil spirit comes to you because of something you’re doing wrong.

Out of the blue, Matt asked if I had lower back pain. I do not. At least not chronically. I have strained myself from time to time, causing temporary problems. I told him all this, and he had me sit with my back against a chair so he could check to see if my legs were the same length. Christian healers typically do this for people with back pain.

It turned out my left leg was slightly shorter, so he told it to grow out. My leg twitched a little, and before long, both heels were level. He told me to walk around, so I did. I couldn’t say I felt any different, though.

I’m not going to tell you I was healed, or even that there was anything wrong with me. Just that my leg did twitch, and it did seem to grow out. I can’t swear it wasn’t the power of suggestion.

While he was talking to me, I started to feel a little dizzy. He and a young lady told any spirit that was causing it to be gone. I think it was just the Holy Spirit, however. It was NOT the power of suggestion. It was real.

Here’s something odd: I started to feel a little pain in my lower back (also real). It was very slight. I don’t feel it now. I started to wonder what was going on. You don’t expect to receive prayer for healing and then find you have a problem you didn’t have before.

He said it might be taking me some time to get used to the change. Don’t ask me to explain. I’m just telling you what happened.

I did not see anyone else get a miraculous healing, but I didn’t go around looking to see what was happening, and I left before the testimonies started.

I heard a lady say she was “from this area.” I had been marveling at the lack of Southern accents among those present, so I asked if she was from North Carolina. She said she was from Louisville. I guess “this area” was intended broadly. She said she and her husband had sold everything they had and bought an Airstream trailer. They went to Denmark and studied at the original Jesus Center with Torben.

I guess he affects a lot of people that way. Actually, I hope it’s the Holy Spirit and not Torben.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m burdened with too many objects and too much real estate. Many people give up all their worldly ties so they can travel and serve God. I don’t think he wants this for me, though. I want to be rooted in one place. I feel that he keeps telling me to have a house and keep my tools.

Among charismatics, there may be a tendency to condemn people who won’t give everything up and travel around, but God probably doesn’t require this of everyone. We all have different desires. I would go nuts, living out of a Winnebago. I want to own some soil, and I don’t want to look over my hedge and see my neighbor standing around in a tank top with a beer in his hand.

It really seems like Christians admire people who spend their lives traveling, and that they look down on those who don’t. There are so many people near you who need evangelizing; can you really say you need to go to Africa or Mexico? Africa is full of African evangelists, by the way. A lot of people don’t know that.

After all the healing and baptisms, there was a long period where I didn’t seem to connect with anyone, so I took off and headed for Chick-fil-A and my hotel. I felt that whatever God wanted to happen to me at the Jesus Center had happened, and that there was no point in hanging around. I didn’t make new friends. The only thing I said to Torben was “hi,” when he welcomed me.

I am still not planning to join TLR. It’s a denomination now, whether they know it or not. When you have classes, a curriculum, a headquarters, and a name, you’re a denomination. I can’t have a board of directors or a handbook between me and God. I think what they’re doing right now is right for many people, but I can’t get too close. Don’t ask me why.

I don’t think they’re frauds. I don’t think TLR is a cult, although it may become one if they don’t watch it. I’m just sure God does not want me to join.

Many of the people who attended the open house were Europeans. I suppose they knew Torben in Denmark. It seemed like most of the others were not Southerners. That surprised me, because Southerners seem to own charismatic Christianity, and the Jesus Center is situated in North Carolina. They told me they hadn’t gotten too close to their neighbors yet.

They call this place “The Jesus Center” and “The Ark.” I don’t know if they’ve settled on an official name. For a long time, I’ve believed that God was moving people to rural areas to keep them safe, and TLR clearly has the same idea. I’m sure urban mobs will be traveling around killing Christians before long, and I think God wants the elect to be so far from lazy leftist handout-lovers, they won’t have the gumption to get in cars and come to us.

The Ark is certainly a good place to be in that scenario. It must be 15 miles from the nearest limited-access highway, and you have to take narrow, winding roads to get there. Once you’re there, you can’t use your phone to get home unless someone lets you use their wifi to get it started. Angry mobs from inner cities will have a very hard time reaching places like The Ark. They’ll exhaust themselves in the cities, suburbs, and relatively accessible rural areas. If you’re too lazy to work for a living or take care of your family, you’re not going to work hard to reach people so you can persecute them. Places like The Ark will not be attacked until the easy pickings are exhausted.

You can see this principle in action today. When there are riots, the perpetrators, who are invariably leftists, don’t even leave their own neighborhoods. They destroy the local stores they depend on for food and other necessities, and then they complain that big businesses won’t open locations in their areas.

I can see why God wants me in an area like the one where The Ark is located.

Here is what Psalm 91 says: “Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most high, thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” It says, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee; only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.” People who have been moved out of cities will have to sit by and watch while the people they left behind are slaughtered. It’s very consistent with similar things that happened in the Bible.

Torben is a huge Trump fan. There are ignorant American charismatics who think Trump is God’s enemy and that Obama was a messiah figure, but Torben, a Dane, is aware that leftists are going to come after us, and he says Trump is our friend. He says persecution will fall on us after Trump leaves office, or at least after conservatives lose their political power. It’s amazing that he can see this while so many black, Hispanic, and coastal charismatics can’t. It’s strange to see a European from a left-leaning country see things so clearly.

Supposedly, charismatics in Europe are much more supportive of Trump. This is what I was told today. How can that be? I guess it’s because the charismatic church in Europe is already an underground movement used to rejection. Underground churches are supposedly stronger. It takes determination and sincerity to be a charismatic in Europe. Here, any lazy, worldly person can join a charismatic money church, listen to someone like John Gray or Richie Wilkerson, and continue to serve the devil.

I have no idea how to find the property God wants me to have, but I suppose locating it was never my job anyway. I’ll go back home and wait to see what he wants me to do.

I’m very glad I came to the open house. I hope one day I’ll have more strong Christian friends, and that I won’t have to take long drives to be among them, but until then, trips like this will be very helpful. Right now, there is no one near me who is really on the same frequency.

MORE

I am home. It’s January 6. I spent the night in Georgia, and I made it to my house this afternoon.

It’s great to be in my own house. I was getting a little too comfortable in hotel rooms. Before Christmas, I ordered myself some genuine Hampton Inn pillows, which are wonderful. If I keep traveling, I may find myself buying tiny bottles of shampoo and hangers that are permanently fastened to the rod.

Because I believe God has been telling me I’m going to move to Tennessee, I wanted to drive through some areas of the state after finishing up with TLR in North Carolina. One place that has caught my attention is Johnson County, where Mountain City is located. The elevation is high, which means nice summers, and unlike the higher areas farther south, it hasn’t attracted throngs of unpleasant people from Florida.

I was surprised to see that Mountain City was less than 60 miles from my hotel in North Carolina.

Yesterday morning I drove to Mountain City, passing through Blowing Rock, North Carolina, on the way. At first, the land was merely pleasantly hilly, but then I saw Blowing Rock clinging to the top of a big mountain in front of me. I hadn’t been there since I was a kid. I had forgotten what a crazy place it is. You have to wind your way up a very steep highway, right up the side of the mountain, to get there.

When I left the hotel, it was 40 degrees. On the way to Blowing Rock, I saw a truck with snow on its hood and roof. When I got into town, it was 29 degrees, and before long, I saw the external temperature bottom out at 28.

One of the negatives of the Mountain City area is that in order to get the cool summers, you get cold nights a lot of the year, and the winters are several degrees cooler than they are at lower altitude. I didn’t know how big the difference was until this trip.

The impression I got was that once you get up to Blowing Rock, you find yourself on a sort of plateau, and it continues into Tennessee. The Mountain City area seemed relatively flat, and it’s 1100 feet lower than Blowing Rock, which is on the very top of a mountain.

There isn’t much in the town. Just a few stores, a couple of gas stations, a courthouse, and so on. I went into the grocery store and bought apples, just to find out what I would be dealing with if I moved there. I wouldn’t starve, but I wouldn’t be able to count on croissants and baguettes.

I had to stop at a gas station to put air in my tires. In the cold air, they shrank, and the drop in pressure set off my car’s sensors.

I drove from Mountain City to Asheville, through some towns that were considerably smaller than Mountain City. The distance was about 95 miles. I saw a lot of houses. I wondered what the people did for a living. I wondered where they got their food. Surely they didn’t drive to Mountain City every week. Maybe they do, though. My grandmother used to drive to Lexington, Kentucky, for groceries, and she lived over 60 miles away. There was an IGA grocery store in her town, but it wasn’t always enough.

