Ten-Minute Job Takes Days

I still have not mounted my Phase II cross slide table on my drill press table. I’m working on it right now. I feel like those ladies in the old commercials who used to say, “I’m cleaning my bathroom bowl” while they were playing tennis or whatever. My horizontal band saw is cutting me a slab of aluminum while I type.

That’s a great machine, although it would be much better with a lubrication system. I don’t know how much lube it needs, but I’m afraid to use it dry. For steel, I sit and dribble Ridgid pipe cutting oil on it, and that means sitting by the saw for an hour for a four-inch cut. I read that you can lube aluminum by putting a paraffin block in the path of the blade. I don’t have a block, but I have some crappy half-burned hurricane candles, and I’m using one of them now. Seems to work. I’ll run out and check from time to time to make sure it hasn’t popped out.

I had a really hard time deciding how to mount the table. It’s about one inch too narrow for the slots to line up with the drill press slots. Very confusing, from a geometric point of view. I’m not about to drill new holes in the drill press table. My solution is to make half-inch-thick aluminum plates, mount them over the drill press slots, attach the plates to the drill press slots, and then attach the slide table to the plates from above. I’ll have recessed bolts going up through the plates through the cross slide table slots. It won’t be sturdy enough to mill on, but then I’m not milling. The objective is to keep stuff from breaking free and spinning and cutting me a new belly button.

I don’t know how I’ll recess the bolts into the underside of the aluminum. I’ll worry about that tomorrow. I guess I can use an end mill and make cylindrical, flat-bottomed holes. Then I can put washers in there and rest the heads of the bolts on them. Countersinking would be better, but I don’t think I have a countersink big enough. I’d like to use 3/8″ bolts, at least.

I think I’m going to get a VFD for the drill press. People are telling me it’s overkill, but think about it. You can’t reverse a drill press. At least not this one. That’s lame. That alone makes the VFD useful. Besides, I found a good cheap motor.

I love machining aluminum. I can see why it’s so popular. It’s like machining cheese. Deep cuts? No problem. Steel is so slow, I can hardly stand it.

Better go check on the saw.

Can’t Get a Permit for a Moat

I bought some elephant tur…”concrete buttons” today. These are the round concrete domes people put on their lawns to discourage drivers from using the grass as a highway. For a long time, the only name I knew for these objects referred to elephant droppings, and then I heard “berm,” and now I find that the people who sell them call them “concrete buttons,” so I am relieved to know the generally accepted term.

Some character who drives in this area early in the morning–almost certainly a newspaper delivery person–has been deliberately running over and moving my only elephant…my only concrete button. The yard is getting pretty torn up. This seems like a poor way to stimulate newspaper sales. He’s in for a surprise.

I considered getting buttons with holes in the middle and hammering rebar into the ground through them, with a little bit sticking up from the top of the buttons. This would make the buttons immovable and hole tires pretty quickly. But the object is not to cause damage. It’s to discourage idiocy. If the perpetrator doesn’t see the rebar, he’ll hit it, and then the deterrent will have failed. After that, there will be no hope of peace or change, and the newspaper guy and I will be like Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam.

It’s wonderful having a truck. In the past I would have had to borrow my dad’s ancient SUV and put the buttons in the back, making a mess. Today I backed the Death Star up to a gate, and a forklift pulled up and held the entire box of buttons over the truck bed while a guy unloaded them for me. Nice.

I spend time in prayer and study early every morning, and today I thought about the first psalm. It says we are to “meditate on the law day and night.” My assumption has been that as a Spirit-filled believer, I was to interpret this as an instruction to pray in the Spirit during the day. There are strong hints about this, which I am too lazy to repeat now. We believe the law, handed down at the first Shavuot, has been supplemented and to some extent superseded by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which was handed down at Pentecost (Greek name for Shavuot) after the crucifixion.

I think I missed part of the picture. The great thing about the post-Pentecost era is that we get to mingle our strength with the unlimited power of the Spirit, and while the latter is unquestionably the big-ticket item, the former is important. So I think it’s important for Christians to meditate on (which means “repeat internally”) the scriptures during the day, especially during time that is otherwise idle. I have a rule, which I observe poorly: never wait. When you find yourself delayed for some reason, find something useful to do. This fills that time very productively.

Because God is a thoughtful planner, I am fairly well prepared for this. For a long time, I’ve been memorizing psalms. I keep losing bits of them, but I have a pretty substantial mental library built up. The psalms are no joke. Jesus and the Apostles used them all the time, as did Satan when he tempted Jesus. They have power. Memorized scripture is the sword of the Spirit. It’s a weapon. It worked for Jesus. So it’s not like I’m just armed with meaningless poetry.

I’ve been making an effort to think on memorized psalms when my time is free, and it’s wonderful. It brings peace, and it reminds me of the power that is at work on my behalf. Very nice. It also helps me not to forget the things I’ve memorized. I recommend it. I’m not suggesting you have to do this in order to be a good Christian, but it appears to work.

I can never remember to do anything I purpose to do, so I asked for grace to be able to make myself do this, and so far, it’s working. I feel much better and more inclined to trust God. If you try this, or if you do it already, let me know what you think.

I learned something yesterday. I love watching Robert Morris, because I think God is telling him fantastic stuff about Spirit-filled living, but I think he may be wrong about something. He says he believes the Holy Spirit “owns” the spiritual gifts, and that any believer can exercise any gift. I’m sure this is true, to the extent that God can do whatever he wants with any believer (or with donkey or a rock or a stick) at any time, but I think we are wrong to believe that generally, the gifts are universal. Robert Morris seems to teach that if you have one gift, you have them all, all the time.

I thought he was right, simply because so much of the rest of his teaching was right on target, but I now think he’s wrong.

