Nominalism

I am not introducing a discussion of nominalism as a philosophic claim, or the variety of usages in scientific fields, but only as it attaches itself to valued realities which occur in groups. These valued realities have names but often the value is claimed by having the name only.
In political circles, a RINO ("Republican In Name Only") is a negative description. (Could there be a positive nominalism anywhere?)
How would one create nominalism?
It quite easy in fact. You become convinced or convince another that certain acts or claims attain to an actuality so named when, in fact, they do not. You or they, (and the more "they" the better for that helps convince all that the life of the fake is the life of the real) live and insist that you enjoy the complete claims of the real. Those who are the real are told they are not being sufficiently ecumenical (Christians) and are dividing the party (Republicans).
A question:
How, if one wanted to, would you go about creating a nominal Republican/Christian?
I mean if you intended to do it.
1] Get them to register as a member, going through whatever rites are normative.
2] Have them go to the expected meetings.
3] Encourage them to speak in the the special terms current in the party.
4] Invoke the past heroes of said party.
5] Express shock and offense if any suggest the above is insufficient.

Would such a nefarious plot be any different than what you are doing now?
Republicans tolerate the RINOs because they want the gains a broader party will bring. In a sense this is the "positive" nominalism that I wondered if possible earlier. But an actual, ideological Republican feels so dirty when someone calls Senator Arlen Specter a Republican.

When you think that a real Christian is one who has passed from death to life at the end of a repentant road by giving their will up on the altar of Christ's great sacrifice, don't you feel just as dirty when you look at the local Christian school or youth group or congregation of evangelicals and call the whole motley crew Christians? Walk the aisle, baptize the baby, sign the card, and even attend a concert or go on a youth mission trip. Everybody will start calling you a Christian regardless of how dark your life is. We so desperately want to count these patent unbelievers as on our team, we shore up the great magics of nominalization. We think that nominal is the Christian marijuana. It is the entry drug. The entry from fake to real, some believe, is a seamless transition, like taking more of the drug. Will it be because they have such fun faking the Christian life that they will want to have the greater fun of a real Christian life? With drugs, a little bit of the real thing is the real thing. The marijuana gets you stoned and heroin gets you more stoned. Nominalism has none of the real but the name.

I remember in high school some dopers trying to sell (successfully) chopped up maple leaves in a baggie into which they had blown marijuana smoke. It was no entry drug. No one got stoned. But what if the deceived thought he had as good as it got? His claims of how ripped he became would be the laugh of the true doping contingent. And the dopers would make easy money off the abundance of maple trees hereabouts. Pretty soon, most of the dopers would be nominal "dopers", and the real experience of being high would be lost in the social cult of maple leaf smoking dorks.

The transition from this nominalism, this Christianity for dorks, this unimpressive fake, is not seamless nor is it merely an enjoyed step deeper. A fake Christian must come to know the damnable state of the fake Christian, the blasphemy of its claims, the apostasy of a Gospel which brought them "in" without belief in the work of Jesus Christ for their sins? He must say "I've been smoking maple leaves because someone who looked like they knew what was going on told me that the smell of the real made it real." Will they become a real Christian at last, like all who are real Christians became them, by repenting, believing, and calling on the name of the Lord?

Romans 2:17-28
But if you call yourself a Jew and rely upon the law and boast of your relation to God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed in the law, and if you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth -- you then who teach others, will you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? For, as it is written, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law; but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then those who are physically uncircumcised but keep the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal. His praise is not from men but from God.

Queen

The suspicion present that I speak to the qualities of the band Queen notwithstanding, I must turn instead to Her Majesty's presence in our country, at our White House, this very day. Or rather Ann Coulter's comment regarding Her Majesty on Fox News this morning. Ann, (and I believe we are on a first name basis since the Amazing Missus, as another steely eyed article of female intensity, has read all her books) commented with a tone that presumed (and probably got) agreement from even the most leftist sack of atrophied gray matter in the country. She said that as an American she had no use or respect for the royals. Her lean, blond, leggyship has ceased to hold me in thrall. Some of you reading this have said to yourself that although you never agree with Ann Coulter, on this one point you do, and here it is that the Oracle abandons her. What is up?
It tells us in the Book of Jude that certain false teachers (of Jude's concern) were those who "reject authority" and live that out by reviling the "Glorious Ones". As an example he gives the Archangel Michael and his treatment of Satan in the Pseudepigraphal work, (no longer extant) "The Assumption of Moses". It would seem that respect for a position is irrespective of ones necessity of submission. We are to honor Satan's kind whether or not we agree or needs submit. The same is true of a young lady who marries. Under the different headship of her husband only the most pretentious of abandoned patriarchs would insist that the command to obey ones parents was still in place. It is a matter of citizenship in a given fiefdom that would require obedience. I am no longer a citizen of Satan's kingdom, nor is my wife a citizen of her parent's arena of rule and the lovely Ann and I are not in England but in America. Ann's and my geographic and historic definitions still agree. But Michael honored Satan. A wife will honor her father. Ann Coulter should honor Her Majesty Elizabeth II, the Queen of England. Miss Coulter, while she is not your queen, she is yet a queen. A father-in-law is still a father. And Satan, a Glorious One.