I’m not sure what to make of what I saw. The places I drove through didn’t look as promising as the other side of the mountains, in areas like Blount County. I don’t want to be in a city, but I don’t know if I want to be 90 minutes from the nearest town with over 10,000 people. Ocala has a population of around 60,000, and it’s big enough so you can buy an appliance or get your garage door fixed without major problems. I don’t want to be so far out I have to do everything for myself.

If I lived on the other side, I could always go into Knoxville if I needed to, without mounting a major expedition.

On the way out, I drove past Asheville, not Knoxville, which was a mistake. It put me too far east. I was trying to avoid driving through southeastern Georgia on the way home. Going north, I had gone through the area between Ocala and Jacksonville, which is pretty bad, and then in Georgia, I had driven through an endless expanse of swamp. Savannah, for all the romance people attach to it, appears to be in a swamp. It’s oppressive and creepy.

After I got through Asheville, my GPS still wanted to send me through the muck, so I went out of my way to go farther west. I must have added two or three hours to my trip by the time I was done, but I didn’t care. Driving through Brunswick, Georgia, once is enough for anyone.

After about 11 hours on the road, I gave up and got a hotel room. Took off again this morning, after more Chick-fil-A. I eat there out of principle, in spite of the fact that they quit supporting the Salvation Army. Leftists still haven’t forgiven them, so I haven’t stopped supporting them. Also, the food is great, and the way they treat customers gives me a real boost.

I did not feel good about re-entering Florida. That made me a little sad. I asked God if he was making me feel that way so I would be willing to move to Tennessee, and I felt that the answer was “yes,” so I asked him if he could motivate me with the positives of Tennessee instead of making me feel bad about Ocala, which is a beloved refuge. I think he agreed.

If you’re wondering why I’m so focused on moving, I will tell you one reason. Torben says God told him to move to America a long time ago. He didn’t listen. Then Danish TV made a dishonest documentary about him, people started confusing him with a preacher who was abusing people sexually, and the Danish legislature passed a law because of him, making it illegal to cast out demons in front of kids and disabled people. There was talk about taking away his children because of his doctrine. He and his family had to move in the middle of the night, with 8 suitcases. I want to go when God says “go,” at a leisurely pace, with all of my great stuff.

I feel God has told me to quit asking him exactly where to go. As I understand it, I’m to wait until I hear from him. It’s a little difficult to sit back and do nothing, after spending so many hours looking at houses on the web, but on the other hand, do I really want to do the work myself? No. Not if he’s willing to take it off my back.

I feel that God showed me something this week: it’s wrong to feel sure of yourself. If you feel you can handle any challenge, you will jump in front of God, take things out of his hands, and mess everything up. That’s hard to swallow, but it must be true, because the word says we are not to lean unto our own understanding.

It’s hard to get used to taking my hands off things and refusing to plan, but where did planning ever get me in the past?

You know nearly as much about my future as I do right now. I know it will be better than the past, and I know that I don’t have to have a plan in order to make it happen, so I am content.

Three-Dog Nights

I’m back. I was busy with Christmas.

I have an aunt. I will call her Polly. She has a lot of problems, and she has been rejected by the family. She has been divorced for many years. Her daughter, whom I will call Mabel, has also suffered a lot of rejection, as has the daughter’s son, whom I will call Larry.

When I took my dad’s ashes to Kentucky earlier this year, I spent a fair amount of time with Polly and Mabel. All three of us felt we were no longer integral parts of the overall family circle. A few years back, my other living aunt called during the fall and told me how she, four of my cousins, and their families had gotten together for Thanksgiving, and she apparently didn’t think about the fact that she was talking to someone who hadn’t been invited. My dad and I didn’t make the list, which seemed odd. Since then, I have had the impression that we no longer had insider status.

While I was in Kentucky, I told Polly and Mabel they were welcome to visit me over Christmas, and I said they could bring Larry, too. I figured I would probably be entertaining friends as well. In the end, some of my friends could not make it due to work conflicts and another could not be here due to difficulties with an interesting parent, so I only expected Polly, Mabel, and Larry. They had committed to come 9 months ago, so I thought they were serious.

Not long ago, I talked to Mabel, and she said Polly had suddenly changed her mind about coming. She has arthritis, and she didn’t want to travel. At this point, it was starting to look like attendance was going to be limited to me, my parrots, and the squirrels.

People change plans. This is normal. It’s a little out of the ordinary to announce you’re calling off a holiday trip right before it’s supposed to happen.

I wanted them to come. In Kentucky, Mabel and I had talked a lot about God, and she had accepted Jesus. I prayed for her in her mom’s driveway. I told her about the benefits of baptism, and she said she wanted to do it. I suggested she go to a Last Reformation event, but she insisted she wanted me to do it. I thought this was a bad idea, because you should be baptized as soon as you receive salvation, but it was what she wanted. I let her know about some events she could attend, but she didn’t go. I ended up pinning my hopes on the Christmas visit, and it looked like it was not going to happen.

I prayed and encouraged them to come, and they decided to do it. I didn’t understand what I was asking them to do. The only decent car they had belonged to Larry, and it was a mini-SUV. They had two golden retrievers and an Australian cattle dog, and they weren’t happy with the boarding options that were available at the last minute. They had to jam three adults and three dogs into a pretty small car.

They didn’t want to put three large dogs in my house, but I told them to bring them. I was not going to give up that easily. Baptism is important.

When it came time to leave, Polly said she had a bunch of errands to run, and they were determined to make the 11-hour drive in one shot, so they ended up arriving at 4 a.m.

Polly and Mabel both smoke, and the dogs are big, so it was an interesting time. No one smoked in the house, but when you smoke intensely, you can change the atmosphere in a house just by being in it along with your belongings. The dogs behaved, but you can’t have three big dogs in a house without issues.

I didn’t care. I wanted to get the baptism done. How often do people with dysfunctional families get to fight back with real weapons?

Polly has some firm views on religion, and she tends to take a dim view of new things. I had told her about TLR in March, and since then, she had done some Googling. TLR and its leader, Torben Sondergaard, are getting very intense persecution from a wide variety of nutcases here and overseas, so there is plenty of unflattering slander out there for anyone to read. My aunt got the impression that I had joined a cult, and she thought Torben was a wanted criminal in Denmark. Maybe he is, if full-gospel Christianity is a crime. The authorities passed a ridiculous new law because he and his friends were casting demons out of people.

I don’t belong to TLR, and Polly and Mabel had been told this. I think TLR does a lot of good work, but I don’t join denominations or churches, and I think there is a strong chance that TLR will become corrupted and overly regimented soon, as virtually all other denominations have. Polly already had her bad impression, however.

I have Googled TLR a lot this year, trying to find out if they have ever done anything wrong, and all I have seen is prevarication and innuendo. The people who attack them are just like the people who attack Trump. I’ll post a video I found, to give you an idea what I’m talking about. It’s basically hysteria.

That’s a video in which some person uses a video of a completely different ministry to “debunk” TLR.

Here’s an even weirder one. You will see TLR’s own footage, which they post for the purpose of ATTRACTING people, used for the purpose of “exposing” Torben. It’s truly bizarre. Torben and TLR want people to see this footage, so clearly it’s nothing that makes them look bad. It’s Torben and others, helping kids receive deliverance. The kids are happy as they can be when it’s done. No one is forcing them to do anything. They’re glad to participate.

When I was at the TLR event in Raleigh, I was part of a group of people who cast a spirit out of a woman who foamed at the mouth and screamed. Two little girls came over and got involved. I don’t think the oldest one was older than 7. They were working right along with us. They weren’t disturbed at all. Afterward, they accompanied my group on an outing in which we healed people. They continued to pray for people, and they performed some healings. It was their own idea, and they had a great time. The idea that you should hide Christianity from children is a little hard to understand, especially when you consider the fact that we routinely expose them to toxic things like occult videos, Halloween activities, violent entertainment, video games, and the Internet.

The people who post these things appear to be unbalanced fanatics. They evoke visions of torches and pitchforks. There are a lot of truly ill and dangerous people among the ranks of the charismatic-haters.

It’s unusual to see enraged charismatics, but the people who are against charismatics are often extremely angry, to the point of being out of control. There is a reason for that.