Here’s a bit from 1 Corinthians 12:

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.

Here is more:

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

You can look at the first passage and say that it doesn’t expressly rule out the Morris interpretation. The fact that God gives different gifts to different believers at various times doesn’t mean those believers can’t operate in all of the other gifts at other times. But why would Paul write the second passage, if different believers did not have different gifts, generally? There would be no reason to write the passage. Why would one believer think himself better or worse than another, with regard to the gifts, if he had exactly what everyone else had?

If you read 1 Corinthians, you will see more evidence that his interpretation is shaky. I am too lazy to quote all of it.

Not a big deal, but worth noting.

My Childhood is in my Shopping Cart

Today has been profitable. I spoke to my aunt,and she gave me the lowdown on my grandmother’s country hams. Now I know what to put on a ham, if I decide to try curing one. She also told me the correct name for June apples. They are Yellow Transparent apples, and believe it or not, they come from Russia. How they got to Kentucky is anyone’s guess.

I found a website–this is beyond belief–that will ship me a bushel of apples for $17.00 plus UPS charges. I can’t do it until next year, but I’m amazed that it can be done at all. I can’t come close to that price at my local grocery. I probably can’t touch it at Costco. And if I could, the apples would be Granny Smiths, which are not as good.

My aunt also said she would email me another aunt’s recipe for dried apple pies. The aunt who made the pies succumbed to lung cancer in 1994. She made exquisite fried pies. She used lard, according to what I was told years ago.

I’ve given up on drying apples for now. I can buy dried apples from Kentucky for six bucks per pound, and it would probably cost me over twice that much for dried apples made from scratch. Granny Smiths cost at least $1.50 per pound, and that’s before you throw out the core and peel and let the water evaporate. I’ll bet a pound of fresh apples turns into less than a pound of dried ones. I’d have to get apples for almost nothing in order to beat six bucks per pound.

I ordered some dried apples, and I could not resist ordering jowl bacon and apple butter. I plan to try to make my dad an apple stack cake for Christmas. I’ll bet he hasn’t seen one since my grandmother died.

Keep the Fire Extinguisher Handy

I have been looking at The Messianic Times, which is a newspaper I picked up on my visit to Ayts Chayim. It was a real eye-opener.

The cover featured a photo of a wolf disguised as a sheep, over a long article about spies that infiltrate Messianic congregations. You might wonder who would bother. The Klan? Stormfront? Pat Buchanan? Well, no. Actually, it’s Jewish journalists and Orthodox Jews.

It’s kind of weird. The Orthodox don’t proselytize among non-Jews. But some of them make a strong effort to go after Messianics. Which, now that I think about it, seems to conflict with their position that Messianics aren’t Jews. If you go after a “Christian of Jewish Birth,” aren’t you proselytizing a Gentile?

Do they do this to the Hare Krishnas and Buddhists? Weird religions attract a lot of Jews. I wonder if they all get the negative attention the Messianics are getting. I’ll bet there are a hundred times as many Jewish Buddhists as Messianics. And these Eastern cults aren’t just philosophies, any more than yoga is just exercise. They are full-blown religions, with spirits and idols and afterlife myths and the whole nine yards. Messianic Judaism is no less compatible with Orthodox Judaism than these faiths. The jump from one to the other is much smaller.

The stories in the newspaper were pretty shocking. There was one about a lady in Israel who runs a bakery. She lost her kosher certification because she was Messianic. She had to go to court to get it back. This was a huge threat to her livelihood. In the meantime, she had to put up with–you won’t believe this–children spitting on her in the street. I am no rabbinic scholar, but I am sure Jewish law does not endorse children abusing and battering adults in public. Surely the parents of these children did not know what they were doing. I guess the kids heard negative remarks at home and then veered off into juvenile excess.

The Israeli High Court of Justice determined that kosher status was related to methods of food preparation, not the religion of the person doing the work. I don’t think that would fly over here, where the whole business is overseen by religious authorities instead of secular public servants. Although kosher slaughterhouses are full of Gentiles.

I wonder if a Christian can own a kosher business in America. I know products made by non-Jewish companies routinely get certification. Look for the tiny insignias on your Oreos and Cokes.

The paper said the spies sent to Messianic congregations are known as “probes,” and they do things like getting your contact information and putting up posters publicly identifying you as Messianic. That has to be a bummer if you live in Israel.

I wonder if Messianics send covert operatives to the Orthodox. I doubt they could make an impact. I read that there are only about 100 Messianic synagogues in the US, so math is not on their side. I know there are Messianics who continue to associate with other Jews, but I doubt the primary purpose is conversion. After all, these are the people they knew prior to becoming Messianic.

The paper also mentioned arson and a Molotov cocktail.

Suddenly I think I understand the things Jesus said about giving up families and houses and so on, for the kingdom. I’m sure he meant it as a general message to all believers, but I can see how it is particularly relevant to Messianics. Back when the church was primarily Jewish, they had to put up with a lot of violence and other types of persecution. It’s not like the situations most modern Christians face. If you join a church, your buddies might make fun of you for refusing to go to strip clubs with them, but you’re not likely to have kids spit on you, and flogging is passe.

Maybe when Jesus made remarks about turning the other cheek and giving in when wronged, he was primarily talking about Jewish followers who faced persecution from their own people. That would make a lot of sense, because he clearly endorsed self-defense at other times; he ordered his followers to buy swords. The mistreatments he mentioned are typical of the offenses religious minorities suffer when persecuted by the majority. You wouldn’t want your fledgling religion to be known for fistfights and lawsuits. Before long, instead of a church, you’d have a gang.