Lost Cause

O'er several years some several souls
And sundry friends of such, had certain found
A darkness in the doings of all else
And that, of ample years. But ample hearts,
Are able in the arts of war. They spied
The several in a single, lonely cave
Where ample minded several to subtract
Each severally to make a sum indeed.

by Evan Wilson

Summertime

Last year, while at the Society for Classical Schooling conference in Greensboro, I resigned from their board. I couldn't afford the financial demands attending the conference placed on The Big Haus. But, lo and behold, out of the kindness of the SCL, I am going to be speaking (4 talks) at the conference again this year on their nickle. The conference is in Raleigh this year and the plenary speaker is Peter Kreeft. Do you wanna go? I recommend this event for any person who loves the Western Tradition and,via education or lifestyle, wishes to see it advanced. Look it over at the website for the Society for Classical Learning. It will be June 28-30.

Of Baptism

If salvation is the baptism in the Holy Spirit by Christ, graciously given to those who repent and believe, calling on the name of the Lord, and if it does not need water baptism to be effected, then what might water baptism be?
1] One can do it in raw obedience without a theology. "Jesus said to do it so I'm doing it."
2] It can be like John's baptism, a statement of repentance.
3] It can be a repentant someone who has come to belief and is calling on God as St. Peter said "Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ..." (I Peter 3:21)
4] It can be symbol of our baptism in the Holy Spirit and our participation in the death and resurrection of Christ. See Acts 10 and Colossians 2:12

Hebrews 6:2 suggests that the deeper instruction for Christians includes that on baptisms plural. The variety of causes and symbols water baptism enjoys provides that possibility of plural water baptism. Why then do the Scriptures say "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" ?
When the Scriptures speak of "one baptism" it must be that baptism which all the regenerate have necessarily encountered, that of the Holy Spirit. I Corinthians 12:13 "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free -- and all were made to drink of one Spirit."

Simon Magus believed and was baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus and yet St Peter told him, " You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity." Acts 8:21-23

The core of the Gospel, as far as what God has asked of us in it, is to repent, believe, and call on God. Water baptism can coexist (and does in the Scripture) but only as a reference to either repentance, preparing the way for the Holy Spirit baptism (John the Baptist's) or the convicted person calling on and appealing to God for forgiveness (in other words, acting as and outwardly decorating your prayer for salvation) or as a symbolic statement of what you know has already happened (died and raised with Christ /baptized in the Holy Spirit). In each case it is not necessary to the thing it references. A man can repent, call on God, be baptized in the Holy Spirit without this referrer of water baptism. But Biblically we also can and obediently will use it to so refer. Without the baptism of the Holy Spirit you have "neither part nor lot" in the Kingdom of God and Christ. Baptism can symbolize what we believe but can't reference that alone. It doesn't effect, it represents and it must represent that which has happened or is happening.

Those that can't or won't or haven't repented and called on God should not be baptized. Even if they say that they have, and it is clearly not evident that they have been baptized of the Holy Spirit, baptizing such devalues it. Passed from death to life did you? Big whoop. It is like making baptism a currency (which represents value) and deciding that, while the gold standard is desirable it is too rare, so your parishioner "dollars" will now be backed by mud. You can get it everywhere and even make it yourself!
These "cant',won't, haven'ts" includes 14 year old Southern Baptists who know it is time to walk the aisle cuz mammy knows that Elvis did or the baby of parents trapped by the fears attendant to original sin or unconditional election and want some peace of mind, or your boyfriend who is willing to do what it takes to make you believe that this love will last.
Because of promiscuous baptism, these, and these are without number clogging our assemblies, will misunderstand (how could they not?) and think, with the rest of a superstitious world, that the magic has been done and they will never pass from death to life.