The TLR saga is a very interesting thing to watch. The irrationality of the critics is an indicator of a supernatural cause, and this is characteristic of persecution, the flames of which are lit and fanned by spirits.

I fixed prime rib, scalloped potatoes, cheesecake, and Texas trash for Christmas, and we did as well as we could. Things were complicated by the dynamic between Polly and Larry. They had always gotten along in the past, but for some reason, Polly was laying into him over various things, and Larry kept reacting by going to his room and staying there with a video game device. He would come out the next day early in the afternoon, which made group activities difficult.

My understanding is that he spent a lot of time contacting friends, trying to get someone to buy him a ticket home.

My take is that Polly was 70% responsible, with the remainder of the fault belonging to Larry. Polly refused to give an inch, and Larry didn’t do a lot better. It’s a shame, because she won’t be around forever, and they should be trying to create better memories. Larry has a great deal of potential, but he needs to take on the responsibilities and attitude of a man.

I talked to both of them, but I didn’t make significant headway. It’s a shame, because until recently, they had a very warm relationship. Larry has a heart deformity, and he had lots of problems as a kid, and Polly was always there for him, fighting to get him what he needed.

Pettiness is extremely destructive, as I have learned from practicing it. It seems like modern Americans don’t understand how forgiveness works or why it’s necessary. They also don’t understand the principle of the extra mile. It’s okay to let yourself be wronged a little.

Anyway, you know it’s a real family Christmas when people keep making things awkward with what appears to be very little justification. It could have been worse. All over America, cops responded to domestic violence reports on Christmas. Ho, ho, ho.

Our challenges were compounded by my refrigerator’s sudden decision to fail, with many pounds of holiday food in it. Luckily, my spare refrigerator was already turned on. Mabel got down on the floor with a tiny shop vac and cleaned the fridge’s coils, and then I got on the web and figured out what was wrong: the bearing in the circulation fan motor was going, so the fan flopped around and got stuck. With Mabel’s help, I removed the fan and motor, and I used my belt grinder to make the fan’s blades smaller so they didn’t catch on things. The fridge resumed working, and I ordered a new fan and motor which should arrive on Monday.

Speaking of pettiness: really, Satan? You went after my refrigerator?

Last night, Mabel started talking to Polly about baptism for some reason, and they got into a very long conversation about doctrine. Polly made some veiled jabs at my beliefs, and I didn’t respond. I just waited. And waited. I would say she went to bed at around 12:00, which is two hours later than I like to go to bed. I stayed up, avoiding participation in the conversation, because I was determined to get Mabel baptized if at all possible.

When Polly went to bed, Mabel started talking about her reservations and problems, and I told her what I knew. Eventually, she decided her baptism didn’t have any relationship to her mother’s progress as a Christian, so she changed clothes and got in the pool, which was freezing. I had suggested the jacuzzi tub, but she wanted the pool. It probably took her 15 minutes to get into the water because it was so cold.

In the end, we got it done, and Larry was there to witness it. Finally. I guess I got to bed at 2 a.m.

I didn’t care about anything but the baptism. It was done, so I was happy.

They wanted to start driving home today. Polly has a green thumb, and she was not happy with my plants, so when I strolled out at maybe 10:30, after compensation sleep plus prayer and a shower, I found Polly and Mabel fixing up the plants on my patio, which was very nice of them. They also insisted on cleaning their linens and straightening up the house. Larry came downstairs at around 1:15.

I didn’t know what to think. If I had a long drive to make, I would want to leave in the morning, but they do things differently. They had things in the washing machine, so I knew they weren’t leaving for a while. I offered to take them out for barbecue, which I did. I would guess they got off my property at 4:45 p.m.

Until I saw them pack the car, I didn’t realize what they had gone through to get here. There were things stuffed in the footwells. It was very tight. If they have an accident, the EMT’s will need the jaws of life to get them out, even if the car isn’t damaged. With those big dogs in the car, they don’t need airbags.

Whatever. Mabel got baptized. That’s the important thing. Now maybe she can mature and work with Polly, who is extremely unhappy.

Long before all the difficulties arose, I told Mabel to expect Satan to throw everything he had at her to prevent her from coming, and boy, did he come through. But he lost. I prayed, and she prayed, and God listened.

They Complete Me

Today I machined something. It was nothing great. Let’s be honest; I faced the end of a piece of aluminum and put two steps on the end. Whoo hoo. But I felt great anyway. I haven’t done this in over two years.

I’ll post a photo of my amazing achievment.

My mill and lathe arrived here on Tuesday. I’ve been so busy with a house closing and getting my workshop together, I have had very little time to do anything resembling using tools. I still have maybe 300 pounds of junk in my truck.

Yesterday I got the machines sort of ready to work. The lathe needed to have its connections to the phase converter restored, and I had to mount the DRO. That was about all I got done. The mill has a rotating head, like all Bridgeport-style mills, and in order to make moving the machine easier, I had rotated the head down onto the table, so I had to crank it back up.

I located my milling vise and 3-jaw lathe chuck so I could install them. They have been here less than two weeks. Of course, they had already started to rust. I don’t know what it is about this area. Everything rusts like crazy.

I cleaned them off and oiled the daylights out of them, and I did the same things to both machines. I would rather have oil everywhere than rust anywhere.

By the time I got done with all this, it was too late to do anything more.

Today I went back out, and I mounted the chuck on the lathe. I also mounted the wooden shelf unit I made to go on the headstock. This thing is very handy. It holds a chuck plus a load of toolholders and other doodads.

I also had to put the jaws back on the chuck. When I left Miami, the chuck had soft jaws on it, so today I reinstalled the hard factory jaws.

When the lathe was more or less together, the first thing I did was to turn it on, just to hear it spin. Wonderful.

I grabbed a piece of aluminum and turned steps into it with a carbide insert. It’s a little rough. I think the insert needs to be rotated.

The only thing I have to do now, lathe-wise, is to install the cast pucks it sits on and then level (straighten) the lathe. I have a Chinese precision level for this purpose. I don’t know how well it works, but I am reasonably confident.

The mill is going to be more annoying. I have to tram the head to the table, which is tedious. Then I have to mount the vise and tram it to the head. Equally tedious. I may put my rotary table on the mill table next to the vise. This is a smart idea if you mainly cut small parts. Moving a rotary table on and off your mill is a pain, so it’s nice to leave it in place. If you need to mill something big in the vise, you can just move the rotary table.

Once all the tramming is done, I have to connect the mill to power. I have two options. I can run a new wire to the phase converter, or I can reinstall the VFD I used in the past. The problem with the VFD is that it has no place to live. I used to keep it on the wall by the mill, but now the mill is far from the wall, so the wall won’t work. I could make some kind of stand, I guess. That would be strange.

If I wire it to the phase converter, life will be somewhat simpler, but I’ll have to run the huge phase converter every time I use the mill.

It’s probably the best way to go.

When I’m done, I’ll have a spare VFD. I already have a beautiful 2-HP motor gathering dust. You can guess what I’m thinking. I know you can. New belt grinder! Sure, I already have a belt grinder, but if I had two, I could keep two belts mounted at once, saving me precious, precious seconds when I want to change grit.

I would like to make myself a belt grinder simply because I feel bad about buying a prefab grinder the first time around. I fell prey to doubt. People talk about grinders as though they’re hard to build, but the truth is that they’re very crude, very simple machines. As I have often said, you could build a fine one from two-by-fours and plywood, plus aluminum pulleys.

My grinder is very nice, and it was cheap. I bought an Oregon Blade Maker (now Original Blade Maker), which is basically a steel box with two pulleys and an arm. It works just as well, and will last just as long, as an expensive industrial grinder. But you can’t turn it sideways to orient the belt horizontally. This is a bummer. Sometimes turning a grinder 90° can make life much simpler.

People like grinders with welded bodies. The truth is that you don’t need a welded body at all. A grinder held together with fasteners is just as good, and you can break it down when you need to move it or modify it. I would like to weld a grinder body together, but I’m not sure it’s the smart move. It may be more elegant, but a bolt-together grinder gives you more options.

I would like to do more stuff tomorrow, but it appears that my aunt, my cousin, and the cousin’s son are going to be here over Christmas, so I have to get the house ready. The garage is a total disaster right now because I’ve been pulling things off the truck and throwing them on the floor so I can get to other things I need. Luckily, my relatives aren’t picky.

I’m hoping to help them get closer to God. They are rejected, oppressed people.