One Messianic has told me her parents offered to pay her to be treated by a psychiatrist. Not pay the psychiatrist; pay HER. Apparently they believed Messianic Judaism was a mental illness. I wonder if they would have tried to have her treated for atheism.

I can’t tell people how to practice their religions, but I think history shows that violence, crime, and strongarm tactics only produce suffering and reprisals. That’s been true when Christians and Muslims and Hindus have used these methods. I don’t know of any faith that has done anything positive by this approach, unless you count the wars the early Hebrews fought at God’s express command, as revealed by prophets. If Moses or Joshua tells you–face to face–to spit on the baker, you spit on the baker. Otherwise, probably best to rely on prayer and persuasion and a godly example.

I much prefer the attitude of Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, the very non-Messianic head of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Christian employees are not allowed to proselytize, but they are not forbidden to talk about their beliefs if they come up. And there is a Messianic on the board, and as far as I know, the Rabbi’s kids don’t spit on him. I would guess that Jewish employees enjoy the freedom to promote their faith to curious Christians.

The Rabbi’s position shows that coercion is not an officially recognized and sanctioned tool of Orthodox Judaism, so it would be a dangerous mistake to assume otherwise.

I really feel for the people I met on Saturday. I know the important thing is to have God on your side, but it can’t be fun, being part of a controversial movement with virtually no human support. I admire their guts.

Cardboard?

As much as I love lard, I am starting to have doubts about it. Today I really wanted a biscuit, but I had no bacon grease on hand, so I made biscuits with a mixture of butter and lard. The texture was fine, and there was no boar taint, but they tasted a little bit like cardboard. It’s very hard to beat bacon grease in biscuits. The flavor has no rival.

I suspect the cardboard flavor was caused by oxidation. Lard seems to go funny very quickly. The can I have is from Thanksgiving, and I wouldn’t want to use it after the middle of this month. Maybe lard should be kept in the freezer.

I used butter because lard doesn’t have a lot of flavor. I do this with pie crusts, too. If lard isn’t optimal in biscuits, maybe it’s not the right thing for pies, either. Maybe bacon grease is the fat of choice. Sometimes the hint of bacon flavor will be a problem, but it won’t hurt a fruit pie.

Country ham grease is fantastic for baking, but you have to dilute it because the flavor is so strong. It can add a strange flat taste to food. Hard to describe.

Now that I eat so little, I don’t see how I can work effectively on recipes. What would I do with the food? Today I made four biscuits, using half a cup of flour, and I gave half a biscuit to Maynard and Marv.

I didn’t make it to church yesterday. I figured I’d be home from Boca in more than enough time to make it to church by six, but I got home so late, I would have been here for about half an hour before turning around. I was wiped out, too. I didn’t eat enough, so the lights in my head were starting to dim. I corrected that with two slices of bad pizza. I feel bad for the people who recently took over the nearest pizza joint. Their food is never going to be any good until they start using real cheese, but I doubt they’d admit using the fake stuff if I offered a suggestion. The lady who waited on me yesterday had a great attitude, but when it comes to pizza, service means nothing. Quality is all.

I could get rich selling pizza in this neighborhood. I could make a dynamite cheese pizza from $1.50 in ingredients and sell it for ten bucks. Surely that margin would cover rent and other costs. There has never been a decent pizzeria within half a mile of downtown South Miami, which is the nearest conglomeration of stores and restaurants. Anyone who makes good pizza available in this area will be a millionaire in a year. I wish someone would do it. I wish there were two of me, so one could open the pizzeria and the other could go on with life.

If I had a pizza joint, I’d sell pizza, rolls, and soft drinks. Forget the other stuff. Too much aggravation. People would come. No one would refuse to do business with me because I didn’t offer fripperies like stromboli and spaghetti. They’d crawl on their knees and pay whatever I asked. The local pizza famine is at least 25 years old. I’d be hailed as a hero.

Mike needs to move down here so we can become pizza magnates. I’ll make him do all the work. Of course, he’d be dead in six months, and they’d have to bury him in a cargo container. That’s the down side. My dad would probably be buried next to him.

I should just go in there and tell those people they’re doomed. I can hand them my recipe, plus directions to Gordon Food Supply, so they can get real sauce and real cheese. But they probably have to buy whatever garbage their company sells. They’re part of the Cozzoli’s chain. I’ll bet they have some sort of exclusive commissary contract.

Time to leave for church.

There Must be Some Mistake

What I day I had. I’m almost too pooped to write about it.

I contribute to the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. One of their reps contacted me a while back, asking to meet with me. I went, and we had an amazing conversation, and we became friends. She invited me to visit a Messianic synagogue she attends, and today was the day.

I visited Ayts Chayim (I wish I had asked how to pronounce “ayts”) in Boca Raton. At the moment, they’re meeting in a church. Because Jews worship on Saturday, the church is able to accommodate them.

I can’t tell you how strange it was to enter a building which was clearly a church and to find myself surrounded by the familiar mannerisms and speech patterns of Jews. I’ve spent much more time around Jews than in churches or around hardcore Christians, and I am very used to them, but being with them in a church is weird; it’s like being transported in time to the Messianic Age, when Jews and Christians will presumably be united and better able to associate in comfort.

They did a very good job. There was worship, and they brought the Torah out of the Ark (I wondered how they managed to get other Jews to sell them the scroll), and then the Torah was carried around the church, and people touched it and then kissed their fingers. The man who carried it made a couple of circuits around the seats while happy people danced behind him. There was a good deal of dancing throughout the service, and I was relieved to see that there was some dignity to it. These days, worship sometimes turns into a sideshow. The “Davidic worship” folks can get a little nutty.