Faith Alone

Acts 11:15-18
As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, `John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?" When they heard this they were silenced. And they glorified God, saying, "Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance unto life."

This is St. Peter speaking of his encounter with Cornelius in the previous chapter. The connections in this tight little remark are legion.
1] What happened to them is revealed to be the superior baptism to that of water.
2] It is the same as the disciples encountered at Pentecost.
3] It was God's response to their belief.
4] This baptism of the Holy Spirit in response to faith is labeled "repentance unto life."
5] It was convincing enough a salvation that the Jews concluded that Gentiles could be saved.
6] Someone rejecting the obvious is trying to "withstand God".
7] This marvelous work of faith and grace, 'repentance unto life", occurs before they were water baptized.

Let us look at the event itself, shall we? See chapter 10"43-48 (St Peter is speaking)
"To him all the prophets bear witness that every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." While Peter was still saying this, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, "Can any one forbid water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.

As St Paul says in Romans 10, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the preaching of Christ".
1] St Peter preaches that "belief" gains "forgiveness" in Christ
2] Since it is while telling them to believe for forgiveness that they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (in chapter 11 identified as "repentance unto life") we can declare that they believed and were saved right then.
3] Believing Jews could tell.
4] A believer obviously regenerated is the most natural claimant to water baptism. (Conversely, one could say that the most natural disqualification would be the reverse, no belief and no evidence of regeneration.)
5] Soooo, these people were saved by God's grace, who responded to them for only belief.
6] They had already been good (see 10:34-35) but good wasn't enough.
7] They had not even time, before God mercifully saved them, for even an immediate baptism let alone a lifetime of smells and bells ritualism or works righteousness. Uh.. you know,...by grace.

If someone can be given saving grace with only their faith in view, what graces are brought by the additional works, rites, ideas, theologies, sundry hoop-jumping-through? Are those folks just "more" saved? Repentance-unto-Life XPPro? Or do they get a special decoder ring?
In spite of the obvious, drop you on your head, qualities of this passage, baptism is often, still, the most offensive addition to the Gospel. It occurs in the highest of the high church sacramental followers of Baal and it frequents the bo-hunkus theology of places like the Church of Christ.

As I thought about these who get more confident when wet, and their ecstasies of bowing and scraping before the muttering of eunuch priests, I gathered that they were admitting something they knew not. Priestcraft makes up for failures of faith. If faith is all God needs to proceed to your salvation, those who belief that you must be baptized as well are not only in danger of damnation for the falseness of their gospel (see Galatians 1). They are in danger because the addition of works to faith is a measure of their faith. Like St James says of works (of righteousness not ritual), it shows your faith. But bad works show what kind of faith as well. If I abuse others, I show that I don't believe. If I practice ritual I admit my faith (which I know can bring me salvation all by itself because I read Acts 10-11) can't stand on its own feet. These are not people who merely "like a little beauty, thank you" in their services. These are people who tell you that their salvation depends on it. They don't object to belief alone saving someone. This is not, despite protests to the contrary, a theological fight. They've seen salvation happen, not only in Acts 10-11 but in people they know. They look at their own faith and realize, standing on its own, it is nowhere near what God requires of faith ("assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen"). They don't actually believe, at least, they know, not enough. A temple narrative in which they can suspend their disbelief, in which the aromas and robes beguile their senses into thinking, dear God, that they believe this malarkey. They have found what mankind can never, in his unbelief, give up, the elemental spirits of the universe.

Galatians 4:8-11 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods; but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days, and months, and seasons, and years! I am afraid I have labored over you in vain.

Colossians 2:16-19 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, taking his stand on visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

People have been suckers for it in Galatia, in Colossae, and the U.S. of A. They are, perhaps, incapable of a saving faith. But they can know and fear enough of the import of religion and the gods.

"No faith, you say? I'll call this ritual my faith. I'll tell myself the story over and over again that this action, this muttering of the Trinitarian abracadabra gets me membership in the club of Christendom. Sure it is a physical religion but we call it "incarnational living". Makes the narrative more plausible to the dim bulbs. This is what every one who is anyone has been doing for the last two millenia. All the saints, I'm tellin' you. How could it be wrong? Now you are tellin' me that there is some sort of secret society within all this information regarding Jesus that knows Him and is known by Him through faith without the doodads? Call it the "New Covenant" do they? Damn heretics!"