Maybe I can squeeze out time to get the mill running. That would be beautiful.

Anyone who can Make Miami Bearable MUST be God

I have made two trips to Miami in connection with the sale of a property. I wrote about my first trip. God told me I had to forgive the whole city, so I did, and I found I didn’t hate being there the way I used to. I still want nothing to do with the place, because it’s a sick area under demonic control, but I can visit without feeling miserable.

On my second trip, God gave me something else. While I was driving, I felt the presence of Jesus. I talked with him all the way down the Turnpike.

The presence of Jesus is not quite like the presence of the Holy Spirit, which is not comfortable information for people who say God is a single being. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus talks to Yahweh, and it makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is not Jesus, because he descended on Jesus when Jesus was baptized. The Holy Spirit descended, and Yahweh spoke, saying, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased,” foreshadowing the way he would see every person who was properly baptized in the future.

One of the psalms says, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Seat yourself at my right hand.'” Obviously, if God is one being, he can’t sit beside himself, and he has no reason to talk to himself. The oneness of God refers to a oneness of heart and purpose, not to a state in which one being, in one location, displays three different personalities at different times.

Anyway, the Holy Spirit is generally very subtle, whereas Jesus is more obvious. Also, the sensations of love and peace that come from Jesus are stronger.

I was rolling along, and I felt the presence of Jesus within and beside me. The sensation was not as overwhelming as it was when he visited me years ago, but I knew it was him.

I prayed for people all the way to Miami. I prayed a lot for other drivers. Driving brings out the worst in people. It seems like it never occurs to us to let ourselves be inconvenienced for a few seconds in order to help someone else. We’re always pushing to make sure we get everything we’re entitled to. I made a special point of praying for people who were rude in traffic.

I asked if I could pray for entire lines of cars, and I felt I had the go-ahead, so I did that.

Christians are supposed to give alms and be generous. You can’t always give people money or things, but you always have the power to pray for them, which is more powerful and more important. Praying for people is a sacrifice, just like giving them money and goods. It takes effort and time. It’s not nothing. When Peter healed the beggar at the temple, he said, “”Silver and gold have I none, but what I have, that I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk.” I’m sure the beggar would not have traded that for spare change and used clothing.

You shouldn’t feel like praying for people is a cop-out or a dodge. It’s the best thing you can do for them, most of the time.

I am now trying to pray for people whenever I have a spare moment. I can’t run around handing people five-dollar bills all day, but I can do this.

Ordinarily, I get fatigued when I drive, because the rudeness wears me down. People tailgate constantly, even when I’m speeding. Tailgaters will drive behind you for miles, slowing themselves down, instead of passing you and moving on. It shows their real motivation is malice, not a desire to move faster. I hate having to make decisions all day. You can’t just sit in the right lane and let the people who drive way below the speed limit. You have to spend a certain amount of time in the fast lane, and that draws tailgaters. For that matter, they also tailgate in the slow lane.

I want the presence of Jesus. I really want it. I have wanted it for ages. While I was driving to Miami, I kept ridding myself of negativity so I could hold onto him. I felt much better about the experience. I was able to avoid being provoked, which was a relief. During my time in Miami, I continued. If you can keep calm in Miami, it has to be a miracle.

I also felt as though something else in me was very upset. Some spirit or other. I don’t feed them the way I used to, so they were having a bad time. Here I was, starving them while welcoming their worst enemy; the terror of their existence. Several times, I felt things leave me.

It’s a shame we don’t admit we have demons. We think they’re for special people. Trust me; you have demons. If you think you don’t, you should start the process of deliverance by fighting dishonesty and pride.

While I was driving, I thought of all the bad things I had done, and I wondered exactly how many spirits I had accumulated. I’ve done bad things all my life, including this fall. It’s not like I became perfect when I chose to be a Christian, many years ago.

Deliverance is a very big deal. We should be seeking it as hard as possible. Instead we make fun of it.

The other day I heard Mark Hemans talk about the connection between sickness and sin. He said sin invites demons and causes sickness. I’ve been saying this for years. Christians hate the message. They hate it because demons tell them what to think, and demons want to protect their business.

When you ask a sick person if he wants to confess, and repent of, anything that might have caused his illness, Christians will be all over you like a pack of piranhas. They will insult, slander, and torment you without mercy, as though you’re the one who caused the cancer or whatever it is. They’ll say you’re blaming the victim. Let me tell you something: there are no adult victims. You have sinned, and you deserve whatever you get. That’s just how it is. When you go to God for healing, you’re not asking for justice. You’re asking for mercy. The disease is the justice.

Christians will say you’re condemning people if you suggest they confront their sins and demons. They don’t know what condemnation is. It’s a final decision. Identifying sin and demons is diagnosis; it’s a necessary part of recovery.

Imagine this. You go to your doctor and ask why you’re 300 pounds overweight. He says, “You eat too much. We need to change your diet.” Then you say, “HOW DARE YOU CONDEMN ME?” That’s how we treat people who help us acknowledge our self-destructive sins.

We know sin causes disease. Even atheist doctors admit it. Fornication causes VD. Smoking causes cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and COPD. Drug abuse causes hepatitis and AIDS. Gluttony causes obesity and circulatory problems. Anger causes high blood pressure and ulcers. Atheists can see these things, but we see ourselves as helpless, innocent lambs who have been attacked without cause, and we expect to be healed and kept well without repenting.

The Bible says envy rots the bones. That’s very literal. It says a cruel person troubles his own flesh.

It’s too bad we’re all perfect. If we had things to confess, maybe we could get rid of some diseases.

I don’t want evil guests living in my house, making my personality like theirs and damaging my flesh. I invited them and made them comfortable, but now I want them out. The desire to hold onto the presence of Jesus is great motivation. It’s an excellent reminder. When you think about what you’re getting, you care a lot less for what you’re losing.

We do care for our bad traits. We love them. We take pride in things like stubbornness, anger, childishness, cruelty, excessive sexual appetites, and so on. We think they’re cute. They may seem cute now, but when you’re standing before God, you will wish you had felt differently about them.

A lady who says she toured hell with Jesus says the dead were like skeletons with enormous maggots tunneling through them. She said they felt the maggots chewing their bones. That’s a picture of the things we allow to live in us.

The houses I sold had to be cleared of junk in stages. I feel that I’m the same way. God doesn’t necessarily empty a person of all baggage and filth immediately. I suppose we lack the knowledge and spiritual gifts to get the job done that way. He removes things incrementally, and he adds things the same way. Maybe when we have more knowledge, the process will go more quickly. Satan fights sound doctrine, calling it self-righteousness and hate, so he prevents us from using the right tools.

I’m going to try to hold onto what I have. I like feeling this way. It’s much better than the way I felt before. I would prefer having my entire personality replaced to being what I was.

Miami Umbilical Cord Finally Snapping?

I made what I hope will be my last trip (in this lifetime) to Miami over the weekend. It has been a tough month so far. I visited twice, and I had to put an enormous amount of junk out for the garbage people, in addition to making trips to the dump. It’s surprising how a house that seems empty can yield tons (literally) of junk. On the up side, I have moved my machine tools north, so now I can feel technologically complete again.

I threw out hundreds of dollars’ worth of things. I could not sell them, and I had a hard time giving them away. I put my mother’s patio furniture, which was expensive and in very good shape, in the trash pile. I had advertised it, and people responded, but they didn’t have the gumption to come get it. At least one lady asked my house sitter to deliver it. Thank God, a couple of Cuban trash-pickers came by in a pickup and grabbed it.

It may surprise people to see that I’m not writing about the Trump impeachment vote. I’m not that interested. I will say that, fundamentally, it’s not politically motivated. It’s motivated by spirits that hate God and every friend of God. The Democratic Party could almost be called “the body of Satan” these days. Don’t be surprised that what they do doesn’t make sense. When things don’t make sense, a supernatural force is usually at the root. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath–which would have been a felony, had the Paula Jones case not been dismissed–on camera. He was also forced to give up his law license, after being turned in to the Arkansas Bar by a federal judge. That’s the kind of thing that grounds a real impeachment. Trump’s enemies had to make up a new charge (“abuse of power”) because there was no good evidence that Trump broke any existing law. What we are seeing is a continued effort to make conservatives afraid to run for office, and it goes back to Newt Gingrich, who was shown to be innocent. If you want to read more about it, Alan Dershowitz is probably a good source.