They read today’s Parasha (Torah portion), and they added a New Testament portion which, in the opinion of the Rabbi, was related. Let’s see. I can’t remember the exact order of things. Prayer for the sick, musical worship combined with giving, and at the end, teaching. Something like that.

Rabbi Brawer taught on the story about Jacob wrestling with the angel of God. If I understood him correctly, it was his opinion that the angel was God himself. More specifically, the preincarnate Jesus. This is a fairly widely held belief. He pointed out a few things I had not noticed about the story, and he concluded with four lessons that logically followed. I would not have picked these things up on my own; they were the kind of things Spirit-filled pastors and evangelists come up with. If I had to name the main point, I would say that it was that ideally, man is supposed to deal with God up close and in person. Like David said, “When thou saidst, seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not thy face far from me. Put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help. Leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation”

There was more to it than that, but like I said, I’m very tired. I recall this: he said the angel kept asking Jacob his name before he would bless him, because Jacob had lied about his identity when he convinced Isaac to give him Esau’s blessing. And Jacob demanded the angel’s blessing in order to make sure his legacy was not corrupted by a counterfeit blessing obtained by deceit. That was interesting. A couple of weeks back, I learned that David questioned his own legitimacy. Now I see Jacob may have had a similar issue.

After the service, I had lunch with some of the folks in attendance, and I enjoyed it tremendously. Believe it or not, I met some conservatives! And a bunch of them want to get concealed carry licenses, and the Rabbi is all for it! I may be invited to help out.

I learned that there is a very stealthy side to their faith. Because other Jews believe they have the authority to expel Messianics from the race and cause them problems should they try to emigrate to Israel, Messianics sometimes have to fly under the radar. I don’t mean they lie. But there is a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy at work. I can’t say more without casting unwanted light on the things that go on. I don’t mean they’re sneaking into synagogues and pouring holy water on the pews, or that they’re secretly baptizing their neighbors’ kids. It’s nothing sinister or weird, and it doesn’t involve proselytizing. But there are times when they have to keep quiet in order to associate with other Jews.

They’re not flogging them any more. That’s progress! Paul never had it this good.

I noticed something about the worship music. It was very good, but I thought it had a little bit of a mournful quality to it. Repressed sorrow, perhaps. Reminiscent of the superficial, bittersweet, determined gaiety of klezmer. Surely there must be a lot of sorrow in the life of a Messianic Jew. They feel they have something wonderful, yet the people with whom they yearn to share it consider them traitors. Literally worse than Hare Krishnas or pagans who disdain their God entirely. It’s surprising how much anti-Jesus sentiment there is among Jews. My IFCJ friend said starving Jews overseas have turned down IFCJ food, simply because the people who paid for it believed in Jesus. Everyone knows there has been anti-Semitic persecution, but it’s not like the IFCJ is grinding up communion wafers and putting them in the food.

I formed some other impressions. Maybe they’re wrong. It seemed that when the Rabbi spoke of deliverance from fear and anxiety–a gift many Christians are used to–these people praised God more intensely than ordinary followers of Jesus. Inner peace seems to be a special challenge for Jews. If so, it seems appropriate, because they are a nation of wanderers, separated from their homeland by centuries of exile and never quite accepted by their foreign hosts. Never quite safe. How can such a people relax the way the rest of us do? To quote David again, “Thou tellest my wanderings. Put thou my tears into thy bottle; are they not in thy book?”

In my church, you can generally feel the presence of the Holy Spirit very soon after worship begins. At Ayts Chayim, it took a while for the heat to come on. I was concerned at first. Some churches never light up, and that is especially true of churches where God’s power isn’t working. But as the service progressed, I began to feel the sensation. Maybe the delay has something to do with the relatively restrained nature of the people, compared to the Haitians and Cubans and white pentecostals I worship with. Or maybe it just reflects the fact that everything involving God has to be harder for Jews. A few Noachide laws for us; 613 commandments for them. That’s how it goes.

These people must be tough. If Jews are outsiders, what is a Jew who can’t turn to other Jews?

Hope your day was as interesting as mine.

Augustus Gloop in the Workshop

I had fun today. I put a new blade in my 4 x 6 metal cutting bandsaw, and then I spent about three hours trying to fold the old blade. It’s a Mobius strip that bites.

While I was trying to fix up the garage, I made an amusing discovery. The rear cover on my mill ways was not attached at one end, so the ways (or saddle or whatever) was littered with swarf. I had to use a blowgun to clean the crap off. I think you have to be nuts to use a blowgun around swarf, but there was no other way. I still have my eyesight, thank God.

I knocked my old 14N chuck off the arbor so I could put the new one on, and stupidly, I didn’t think to take the arbor out of the collet first. The chuck dropped unexpectedly, and now I have my first mill table ding. It’s tiny, but I couldn’t feel it more if it was on my own surface instead of the mill’s.

The band saw is a little slow. It took about an hour to cut a slice out of 4″ by 4″ 1045. I don’t know the right speed, so I used the lowest one. I don’t know how much lube to use, so I had to run to the saw every five minutes and squirt pipe threading oil on it. What a drag.

I started making so many dumb mistakes in there, I quit and came inside. Maybe my blood sugar is low.

Hope I get it together so I can finish up. My cross-slide table arrived, and I need to make hardware to attach it to the drill press.

Handouts Welcome

Thanks to all who prayed concerning the thing I was working on, on Wednesday night. God came through, and it went as well as could be hoped. I wouldn’t say I had a giant victory, but that wasn’t a likely outcome anyway. What I got was the absence of a loss. Can’t explain beyond that.

Today I have some free time. I can’t decide what to do with it. I hope I don’t squander it before I figure it out.