I Timothy 4:1
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,

Keeping the Pedestrian at Bay

I am middle class. Public school educated and living in Idaho. Sure, it is a university town but the type of university that builds a recreation center with a climbing wall the size of Montana. While I have friends, some of whom are minds worth knowing in the pursuit of the sublime, the TV has channel after channel of mundane entertainments with educational attempts grappling with an early high school level curriculum. It comes into my Haus on a cable to make sure that no reality show is lost while trying to reach this this far flung corner of the Empire.
What is an aspiring oracle to do?
There are cigars as an excuse to sit around. That helps. Smoke them in the library (your own library) for that extra wallop. And have a somewhat eccentric philosophy. Make sure it is eccentric so that you never run into it in general Christian conversation or in a popular, current Christian movement. Your life is to be committed to this philosophy as a direct war on the inane. Make it true for extra benefits. The habit of your mind needs to create a groove, a well worn funk riff of truth which translates that pedestrian signal into affirmation of your thought. Look on the world of the Other through eyes which citizens of the Other, while chatting with you about sundry domestic or geopolitical concerns, catch a glimpse of what's behind your half-lidded gaze and start in horror. With practice you can raise one eyebrow.
Yep, that'll do the trick.

Living in a Land of Make Believe

"Narrow is the way to life and those that find it are few."
So said the Lord Christ.
"But Christianity is one of the world's leading religions"
So said you, correcting your Lord's dark mutterings.
If you decide not to correct the Lord (as I have decided) there is some 'splainin' to do. What are all these souls cumbering the pews of Christendom actually up to?
They are, for a large part, playing make believe. It is hard for someone who truly believes to see and understand that some of the most intense defenders of that belief are just playing religion and have happened to choose the true one to play. But pretending it is true is a sight different from faith. This is how faithful young people growing up in the youth group and a Christian home walk away from it so easily when they reach college. The little girls are all done playing "daddy's little chastity princess" and the young men find more important games to play. The parents keep on playing that game until their sexual needs in conflict propels them to deny the faith if just to get out of their marriage. This is why the children play the faith, pretend Christianity is all they have ever seen. So the church and the movement ramp it up. We have to make sure that the "make believe" is permanent. We will give them an entire culture, be it indie bands or colleges or prairie muffin values.

This effort is being done not just by those who don't know Jesus Christ but make believe that they do. It is also done by those who, by real faith, have passed from death to life. Why do they do it? They don't believe what Jesus said, that is why. Even the truly believing want a movement, want to win, want to keep score against the Philistines. "Hard to find", "difficult to attain", and "few achieving" are not phrases you can build a profession of ministry around. Not with a decent salary that is. How to get people on board? Step aside Jesus, we are gonna make this puppy easy to find, almost automatic to conclude, and we will be satisfied with nothing less than millions on millions buying the Jesus Extreme t-shirt.

No insistence on a movement equals no problem with the text.
Where did Jesus tell us that he came to start a movement?

The Oracle says: My father's Christianity had absolutely nothing to do with the church we attended. I believe because I saw a Man, not a Movement, who knew God. You either know Him or you are pretending to know Him.

The Quiet of Our Lives

Middle age did sneak up on the baron and baroness and did surprise us with a moment of quiet, reflective thought.
A couple of weeks ago, Spring Break descended on the Big Haus and with it the absence of university students normally seen in these environs. Our two eldest children had long since vanished and the younger two, in high school and possessed of monies and wheels, set off on a road trip to see their sister in Portland.
The Haus, beside what you see here, was empty.
In nigh on 27 years, we are not sure that we two, The Oracle and The Amazing Missus had ever spent a night alone on the estate. Stunned, we got a drink and sat down. A tripod and a timer captured the action.
That is me on the left.

What in the World?

I've been ill. I've been busy. Or perhaps my views have become more and more pedestrian until I have come to doubt that the reading public would be interested.

But what if I said that Satan had been cast into the lake of fire, oh, about a thousand years ago?

Or that monarchy is the preferred form of government?

Or that Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is a woefully incomplete work of fiction?

Or that people do not have inalienable rights?

Or that the Future does not exist?