To get back to what I really want to write about, I’m dying to machine something. I don’t even care what it is. Even I just put a steel rod in the lathe and turn the radius down a quarter of a inch, I’ll be happy.

I watch tool videos all the time. For over two years, I’ve been watching people put metal in their machine tools and do things to it, and I couldn’t do it, myself. I’ve had a lot of jobs I could not do or which I had to do with inferior tools. Life without machine tools is primitive and restrictive. I’m glad it’s over.

It’s very disturbing, watching a forklift raise a 2-ton lathe so high the underside is 6 feet off the ground. My baby was sitting on two steel forks; nothing more. She wasn’t even very close to the forklift. She was way out at the bouncy ends. Every time she swayed back and forth, I braced for the devastating sight of $16,000 worth of very heavy machinery plummeting face-first onto the asphalt.

Machine-moving accidents are pretty nasty. There is a guy in Kentucky you has a huge machine shop, and he posted a video of an accident he had. He has a huge bridge crane in his shop. This is an overhead transverse beam mounted on two beams running the length of the building. The transverse beam has a trolley with a winch on it. He bought a drill press which must weigh at least three tons, and he tried to use the crane to lower it onto a freshly created concrete slab he had poured.

He backed a semi holding the drill press into his shop, and then he used the crane to lift the drill press a few inches off the trailer. He moved the drill press so it was suspended over the pad, which was about 3 feet beneath it. He was standing on the trailer next to the drill press when the cable holding it up snapped.

The drill press dropped instantly, breaking his new slab as well as part of the main casting of the drill press. If he had been under any part of the drill press, he might have been squashed like a grape. And he was alone! What was left of him could have been pinned to the ground or the truck, or parts of him could have been pinned to both, and nobody would have found him until suppertime.

He must have spent a lot of money on the crane, because he decided not to buy new cable before he used it. That’s why the drill press fell.

I’ll post the video here. If you’re in a hurry, skip to about 6:05. Expect profanity.

I read a story on a forum about a man who sold machine tools He had a lathe on a truck, and it rolled off onto his son-in-law. That was the end of him. Terrible story. Probably not a clean death. Imagine what it did to the family.

The riggers did an excellent job with my machines, and the experience taught me a great lesson: I need a trailer. Moving machinery with a semi is insanely expensive. One of the rigger told me to look into air-bagged trailers. These have platforms held up by air bags, as you might guess. Let the air out, and the platform drops to the ground. They lie flat, like sheets of plywood. There are no ramps. To put a lathe on one of these things, you just put it on skates (not difficult) and roll it onto the one-inch high platform. Then you pump up the air bags, and you’re ready to go.

The giant bonus is that you don’t need a forklift or a forklift operator. Simply putting three machines on a trailer costs about $1800, as does taking them down, if you use riggers. Even if you risk death by renting forklifts and doing the job yourself, you will spend $1000 or so for the two days you will need them.

If I get an air-bagged trailer, I’ll be able to move my tractors, my golf cart, and all of my machinery. The next time I move, I may have to make a few trips, but it will definitely be better than paying whatever it costs to move all my stuff across several states.

I haven’t machined anything since arriving home because I haven’t had time. I had to work on unloading my own truck today; it was (still is) full of Miami junk. I also had to bring my birds home from the boarding place, where they are a huge hit. Marv now has a girlfriend named Jessie. She’s a big silvery Congo African grey who occupied a neighboring cage. Sadly, they will not be seeing each other again any time soon. I don’t think Marv cares. He seems immune to negative emotions.

I couldn’t use my tools last night because they were wet. The weather was dry for most of their journey, and then there was a blinding rain near the end of the trip. I had to wipe the machines down, blot up water, and blast them with a solution of lanolin and mineral spirits. I took a big can of WD-40 and poured it onto my mill table. I soaked a rag with Mobil Vactra 2 way oil and oiled things heavily. I was determined not to let the machines rust.

Rust is a big problem north of Miami. It’s surprising, but machines don’t rust at all in humid Miami if they’re indoors. Humidity doesn’t rust machines. Condensation does. When a machine is in an area where the air cools and warms up a lot–meaning all of North America north of South Florida and maybe parts of Texas–it ends up being cooler than the surrounding air many times a month. In humid areas, this causes water to condense on it. Then you get rust. In Miami, machines don’t get very cold very often, so condensation is not a big problem.

My table saw rusted over during my first Ocala winter, and that taught me I had to look out for condensation. Fortunately, a little rust doesn’t really harm a table saw. Even light rust will ruin a lathe, and it’s not great for mills, either.

If you watch machining videos, you will see a lot of people proudly “restoring” rusty lathes. They’ll pay good money for metal lathes that have been sitting outside in the rain, and they’ll scrape the rust off the bed ways, use Evaporust on the moving parts, paint everything, and claim they’re done. They have no idea what they’re doing. Once you have thick rust on a lathe’s ways, the precision is gone, permanently. If you want to bring it back, you have to pay someone to put it on a giant grinder, or you have to be a genius who can use scraping tools to restore flat, true, parallel surfaces. Basically, it means you’re done, unless you just happen to know someone who is willing to load your junkyard beauty on a grinding machine for nothing. The cost of grinding a lathe bed pretty much destroys the purpose of buying a cheap, rusted lathe.

Wood tools can be restored. Take off the rust, paint everything, make sure the motor turns, and you’re off. That’s because wood tools are not precise. If your table saw has a dip 10 thousandths deep in the middle of the top, no one cares. If rust takes 10 thousandths off your lathe’s ways in random places, it’s time to forget about metal and start turning wooden table legs with it.

The funny thing is that most machining hobbyists would probably disagree with me. They’re wrong, though. They’re just caught up in a bit of stubborn mythology born of the natural reluctance to accept bad news.

Another problem with “restored” lathes is that rust and grinding can remove the hardened part of the ways. Many lathes made during the last hundred years have flame-hardened ways, which means they were exposed to high heat after they were made. The hardening doesn’t go all that deep, so even if you scrape or grind your old lathe, you may end up with soft ways which will wear out and lose precision again quickly.

Bottom line: a rusty machine tool is generally going to perform badly, even if you try to restore it. It will be okay for certain purposes after you sand the formerly precision surfaces, but it will not perform like a machine that hasn’t rusted. Preventing rust is important, and rusty machines are not bargains. They are scrap.

Our government puts nice machines out in the rain all the time. It’s horrifying. If you go to government websites that list used machines for sale, you’ll see machines that are largely red. You may see a photo of a machine that cost $40,000 new, stored outdoors without a $5 tarp or even a layer of oil. I don’t know who buys these things. I wouldn’t go near one even if it were free.

Before the machine is put outdoors, it’s worth $8000. A month later, it’s worth the scrap price.

It shows how much government employees care about spending our money wisely. Shocking.

I’ll post a photo of a lathe our government is trying to sell. The bidding is up to $1550.00. I think I can tell you who is bidding on it. Retirees who want a new hobby and don’t know anything about lathes. Either that or people who know it’s ruined and don’t care about precision.

I’ve spent a lot of time on machining forums. Many of the people who participate are middle-aged guys who want a new hobby, and they get very bad advice from everyone else. People encourage them to buy old machines that are in very bad condition, and they make them think “a little rust” is no big deal. I guess a terrible lathe is better than no lathe, but I can’t imagine using a machine that has been stored in the rain. I don’t know what it would be useful for, apart from woodworking.

To get back to my story, my machines are as dry and greasy as I could get them. Maybe tomorrow I can connect the power and start doing something. I have to put my vise back on the mill and tram it, and I may actually level the lathe. A lathe that isn’t “leveled” (actually straightened) may produce tapered parts instead of straight ones. It doesn’t matter all that much if you’re making short parts, which I usually am, but longer parts will be affected more.

I don’t want to spend the whole evening blogging, so I won’t go into the way God has changed my life during my two trips to Miami. He made big changes in my heart. The changes are so great–dare I say it–the unpleasantness of visiting Miami seems well worth the pain. I’ll try to write about them tomorrow.

I’ll say this. I believe the difficulty I’ve had in separating myself from Miami, and in separating myself from financial interests in Kentucky, is related to things inside me that needed to be changed. Our problems here on earth tend to be reflections of the problems God has with us.

Pray the house closing goes well and that I don’t have to look for a new buyer. I am ready to cut that place loose.

Gay Firebrand Sounds the Alarm for Carnal Conservatives

It’s funny how little things indicating the end of the age pop up on your instruments.