I’ve been dealing with things for the church and my family, and I’ve had a few little problems of my own, and it has added up. Yesterday my dad pointed out that I never had any time for myself. That surprised me, because I’m not spending any time working on my career, and you would think I’d have tons of time on my hands, but he was right. I want a career in Christian books, and maybe Christian songwriting, but that won’t happen while I’m doing household repairs, getting bogged down helping with my sister’s illness, and being less than optimally selective in my church volunteerism.

My sister mentioned a book by John Bevere. I can’t recall the name. He’s a teacher and evangelist. He said something you probably know already if you’re a Christian, but he articulates it in a very clear way.

There are two books in heaven. The first is the Book of Life. You get into this book by accepting salvation. You confess your sins, you ask for salvation, you acknowledge that Jesus paid the price, and you get in. Great. But then you have to deal with the second book. That book lists your works. If they’re in good shape, you get rewards in heaven. Don’t ask me what the rewards are. I know the Bible mentions crowns, which don’t sound all that great, but I’m sure there is other stuff, and whatever it is, you want it.

If my sister related it correctly, John Bevere says a lot of people will get to heaven and find out that they have zip in the second book, even though they’ve done many, many good things for God. Why would this happen? Because they did things God did not want them to do. Maybe you become an evangelist, when God wants you to be a corporate CEO who has the gift of giving money and goods to the church and the poor. So you get little or no credit for the souls you’ve helped save. That’s the idea.

I think this makes perfect sense. Jesus talked about people who would come to him at judgment, citing the things they had done for him. He said some would cite miracles and works using God’s power, such as casting out demons. His response? “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

I think many people interpret this to mean that these individuals go to hell. I find that hard to swallow. Jesus saved a thief as he hung on the cross. This was a man who probably never did anything good in his life, and who was dying when he was saved, so there was no hope he would do anything good in the time remaining. Jesus saved him anyway. I don’t think God would save a person like that and then roast a pastor who was born again yet screwed up afterward. I don’t think “depart from me” means “fry in hell for eternity” in this case. I think it means something more like, “Are you kidding me? You never listened. You did what you wanted, not what I wanted. And now you expect a reward?”

The remarkable thing is that sometimes, God–apparently–permits people to use his power, even if they’re doing it stupidly. Jesus referred to this when he was making his point.

The high priest back in OT times wore a garment that had pomegranates (fruit) and golden cymbals attached to the hem. Some Christians believe these symbolized the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit, which would manifest themselves in the New Testament, via the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The fruit are character traits God puts in us through the Holy Spirit. They include things like love, compassion, and self-control. The gifts are supernatural powers, like the ability to pray in tongues and the ability to see spirits.

Paul talked about the importance of a righteous character. We are to be renewed on the inside, purely by God’s grace and power, so we are good in our inclinations as well as our actions. Some think that in 1 Corinthians 13, he was teaching the importance of acquiring the fruit of the Spirit–good character–as well as the gifts, and that he actually referred to the ornaments on the priest’s garment. Without the fruit between them, the cymbals would bang against each other and make a cacophonous racket.

If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Look what he is implying. You can do things that unquestionably require God’s power, without pleasing God! This notion is found elsewhere. The Jews mention things like this in the Talmud, and the Orthodox view is that Jesus’s miracles were performed in rebellion, using the tetragrammaton, or the name of God. Some ancient literature says Adam had a first wife, Lilith, who disobeyed God and flew away from Eden, using the name of God for power.

Have you ever wondered how a pompous or arrogant evangelist could end up with a multi-million-dollar-a-month ministry while appearing to be completely and transparently consumed with greed and a desire for attention? Maybe this is the answer. Gifts without fruit.

The 37th psalm says, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way.” And the Bible calls our own interests “vanity,” which is a word that refers to things that have no lasting value. The word “vanish” comes from the same root. It seems reasonable to conclude that if we do what we want instead of what God wants, our efforts are vain, because at judgment, the rewards will vanish. The things we thought were permanent will turn out to be passing illusions.

So it looks like it’s possible to turn your own version of God’s plan into an idol. You can be deep in rebellion while serving the church full-time, as hard as you can. You’re not supposed to find something you want to do and then do it for God. You’re supposed to use the Holy Spirit to find out what God wants, and you’re supposed obey while evincing Spirit-imbued good traits such as love and patience and generosity. You’re supposed to know God personally and communicate with him every day, and you’re supposed to pray constantly, asking for help and guidance even in the smallest things. You’re supposed to find out what he wants you to do.and then get him to do most of the work, through power he puts in you. And then you get the credit! It may sound selfish to pester God relentlessly and ask him for things, and it is selfish. But that’s how grace is. We have to humble ourselves and admit we are asking for much more than we deserve. We’re like Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket, eating his unwanted, undeserved doughnut not because he earned it, but because he doesn’t deserve it.

We are welfare cases. We are not supposed to earn. We are supposed to beg and take and be grateful and a little ashamed. That’s what I think. If you earn, you have a right to be proud, and you can say you deserve your blessings. That isn’t consistent with the New Testament. You have to make an effort, but you have to acknowledge that your effort is not what gets the job done. Like it or not, “the battle is the Lord’s.”

That’s how I see it, anyway. I want to take a look at John Bevere’s book and see if that’s his position.

Grace is a wonderful thing for the enemy to attack, because it sounds so lazy and selfish. “God helps those who help THEMSELVES!” “I’m not worthy to ask God to help me!” “I’m so pious and unselfish, I wouldn’t dream of asking God to clean up my mess!” “I can’t ask God to help me all the time; he has better things to do, and I caused my own problems.” How righteous those things sound, when the enemy sends brainwashed people to put out the fires grace lights. When he sends them out to protect his doomed kingdom from destruction and blight. It sounds so reasonable; no wonder it has been so easy for people to kill evangelists who taught it, while the murderers believed they were serving God. But the message of self-reliance is evil, and the message of taking handouts from God is righteous.