Or that the people of Israel spent only 215 years in the land of Egypt?

Or that the snake in the garden was only a snake in the garden?

Or that Roman Catholicism is not Christian?

Or that I speak to the winds?

Or that God changes His mind sometimes?

Or that sex is a metaphor and a different metaphor for men and women?

Or that vitamins are a fraud?

Or that the metric system is of the Pit?

(And I won't even mention what I think of soccer.)

I'm just sayin', "what if".

Victory!

After five long years of leading Bella Jazz Ensemble (plus a few before that with the Logos School Jazz Choir) the Amazing Missus pounded, cajoled, and directed a fine group of young people to a First Place (B choir division) victory at the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival.

I bask in the slight warm light of their efforts and it is good to see the wife again.

"The One Saints Day Worth Observing"

Here they are. Sans the Missus and self, this is the company that foregathered of a Wednesday Night to strap on the feed bag and exchange pink hearts.
Good looking women and stern-faced men. It doesn't get any better.

The post title comes from a poem written for the occasion by Tom "Lord" Banks (standing with poetic dash to the far right).

More Than A Little Pleased

My daughter, the lovely Michal Angela, is a jazz vocalist. Most of you who read this know that. Over the last few years she has become friends with the jazz great and saxophonist Houston Person. He has been very kind to her in sending charts and jazz recordings. When she visited her brother in New York he hosted the two of them at a jazz club in Harlem. At the last Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival they got their picture taken together.
Blessings on that man.
All that is just a nice visual to announce that you can hear a demo of Michal Angela singing a one of Blossom Dearie's A Fine Spring Morning at
http://www.myspace.com/michalangelamusic

Do You Believe That....

Every Man has Sinned Against this Holy God?

This is an easy point to make by merely reading a daily newspaper, or a cursory glance at the history of man, or with a half an ear to our own conscience. We all know that we disapprove of other's actions and call them "evil" (while assiduously avoiding conscience for our own) and we know that when we so disapprove we are not merely saying that our opinions of their actions differ from those who did the dispicable deed. But in order to say that such is "evil" and not "I differ with that", we must appeal to a basic law of law.
"There is no law without police action."
Without this law of law Nazis are just "different" as are child molesters and wife beaters. Until there is someone who sits above the agents acting thus and has the ability to punish, it is all mere opinion. For those differences mentioned to be not merely "different" but be "sin,wrong, and evil" I must grant that there is a policing agent higher than man, (in other words, a god), that has, by His ability to police this world, the authority to dictate what is wrong and evil. For it to be evil we must affirm that such a god's dictates will bring reward and punishment.

Revelations 20:11-15
Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it; from his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead in them, and all were judged by what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and if any one's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Since that God has a moral will, we find that it is only the moral will He has revealed about which we are able to speak. We can not claim someone has done "evil" without God letting us know, somehow, the content of that which He will police. All men know of evil and God has revealed it.

Genesis 3:23-24
Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever" -- therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

Romans 2:14-16
When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

If we examine that moral will (revealed in our conscience or through His Holy Apostles and Prophets) we find that it has condemned every man whoever lived, including, tragically, ourselves.

Galatians 5:19-21
"Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

As you look over that list, the temptation is to say, "Well, I'm no sorceror!" The judgment of God, His unavoidable police action, will be about what we have done, not what we haven't.

II Corinthians 5:10
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.

Suppose you are a sophisticated thinker and you reply, "What if there were an innocent man in Africa?" Cute. Picked up, no doubt, when you attended The Self Defense Academy of Nonbelievers. By this question you are admitting that everywhere you or I could conceivably check, we would find no innocence. You asked the wrong question. Your concerns do not rest in the Third World, in imaginary human ethical efforts.
Do not ask if there is an innocent man somewhere else but ask your conscience if you are that innocent man.