Today I was looking at Youtube, and it recommended a ChuckE2009 video. I used to subscribe to his channel. He’s a young man who has worked very hard to build a career and a Youtube following. He came from a broken home. He managed to put himself through welding school, and he started working. He ended up with a farm in Texas. He posted a lot of great videos about welding, tools, farming, and traditional values. Then he started going to a crazy racist church, and now he’s a hard core white separatist. He talks about “precious European blood,” and he posts videos on Bitchute, which is a service I learned about today.

I learned about it by watching the video Youtube recommended. ChuckE2009 linked to Bitchute. When I went to Bitchute, I saw that he had made a bunch of bizarre videos about his odd beliefs. He thinks America is being overrun by non-white people, which is arguably true, and he seems to think that Brenton Tarrant, the guy who murdered Muslims in a New Zealand mosque, is a martyr.

The problem isn’t that the people who move here are not white. It’s that they don’t belong to Jesus. Give me non-white Christians over white leftists any day. I would much prefer life in an all-black country that served God to live in a place where white people serve Satan. I would rather see America become very dark-skinned if the alternative were to see it stay white and move farther from God. The white separatists don’t seem to understand that race is not the problem.

There are only two races, which are also nations and families. One is the children of God, and the other is the children of Satan.

I watched a little bit of one of ChuckE’s videos. It was not healthy stuff, but the comments were worse. They were packed with blatant, unapologetic, lugubrious racism. You really have to see it to understand what I mean. The people over there really hate blacks and Jews. I don’t mean they disagree with them on some issues and are therefore called “haters.” I mean they actually hate them, in the pre-snowflake sense of the word “hate.”

I went back to Youtube, looked for ChuckE2009 videos in my feed, and clicked “Do not recommend this channel.” Maybe they’ll get the message. Unsubscribing alone didn’t get me free.

While I was doing this, I came across a Steven Crowder video. Crowder is a gay conservative, which automatically makes him a treasure to the secular conservative establishment. He seems like a great guy (I don’t really know much about him), but he’s clearly not a child of God. He is not one of us at the moment. He may agree with us about a lot of political issues, but religion is not politics. They’re connected. You can’t be Holy-Spirit-led and be a leftist. But conservatism itself is not godliness, as ChuckE proves.

Crowder is huge as Youtubers go. He has millions of subscribers. People with that kind of traffic make millions of dollars per year from Youtube. Except for Crowder, who got demonetized. He said some mean things to a gay man, and the man complained. Youtube obeyed.

Oddly (not really), Youtube doesn’t mind making money from Crowder’s continued presence, even if they won’t give him any of it. They continue recommended his videos. Don’t argue that they’re not making money because they don’t put ads on his videos. They make money from him because he draws people to Youtube, where they see other videos that do have ads. Youtube is completely hypocritical, which is normal for a leftist…anything.

I don’t know what he said. My guess is that it was overblown, because had it been anything serious, even people like me, who avoid politics, would probably know.

Gays are always snippy to each other. This is not new. They love edgy, biting humor; remember Mr. Blackwell? They call each other fags and homos. Maybe Crowder did something like that. I don’t care; it’s a digression.

Crowder just posted a video warning of a “Youtube purge.” He says Youtube is about to change its social engineering/censorship guidelines again, “moving the goalposts,” in his words. He says that videos that were considered acceptable in the past may get people banned in the present. Bad news if you’ve posted a thousand videos, as some people have.

I looked at other sources, and here is what Youtube says. It’s going to go after anyone caught producing content that “maliciously insults someone based on protected attributes such as their race, gender expression, or sexual orientation.” That language comes from Youtube’s blog.

Youtube told the BBC, proudly, that they will not just consider individual acts of free speech. They will look at “patterns” of behavior when they ban people. In other words, if they can’t really prove you did anything wrong, they have a catch-all policy that will still get you banned.

Who decides what is offensive? Of course, the easily offended. Google is staffed by leftists. Who decides what a “malicious insult” is? The same demographic that thinks seeing a Republican win an election is a genuine trauma that warrants the creating of special rooms where victims can play with therapy puppies.

Not good.

This is a combination of things I’ve seen coming for years. The odd sensation I feel now is the surprise of not being surprised. I expected all this, but still…what a spectacle, when it actually comes to pass.

The Internet encouraged us to speak our minds in ways we never could in the past, and much of what we spoke was not nice. We thought Internet anonymity, which may or may not have ever existed, would keep us safe. We also published a lot of thought which was not popular enough make it into mainstream outlets. Conservatives got a lot of exposure.

Now all that stuff is out there, and it is subject to evaluation and punishment by people who keep changing the rules.

Saw it coming. Didn’t do much to protect myself. Still. Saw it coming. Wrote about it.

In the law, there is a doctrine called “ex post facto.” It means…something in Latin. “From after the fact,” I guess. The idea is that you can’t pass a law making past behavior illegal. It’s a very respected doctrine, and the reason is obvious. If we were all punished for things we did in the past which are now illegal, nearly everyone over the age of 10 would be in prison.

Youtube does not have to observe this doctrine. Neither do any of the other tech giants.

For a long time, I’ve been writing about the privatization of our outlets of expression. We used to rely on the First Amendment to protect us when we expressed ourselves. That protection had some power, but the First Amendment only applied to the government. Your local constable could not tell you not to curse, on pain of having your mouth washed out with soap, because he was a government agent. Your boss in the private sector, on the other hand, could control your speech. If you wrote screenplays, movie studios could control you. Businesses can forbid their employees to tell obnoxious customers how they actually feel about them. They can make them wear 37 pieces of flair. The Bill of Rights has very limited power over private entities.

Satan knew he would one day have to shut Christians up. The Bible says Jesus will not return until the gospel of the kingdom is taught to every people, and here we are with a medium that allows us to preach online, globally, for nothing or very little. He had to find a way to shut us down, so what did he do? He privatized the media and nullified the First Amendment. Why is it that no one but me talks about this?

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, and the others do not have to let you speak. They can ban you for any reason that pleases them. They can make a rule that no one who owns red socks can publish, and it will be completely legal.

It’s a wonderful thing for Satan. The Internet is used to spread all sorts of filth and idolatry, and these are powerful tools. If he can work it out so spreading truth is not so easy, he will have a monopoly on public thought, at least in many areas. The Internet will be able to infect but not cure.

Is there an answer? I suppose so. We could demand that the government buy Youtube. I don’t think that will happen, though. Of course, if it happened, Youtube would stop working, it would lose a great deal of money, and it would immediately stop hiring white males. It would turn into the Postal Service.

The disturbing thing is that people think they can fight this politically. It’s a bad idea. It seems like a political squabble, but it’s not. On the surface, it’s political. Underneath, it’s supernatural. Satan, the god of this world, is behind the censorship. The same spirit that got Popes to burn dissidents alive is still at work, and it still wants to keep the gospel quiet.

It’s fine to vote for conservatives, but you need to get to know God, right now. You need to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. You need to give your life to God and start hearing from him. He is helping his children move away from leftist-controlled areas. He is setting up little ark-like areas for us. We won’t live in complete bliss, and they will still come after us eventually, but we will be much better off than stubborn Christians who insist on living in places like Los Angeles and Miami.

We need to be transformed and become more effective in changing the hearts of people who are on the wrong side. They’re in much more trouble than we are. They will overcome us in the short term, but God is not mocked. They will pay terrible prices in the end.

People say they’re going to shoot FBI agents when things get bad. That’s not going to make God happy, and it won’t defeat the enemy’s troops, either. God commanded the Hebrews to kill their enemies in the Old Testament. That’s not how he works now. The human beings the Hebrews slaughtered back then represent the spirits we are supposed to defeat under the new covenant. Jesus said those who live by the sword will die by the sword, and he meant that people who rely on carnal solutions will not get as much help from God as his children. When you rely on carnal tools, you’re telling God, “Don’t help me. I can handle this.” You can’t do that all your life and then call on him to take over suddenly when your mess overwhelms you.

We have to get God’s love and forgiveness flowing through us so we will be prepared to forgive and refrain from violence when the temptation is at its worst.

All the things I foresaw are coming true! God really did show me these things, just as he showed them to others. We really are going to be treated like Jews in Nazi Germany. We really are going to be excluded from commerce. Our homes will be confiscated. We will be slaughtered. It’s really going to happen, here in America. We’re already getting the Nuremberg Law treatment. The parallels are obvious and undeniable.