Speaking of handouts from God, yesterday I dropped down to the fifth notch on my new belt. I know eventually I’ll get the same kind of progress in every area of my character, and I’ll do a better job handling things like anger, unforgiveness, impatience, and so on. I do what I can on my own, but I know that when I see success, it will come from God, not my sad efforts.

Yesterday I tried to remember what it used to feel like to feel compelled to gluttonize. I tried to recall the sensation of compulsion, pushing me to take another bite. I couldn’t do it! That amazed me. I have an incomplete memory of it. I recall part of the sensation, but not all of it. I can’t explain that. It would be nice to get that effect with my other shortcomings.

Let the earners get what they can earn. I’d rather get what has been set aside for me as gifts. It’s humbling to realize that, but then humility is a gift, too.

Bring Your Rubber Duck

My Ebay Jacobs Super Chuck arrived. It’s a beauty. I went for the 16N, which goes up to 5/8″. I don’t know how I managed this, but I got an unused chuck for about $67. That’s half of what Enco charges. There’s no key, but I have two that will fit.

I already have an old 14N I got on Ebay. I thought I was so smart, buying used. The 14N acts like it has wadded-up metal obstructing the parts when you turn it. The 16N is nearly as smooth as my Albrecht. I was stupid, buying a used chuck just because it looked good in the pictures. And the 14N was a little small. I guess I could use it on the lathe, if I got it working right.

The guy who sold me the chuck wrapped it in about seven layers of bubble wrap, with packing tape around each layer. Using a big Gerber folding knife, it took me several minutes to get to the chuck. As I cut and pulled, I heard myself say, “This guy must be retired.”

Do you ever say things to yourself that you find funny? It happens to me from time to time. In a sermon, my pastor told our church that the way to control lust worked like this: when you see a hot tamale an attractive woman walking down the street, you praise God for his work. Today while walking out of a restaurant I passed a lady with a remarkable endowment, and before I realized what I was doing, I thought, “Way to go, LORD!”

That was bad.

I’m getting better. The last time something like this happened, I saw a lady walking down the sidewalk, and I thought, “Way to GO, lady!” I totally forgot the praise part. You can see how I’ve improved.

I keep telling people I expect to be perfect in a couple of months, but there have been unexpected delays.

I am not alone. Last night at my prayer meeting, I learned that one of my church’s members makes a living selling sex pills to to convenience stores. I did not know what to make of that. And the pastor who leads the pill guy’s regular prayer group said their group was going to be hot-tubbing together. I thought he was kidding, so I laughed. And it turned out I was wrong.

Call me overly cautious. I see a recipe for problems here. I’m glad the last time I got together with guys from the church, all we did was shoot pistols and talk about killing people. You know. Holy stuff.

I don’t know what I’d do if I were invited hot-tubbing. I’m not fond of other people’s dirt and germs. I don’t know if I could bear to sit chest-deep in man soup. Wasn’t one of the Apostles boiled to death? I would hate to get martyred by a malfunctioning jacuzzi. Next to the guy who sells sex pills.

“The bottle was empty when we found them, Chief.” “Okay, let the news photographers in now.”

Last night someone suggested doing a tailgating thing at the stadium where the Dolphins play. We’d have food and drinks, and we’d hang out and try to win souls by distributing ribs or something. “God took Adam’s. We’ll GIVE you ours.” Something like that. Sounded great to me. I love barbecuing. Then someone pointed out that the line of cars is like a thousand miles long at seven in the morning, and my righteous zeal to win souls for Jesus disappeared instantaneously. So I have to ask myself, “Would I rather see people go to hell than sit in line for five hours?”

I prefer not to reach a conclusion.

I’d do it, but man, I hate lines.

We might start chauffeuring people to services. We tossed that around. Problem is, you need drivers with chauffeurs’ licenses, and you have to get a physical and pay over $300 to take a written exam. I don’t know if we’re capable of that level of effectiveness. Right now, we have trouble getting people through the church cafe’s waiting line in under an hour and a half.

We will definitely do something. We just don’t know what it will be. Figuring things like this out is where the Holy Spirit comes in handy. Otherwise, each of us is just listening to his own internal Pointy-Haired Boss.

We Elected a Grinch

Obama knocked Charlie Brown off the air so he could hold a Tuesday night press conference. Does anyone else think this is completely appropriate?

Obama is a humanist. He is nominally Christian, but he opposes Christian goals as a matter of course, and he thinks Israel is no more important than any other nation. To many, including me, he appears to see himself as a secular messiah who will fill in the gaps where God (in the humanist mind) has failed. The Charlie Brown Christmas special is one of our nation’s few prime-time, network-TV celebrations of God’s greatest gift. It only makes sense that Obama would have no feelings for this beautiful program, and it may very well be that hidden forces motivated him to oppose it. God was supposed to be glorified last night. Instead, Obama got the spotlight.

You’ll notice that he didn’t mess with “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” which is a cartoon that denies God glory. Dr. Seuss and liberal Chuck Jones removed all mention of Jesus from the holiday and turned it into an exaltation of pretty but powerless and limited earthly love. Jesus was not primarily about good behavior or warmth or kindness; those are only parts of the picture. He was about total submission to God’s will, and he was about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He was about the Torah and sacrifice and sin and redemption. He did not save humanists or Muslims or Buddhists, no matter how nice they may be. He saved only those who admit their sins and their need for salvation. He works in our lives today, not just by moralizing and correcting, but by giving us the supernatural power to behave righteously. You can’t get that from philosophy or self-help books.