I know a guy who insists he’s fixing Miami. God didn’t tell him to do that. He’s just stubborn. If he doesn’t watch it, he will still be there when the mobs rise up. Noah didn’t stay to fix his compatriots. Abraham didn’t stay to fix Haran. Lot didn’t stay to fix Sodom. Sometimes God tells you to leave, and you better do it.

Steven Crowder sounds like he’s advising people to get guns and fight. Startling advice from a modern homosexual. It’s not helpful. We’re going to lose, and we need to get God’s help on handling it the best way possible. Vote as you wish. Say what God tells you to say. Just don’t waste your time with political or violent solutions. They will just put you in the other camp, whether you know it or not.

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Commenters are pointing out an important fact: Steven Crowder is not gay.

I was positive he was gay. I had thought of him as a gay conservative for so long, it didn’t occur to me to check. I wish I could remember where I got this idea.

Anyway, correction posted.

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I think I have the answer.

I must have seen this and drawn the wrong conclusion.

Stay Connected

Here is one of my favorite Bible verses: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusteth in you.” It’s Isaiah 26.

The phrase translated “perfect peace” is “shalom shalom.” I am told that in Hebrew, words are repeated to emphasize them. In English, you might say “the highest degree of shalom,” but supposedly, Hebrew doesn’t work the way English does, so Hebrew speakers repeat things.

Many people say “shalom” means “peace,” but that’s not right. It means a state of being that includes peace and other things, such as wellbeing and prosperity. It comes from a root meaning “completeness.” It is also said to describe a state that is permanent.

You know what that sounds like? It sounds like what I felt the two times Jesus visited me. I felt his love radiating through me, and I also felt a kind of peace that could not even be challenged, let alone destroyed. I was totally assured that everything would be all right. No evil could touch me.

Permanence is a big deal in the Bible. Evildoers are not able to receive permanent blessings. Jesus said they were like men who built their homes on sand. When rain and winds come, such houses are washed away. Righteous people are like those who build their homes on rock. They can withstand anything.

The word translated “stayed” means “supported.” The English word “stay” doesn’t necessarily mean “remain in place.” We use it that way today, but it can also mean “support.” This is why collar and corset stays are so named. If your mind is stayed on God, it means God is supporting your mind, like a tentpole.

Isaiah 26 has to do with standing, like a house built on rock. This world is full of evil forces and voices, and they act like storms. They puff and threaten constantly, and much of the time, we believe their puffing, and we give in and lose. Children of God who know their rights can overcome the wicked by focusing on God.

I’m writing about this because, as I predicted, Miami is not letting me go easily. I knew I would get a Satanic backlash. I’m moving possessions out, and I’m getting rid of the last really troublesome property I have, and Satan is trying to make it painful.

I got a $4000 quote to move my machinery up here. I moved two machines myself, and then I asked for a new quote. They nearly doubled the price. I found a new rigger, but I’ll still have to pay more than I wanted. A meddlesome neighbor turned me in to the city for having a dirty roof and walls, so now, right before closing, I have to pay a handyman to clean and perhaps do touch-up painting, to the tune of at least $750. My house sitter hired two guys to help him move old furniture out to be picked up by the city, and they didn’t show up, so either he will have to do it alone, I will have to help him, or I’ll have to hire a junk hauler. Now the buyer’s attorney is demanding my LLC’s operating agreement, which is none of her business. You don’t need a document like that to sell a house. I sold a house earlier this year without it. It’s confidential. I told her paralegal they weren’t getting it, and I said I would send other things to prove my ownership and authority.

None of these attacks will stop me.

The other day, I thought of Isaiah 26:3, and God filled my heart with a new understanding of it. He showed me I should direct my attention to him and remember all the strongholds he had broken for me. People don’t decide what happens to me; he does. He breaks their will and makes them fail when they trouble me. He does the same things to the spirits behind them.

I threw out a ton of things when I visited Miami, and many of them were valuable. I didn’t care. I’m putting valuable things on Internet selling sites for nearly nothing, just to make them move. I don’t care. It’s worth it to be free.

I think I understand why God told us to turn the other cheek and agree with our enemies. Sometimes, when Satan demands something of you, the thing he tries to take is extremely trivial compared to what God has set in front of you. It’s like having your pocket picked while you’re waiting to get on a lifeboat. Do you really want to chase a thief and drown?

Early Christians had to give up their very bodies, but they knew it was a bargain for them and a bad trade for Satan and his children.

The things I’m losing are junk. There will be new things for me later.

I look forward to having ALL ties to Miami cut.

I can’t tell you how many times someone has stood in my way and told me something I wanted to do was impossible, only to see them knocked out of the way by God. It’s not a rare thing. It’s a way of life for a Christian.

I needed to get a tax document for my dad’s last return. I called the local IRS office. A man answered and said I needed a birth certificate. My birth certificate, not my dad’s. Who keeps a birth certificate lying around in 2019? I have had passports. I have a Homeland-Security-approved driver’s license, which is the best ID you can have. No one with any intelligence respects a birth certificate. You can falsify one in 5 minutes. No one is going to dip your feet in ink and see if they match the prints on your birth certificate.

I prayed and drove to the office anyway. They called my name to go to a window. I was ready to argue with them. I sat down, told the IRS employee what I needed, and showed him my driver’s license. He printed out the necessary document and handed it to me. Could not have been nicer. This is what it’s like when God breaks a stronghold.

The government is particularly bad about strongholds. “You can’t start this business.” “You can’t build this house.” “You can’t have prayer meetings here.” They throw up ridiculous obstacles all the time. It’s the nature of bureaucracy. If you’re not a Christian, you will probably be blocked. If you know God, however, you have a friend who is better than a man on the inside, and he will break walls for you.

Brother Andrew is a famous preacher who smuggled Bibles into countries (such as leftist-dominated nations) where they were banned. He risked imprisonment over and over. When he started out, he hid his Bibles. Eventually, he got bold and left them on the front seat of his car, in plain view. Guards at checkpoints looked right past them, and Andrew drove on. God does things like this for his children, but you need to focus on him and remember all the times he has delivered you in the past.

When I think about God and his deliverance, I feel peace and invincibility. They seem to radiate down to me from his throne. I want to get better at it, and I want to spend more time in that state.

I’m going to be free of the house I’m selling. I am free from the power of the spirits that rule South Florida. They can’t stop me. They are like ants before my God.

I look forward to blogging from the other side, when my machines are here, the house is out of my hands, and I no longer have to think about lawn people, pool people, hurricanes, insurance, and taxes. It’s a done deal, and it will happen shortly. I just have to wait.

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My realtor texted me. The lawyer who wanted my private documents caved in, after arguing with me and then her. Of course. She was completely, obviously wrong.

Glory to God.

I always hope for a day when I can go 20 continuous minutes without anyone insulting my intelligence. Maybe I’m crazy, but I keep dreaming.

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When you have a testimony which seems solid, and then you find out it’s not so solid, you’re supposed to say something. God doesn’t need people to make excuses for him. One of the church’s big problems is that we clap when someone testifies or prophesies, and then when it turns out something is wrong, we ignore it.

I said I was being pestered for unnecessary documents for my upcoming closing, and I said the other side had caved in. This was true, as far as I knew. I later found out they were not going to be reasonable after all, so I sent them things they had no right to. The closing is still moving along.

Take it how you will.

It has Many Shiny Buttons

Christmas has arrived early in northern Florida.

Last month I started brushing up on complex analysis, which is an esoteric form of calculus based on complex numbers. For those who don’t know, a complex number is a combination of a real number and an imaginary number. An imaginary number is a multiple of i, which is the square root of -1. The word “imaginary” got attached to the class by Rene Descartes, who is said to have thought imaginary numbers were useless. Imaginary numbers are used in physics to calculate results that can be observed in the real world, so “imaginary” is, maybe, not the best word to use to describe them.

I also started browsing through a new mechanics book: Introduction to Classical Mechanics: With Problems and Solutions by David Morin. People on the web wrote very highly of the book, and I could not resist taking a look at it. I’m always trying to find time to recapture the knowledge I lost after college, and most physics books are useful only as instruments of torture, so it’s good to find anything that can actually be understood.

While I was poking through problems in complex analysis and mechanics, I found to my horror that I had to deal with…I hate to write the filthy word…numerals. I mean what most people call “numbers.” Things like 5, 354, and 42. Nasty little things. To a physicist, being forced to deal with numerals is insulting. I can only imagine how offended a mathematician would be. It would be like asking him to do a calculation that isn’t totally useless.

I could not restrict myself to clean, shiny, odorless variables. I had to find arcsines, resultant forces, and so on, so I needed a calculator.

I already had a TI calculator of recent vintage, plus a Hewlett-Packard 35S I got a couple of years back, plus my ancient HP 32S. The 32S used to be an extension of my arm. I could more or less think calculations into it. My mind worked in reverse Polish notation. Unfortunately, the screen on the 32S pooped out and could not be made to work well enough to bear. This is why I got the 35S and the TI.

Hewlett-Packard used to make great calculators. They cost hundreds of dollars, and HP liked to tell people you could run over them with cars without hurting them. The 35S was not like that. It had a cheap case and floppy buttons that rolled when I pushed them. On top of that, there was no manual. The booklet that came with the calculator said HP would mail me a manual for nothing if I called, but when I called, HP told me to drop dead. They simply decided not to honor their promise. I didn’t feel like using their PDF manual, which required printing out something like 500 pages, so I was disenchanted with the whole thing.

Also, and to be more honest, I can’t find the 35S. I’m sure it’s here somewhere. Or maybe I got mad at it and threw it out.

Hewlett-Packard was once a neat company that made all sorts of electronic equipment. They made power sources, frequency generators, bench meters, and lots of other things. Something happened to them. Now they make cheap junk that belongs in Wal-Mart.

I went to Ebay to look for a 32S in good condition. I discovered the 32S II. People seemed to like it better. Also, it had a “II” in the name, so obviously, it was superior. I found a good deal on one somebody had used very little, and I ordered it. It arrived yesterday. I just took it out of the envelope and disinfected it. It looks new.

Now I can relax again, until the screen on this one goes bad. I’m actually considering buying two more, taking the batteries out, storing them, and waiting for the days when I need them.

I learned complex analysis from a book by two men named Ruel Churchill and James “the Godfather of Complex Variables” Brown. It’s a standard, but it could be better. I still have it. I also have a differential equations book by a man named Raymond Redheffer. It’s fantastic. It reads almost as though a human being wrote it. I decided to see if Redheffer had written anything else, and that’s how I found out he had written a complex analysis text.

I looked at the book on Open Library, and sure enough, it was very good. I found myself a copy in “like-new” condition and ordered it. That was weeks ago. It still hasn’t arrived.

I ordered it from Abe Books, which is a good resource. I pestered the seller, and they told me they could not find a record of the shipment. They gave up and refunded my money. That was annoying, because similar copies were selling for $30 more. After a few days of wishful thinking, hoping the book would still make it, I ordered another one, and the replacement is supposedly brand new. We will see. Book sellers have a tendency to send scuffed-up review copies and call them new.

The main thing is that it has to be in good repair and free of notes and so forth. That’s what I’m hoping for.

Redheffer also wrote a book on math for physicists. I found a copy selling really cheap, so I ordered it. Haven’t seen it yet.

I tried to replace one of my reference books a few weeks back. It’s called Mathematical Methods for Physicists, or, as physicists call it, “Mathews and Walker.” It’s a very popular book, so, of course, the publisher refuses to print it any more, and they have not licensed it to Dover Books, which prints paperback copies of old technical books major publishers are tired of. My copy is basically in excellent condition, but ants ate part of the spine, and it bothers me.

Do I use the book? Of course not. I just hate seeing my old STEM stuff destroyed, and I do plan to use it in the future.

I found a “new” “hardback” copy online for an unbelievable price, so I ordered it. I received a horrible, mashed-up paperback which was probably printed for the Indian market. I had to send it back, and then the seller didn’t refund my money. I had to sic Amazon on him. He had the gall to charge nearly $90 for that piece of junk.

I’m now considering buying book-repair tape and doing a fancy repair job. I’m sure Youtube University can help me.

It occurred to me that I was running into what appeared to be supernatural resistance in my STEM pursuits, so I asked God about it, and I believe he said the problem was coming from Satan, not him. I started using my supernatural tools to overcome it.

At first, I was thinking maybe God wanted me to leave STEM things alone. Scientists tend to take a dim view of Christianity. The folks at CERN made a comedy video (I assume it was comedy) showing robed figures sacrificing a woman at their headquarters, which shows that scientists are aware of the tension between Christians and scientists.

I thought maybe God wanted me to forget all about that part of my life. It appears that this is not the case, however.

The CERN video was filmed before a statue of Shiva, a form of the Hindu “god” Vishnu. In the Bhagavad Gita, Vishnu becomes Shiva in order to impress someone. Robert Oppenheimer quoted this book while reminiscing about the first atom bomb blast. In the book, Shiva says, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

CERN’s people say the video was a prank, and they also say CERN is full of artwork. They say the Shiva statue is just one of many works. Naturally, one has to ask: how many statues of Jesus and Moses are there at CERN? How many crosses are there?

Here is the video. Lots of profanity in the soundtrack.

The best evidence that this is a fake video is the presence of the woman who is offered as a sacrifice. How would a group of physicists manage to find a woman? They’re usually at home studying, watching science fiction and anime, or reading books like The Modern Physicist’s Guide to Avoiding Eye Contact.

Today I read that Paul Dirac hated religion. He was a towering figure in quantum mechanics. My alma mater, the University of Miami, almost snagged him for their theoretical physics group. I remember a story one of my profs told. Dirac was on campus, and my professor took him a copy of Dirac’s book. He wanted an autograph. Dirac apparently collected stamps, and he had some fresh acquisitions with him. He stuck a couple in the front of the book along with his signature.

Funny; I can’t recall which professor told me that.

Here is what Dirac said:

I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can’t for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards—in heaven if not on earth—all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.

My suggestion: learn to use paragraphs.

It’s remarkable that Dirac thought rich and powerful people were the force behind the perpetuation of Christianity. Powerful people who agreed with Dirac politically did their best to destroy Christianity during the last century, and they are still at it. The communists have done everything they could to get rid of Christianity, and they certainly wanted “quiet people.” They liked quiet people so much they shot loud ones and pushed their bodies into mass graves. The gulags and Castro’s prisons were built for people who were not quiet.

Before slavery was abolished, many slave owners refused to let their slaves own Bibles or go to church. Dirac would have found that confusing.

Dirac’s positions are another illustration of a simple fact: top STEM people tend to know very little about the way human beings work. In their understanding of human nature, they are often like slow children, no matter how well they can do math. It’s a shame ordinary people think physicists have anything intelligent to say about politics and religion. You might as well ask a chicken.

Dirac was famous for his social ineptitude. He married the wife of physicist Eugene Wigner, and he was once heard to introduce her as follows: “Allow me to present Wigner’s sister, who is now my wife.” When Werner Heisenberg told him dancing was fun as long as the girls were nice, Dirac said, “But, Heisenberg, how do you know beforehand that the girls are nice?”

This was not the guy to talk to about anything involving spirituality.

Niels Bohr supposedly thought Dirac was onto something, so, clearly, he was not a great source of spiritual wisdom, either.

Wolfgang Pauli, who was very funny, supposedly said this: “Well, our friend Dirac has got a religion and its guiding principle is ‘There is no God, and Paul Dirac is His prophet.'”

It makes sense that the best STEM thinkers would be inept about people, because top performance in their fields doesn’t just come from intelligence; it comes from a willingness to sacrifice everything but math and science. They don’t get where they are by working 40 hours per week and having normal lives, regardless of how bright they are. People in other fields work hard, too, but most fields involve a lot more human interaction and require more application of social intelligence. A mathematician can be successful while living in a dog kennel, naked, and refusing to speak except to the people who throw him his food.

Anyway, I have my calculator, and I assume my complex analysis book will get here soon, so I am happy.

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I said something was resisting my efforts to work on STEM pursuits. That was on December 11. It is now December 13. Yesterday, I received a package from a seller who was supposed to send me a manual for the used calculator I bought. I opened the package, and it actually contained a spelling and handwriting pamphlet for elementary school students!

Maybe someone is trying to tell me something. Of course, no one on the Internet has seen my handwriting, so I don’t see what the problem is.

Still waiting for some other books I ordered. Will they make it, or will the forces of darkness send me more books for first-grade students? I almost hope so, because I could KILL first-grade math problems.

I received my copy of the solutions manual for Ruel Churchill’s complex analysis book, but this is a pretty unimportant part of my collection.