People forget that the Bible says Jesus will eventually make his robe wet with the blood of his human enemies. He will literally kill them in person, just as the Holy Spirit executed Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts. He sent an angel to kill 185,000 soldiers in a single night. He killed the firstborn males of Egypt, including babies and puppies. He allowed Hezekiah’s descendants to be taken captive and castrated by the Babylonians. He caused Herod to be eaten alive by worms. He turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. Lovey-dovey pacifist humanists don’t act that way. There is more to Jesus than hugs and kisses. Maybe pastors don’t talk about it much, because God is not blessing their ministries with followers, and they think the answer is to tell people what they want to hear. But anyone who makes an effort to read the Bible will see that our loving God can be the most terrible enemy imaginable. This, after all, is the person who created hell.

I love Dr. Seuss, but even I am not dumb enough to prefer his work to the gospel.

The pleasant thing about God’s severe side is that he uses it to chastise us, for our own instruction, and to fight our battles. When your enemies attack you unfairly and without reason, you don’t want a pacifist on your side. You want the God who sent his angel to kill 185,000 Assyrians. At the very least, you want the God who closed the mouths of the lions for Daniel.

It seems like Obama’s behavior is calculated to offend Christians and observant Jews. I’m sure it’s not (at least not in Obama’s mind), but it works out that way, over and over. We all need to pray this man gets a clue.

I’ll be pretty busy today. I’m working on something important, and I would appreciate prayers for my success. I have learned that there is absolutely nothing I can be sure of accomplishing without God’s favor.

ABC says Charlie Brown will return next week. Let’s hope Obama does not return in 2012.

Am I Dreaming a Dream?

I am listening to a Shavuot sermon by Rabbi Ira Brawer of Ayts Chayim Messianic Synagogue. I have been invited to attend this Saturday, and I can’t wait. Don’t ask me why; I just can’t wait.

It’s so weird hearing a Jew talk about Shavuot as a charismatic Christian would. To Jews, Shavuot is the day God gave Moses the Torah. To Christians, it’s the day God gave man the Holy Spirit, writing the Torah on man’s heart. We see the first Shavuot as a shadow of the one that occurred on Pentecost after the resurrection. It’s odd to hear a Jew who believes the same thing.

Aaron likes to call Messianics “Christians of Jewish birth,” but they are different from ordinary Christians. They don’t have their roots in the Christian church. Their roots are in Judaism. They are Jews (“people of Jewish descent,” whatever) who continue to practice Judaism but believe Yeshua is their promised messiah. It’s not really the same as being a Baptist or a Catholic. You can’t call these people Protestants, the way we generally refer to non-Catholic Christians. They’re in a class by themselves.

I know it’s not very likely the Orthodox would respect the Messianic brand of Judaism, even if Yeshua were not part of it. But it’s more like Judaism than anything else.

I guess the reason I find this exciting is that I have been around Jews since I was three years old, yet I have never known one with whom I could cross the bridge of faith. There was always a “middle wall” of separation between us. This was true even of close friends. It’s wonderful to see Jews I can relate to with less restraint.

Actually, my ninth-grade algebra teacher was a major babe, and she was Messianic. I should have made her wait a few years so I could marry her. She was only six years older than me. We could have made it work! Maybe I could have gotten her to change those D-minuses she gave me.

These guys are probably going to start having a big impact on Christianity, because their knowledge of Judaism gives them insights the rest of us can only have by direct inspiration of God.

It’s wonderful. It’s like listening to Perry Stone or Robert Morris, except this guy is talking about Judaism from the inside.

The Old Testament foreshadows New Testament events in ways that are mind-blowing, and the Messianics must be more aware of it than anyone.

Jewish holy-rollers. How can you beat that?

Listen.

Mighty Morphin’ Mormon Marsupial

I turned Fox News on while I was eating a mid-afternoon pork snack, and Glenn Beck was on.

I can’t shake the feeling that I am being lectured by a koala bear.

You May be Next

If I pray for someone, and that person gets what he needs, it does not mean I’m special or that I have a gift. It just means God did something generous and I was in the supply chain.

That being said, let me refer you back to November 22. I mentioned a prayer request I got from a reader. This lady said her husband was severely alcoholic and had been for several decades. Before I managed to get the request blogged, she sent this:

“Steve,
did you pray for him or something? WHile he was sleeping it off today he saw in him mind’s eye a beer can and “heard” the statement that he was giving his whole life to alchohol. Uh, wowie.
Don’t let up and I won’t either.

He was pretty sober when he woke up and I was friendly and told him that that well, you got a pretty clear message.

Amazed,
_____”

I was shocked.

It gets better. Look what I received today:

I think I should let you know how the miracle is going.

After the day he received the message about his beer he had to try to drink a little one more time. He ended up terribly drunk one more time. He slept for about 36 hours and woke up and told me he couldn’t drink
even one beer. That it just doesn’t work for him. No kidding?

He is doing fine. He was told by doctors that he would become ill if he tried to just quit because of the level of his alcoholism. But he hasn’t become ill at all. He is just fine. Now the scary part is trying to grow a relationship with him again. This is not nothing. Forty years of me taking care of him while he gets drunk whenever he is not at work is hard on the old relationship.

I am excited for the grandchildren who live with us, and his kids, to see him become sober. It will be quite a witness to them. Only God could have stopped him. He always stated that he had no interest in stopping. I sound a little flat I know. But I am a little scared. Trying to have faith and be encouraging to him.

Thank you for prayers, Means more than you will ever know.

I want to point something out. I didn’t get much prayer in before the first miracle, but God performed it anyway. Since then, readers have been praying, and I have kept this man on my daily prayer list. I have put some effort into it, but it hasn’t been the focus of my life. I don’t want anyone to even dream of giving me credit. Even if I had been praying and fasting around the clock, only God could have made this happen.

I hope people who read this will be encouraged. God delivers people from addiction and strong habits that are harmful. This case is a little unusual, but then so was my case. Over the course of a day, I was delivered from gluttony and given increased self-control in other areas. Sometimes God acts very quickly. When he doesn’t, it should not discourage you. Your answer may be coming later.

I just don’t know what to say about this story. If any Christians have advice for these people, I hope they will feel free to leave it in comments. Satan will surely try to reverse this miracle, and they need to be ready.

Man, We’re Old

Someone suggested I fix my dubious Lodge skillet by machining it. I have considered that, but I would have to be able to mount it on my rotary table, and that would be a pretty good trick. The table is not as wide as the skillet, so I’d have to put a plate on it, and the plate’s thickness would have to be extremely uniform. If it weren’t uniform, I’d get a skillet that wasn’t uniform. Which is what I already have.

Not sure what to do about that.

The plate would also have to be perfectly flat and very rigid.

I’m going to try to get a couple of bigger Griswold skillets. Now that my bone-filled head has accepted the time-honored wisdom about cleaning skillets with salt and a spatula, I am not as reluctant to use them as I used to be. I’d go ahead and use the Lodge, but one side gets hotter than the other due to the varying bottom thickness.

Hmm…maybe I should boil a little water in one of my Griswolds and make sure they don’t have this problem. If they heat unevenly, I have less motivation to get more of them.

You can get Griswolds fairly cheap on Ebay, but if you get picky about features, the cost goes up. And the bigger skillets can be extremely expensive unless you get lucky. One thing I can say about them: you only pay once. I’m buying used items that are up to 70 years old and nearly like new.

I want one or two more matching skillets before I give up and go cheap. I think the size 13 jobs (and whatever comes after them) will have to remain an unrealized dream. If I paid over $300 for a skillet, I’d have to have myself institutionalized to find out why. The big ones can cost that much.

I’m really looking forward to church this week. It’s the first week of the month, so we’ll be having Breakthrough Wednesday. This is a fantastic service. It’s not as regimented as the regular services. There are tables up front and in the back for communion, and there are people available to pray for you. The worship is very intense. I love it.

I’m going to be an “armorbearer,” which means I’ll be helping the church out as needed. One of my duties will be to put on a two-way radio and wander around keeping an eye on things. I had to buy my own “surveillance set,” which is what they call the microphone and the earpiece with the squiggly cord that runs up your neck. The church has radios, but the surveillance sets have a way of vanishing. I think people just don’t want to share them, which is understandable. I sure don’t want to. Yech.

God has been so kind to me, helping me to find purpose in life. Works don’t get you into heaven, but they help determine what heaven is like for you, and besides, they allow you to express your love for other people and your gratitude for God. I’m way behind, so any opportunity he gives me is appreciated.

Speaking of God’s kindness, Aaron just had a grandson! Unbelievable! I’ll be praying his mom recovers fast, and that he has a life of blessings and righteousness. Perhaps you will join me.

Another thing you might want to pray about: reader Dave Rodenborn lost his African grey parrot, Splint. The poor little guy wasn’t trimmed correctly, and he managed to fly out Dave’s front door. Dave is in California, so the weather shouldn’t be too hard on Splint. Many greys are recovered; they don’t like to fly far in the first month. I truly hope Dave gets another chance. Nothing is worse than knowing your mistake harmed your pet.

The Duct Tape of Meats

The bacon/sausage experiment is a success.

A week or two back, I made my own sausage from picnic hams. It was excellent. Better than store sausage. But I wanted to take advantage of cheap Costco pork, and I wanted to use boneless cuts which are easier to grind.

Costco sells beautiful pork loin (no bone) for $1.79 per pound, which is what I pay for picnic hams, including the bone. But the loins are lean. What to do? Pork sausage needs to be around 40% fat. Last time, even using fatty picnic hams, I had to mix lard into the meat.

Last week while shopping for Thanksgiving stuff, I got a three-pound package of bacon scraps for about $1.70 per pound. Today I made a mixture of bacon and pork loin, half and half. About six pounds. I used the sausage recipe I came up with for the last batch, but I reduced the salt to account for the salt in the bacon, and I used apple juice concentrate instead of brown sugar.

Someone told me it would be a waste to put bacon in sausage, but it’s delicious. It adds a smoky flavor; you know what bacon tastes like. The fat content is actually a little high, so next time I think I’ll go 60/40. Bacon scraps are perfect for adding fat to pork sausage.

I learned something interesting today. Apple juice concentrate is nearly pure sugar. If you measure it like sugar and add 25%, you’re right on the money. And the little cans can be resealed and kept frozen.

I can’t wait to plow into this stuff, but I’m still working on the second or third pound of the first sausage I made. I eat it every day for breakfast. Two patties plus a thin slice of country ham. And a lovely glass of water.

This is good, cheap, healthy food. When I say “healthy,” I’m addressing low-carb believers. The rest of you won’t buy it. Anyway, I have never had pork sausage this good. I wish I could get away with biscuits and gravy. The gravy from this sausage would be the stuff of culinary history.

It’s too bad so few sausage companies do it right. They use gamy meat and too much sage. I guess the object is to use the cheapest pork available, so they have to spice it very heavily to mask the stink, and the product suffers.

Bacon scraps are very useful. I like to nuke them until they’re good and cooked and then pile them in a thick layer on top of baked beans. Geez, that would make a killer BLT.

It’s hard mixing the spices into the sausage. There must be a better way than using a big spoon.

Now that the sausage is made and the pork chops are in the freezer, the pork monkey is off my back, and I can go on to other things.