Romans 3:9-23
What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all; for I have already charged that all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one."
"Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes."
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 5:12
Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned --

Payin' the Bill

Last Wednesday there appeared some water on the Big Haus basement floor.
I cleaned it up.
On Thursday, yet again, water. The floor drain, in tandem with the washing machine, conspired to "seek its own level" which was above the level of my basement floor.
The Amazing saith unto me, "O, what shall we do?" meaning "O, what shall you do?"
Liquid Plumber into the utility sink. Liquid Plumber into the gaping maw of the floor drain. Liquid Plumber ought to be poured into the forced open mouths of the corporate heads of the Liquid Plumber corporation.
Going outside to the shed I fetched the 25 foot plumber's snake. Kneeling in water I fed said snake through the bowels of the Big Haus.
Nothing.
My realizations regarding those who manufacture Liquid Plumber (disregarding my plans for their end) brought me, in discussion with Amazing, to conclude a need for serious chemicals. We are talking about chemicals which can't be sold off a shelf in a bottle. They have a acid resistant bag in which the bottle sits. They have names like "Mule Kick" or "Atomic Fire". The companies of origin do not believe that a slick corporate image or logo is necessary. The product sells itself.
I purchase some.
I read in very small but insistent print on the bottle in the bag, that under no circumstances should I apply this product to a drain which had ever, in the last century, had other chemicals applied to it. I had applied Liquid Plumber (if it can be called a "chemical" by other than women and the French) in the last few hours. Safety first. I put the "Mule Kick" on the shelf.
I called the sewer guys at Express Drain Openers and felt better.
Amazing does a load of laundry and reports that things seemed better.
Friday morning dawns. I lay there knowing but few things for my day. I must tag the garbage and I must remove the recycling (corrugated cardboard) from the basement to the street. It has become nicely and fragrantly damp from the ablutions of the last two days. Amazing addresses me from the bedroom door as I look at her sideways. "Would you start a fire."
"Certainly, my sweet."
"And would you vacuum up the water in the basement". Things had not gotten better.
Mr. Express shows up at 9 a.m.
He has got a bigger, motorized snake with a sludge and root choppy thingy at the business end.
We ran that snake out past Portland. It comes back bearing gifts whose presence could be ascertained by every sense man possesses but failed to create the free flow of water desired in all drains everywhere. Mr. Express fetches his sewer camera which is too cool. We get to see what has established residency in the Big Haus main drain, my link to civilization.
Oh My Heavens and all the Saints (including the lesser known)!
I can't look away. Fifteen feet of moving but immobile white has grabbed my attention. It is unresponsive to the snake, the camera (imagine the sight of pushing past decades of offal with the lens of a color video camera only to have it, as you watch closely, close back around the lens pulling back), and finally unresponsive to the application of a pulsing, water squirting, pipe sealing ball on the end of a water hose. This last has to be applied down another (unopened since the 1920's) drain cap.
It is Friday 3 p.m..
Mr. Express has to go on another call.
He will leave all his stuff stuck in my drains for me to fiddle with (ineffectively I discover) over the next hour. My feet hurt.
Mr. Express returns. He has news. He is having a high pressure water jet brought up from Lewiston and will bring this drain under submission.
It arrives.
It is inserted. They put on goggles which impresses this homeowner.
It has an gas motor. It has what they call p.s.i. and lots of it.
Fifteen minutes later, down goes the camera again. That pipe has confessed its many sins. That pipe is clean as far as the eye can see. That p.s.i. had introduced itself to the fifteen feet of "white". Words were exchanged, became heated, and the fifteen feet of "white" woke up floating down the Ganges wondering how it got there.
Mr. Express commented on how it was the worst drain he had seen in his born days. This may have been a "let-me-prepare-you" buffer for he said it as he handed me the bill.
$573.00 for the privilege of standing on concrete all day, inhaling the ripeness of the American sewer, and gaining only what I blissfully and ignorantly enjoyed three days earlier.

This morning Joe Mickler calls me.
He has dreamed of my drains.
"You had to pay a high futility bill this month," he says.

Eschatology, darn it!

I have concluded that a Christian could have one of two relationships with prophesy. One is a patient hope for those things yet to appear and the other is a praising of God handiwork for those things which have already come to pass. I had always been nervous about those who would confuse the categories. Anyone who tells a future story based on prophesy is trying to match the given vision to a narrative, yes, but their narrative is, by definition, a fiction. The latitude of fiction is that I can make anything happen(such is the magic of fiction) and it can bear a wonderful similarity to the vision it promises to “fulfill”. These Bible teachers think that in this God is glorified. God is only glorified in His having accomplished His will in history in a way which follows a preexistent vision to one of His prophets describing the same. These teachers have tried to glorify when they should hope. How is what they do any different from a false prophet. Any false prophet has the same latitude if he can craft both a prophesy and write book on how it will be fulfilled.
The authority of the prophets of God by what has come to pass.
Deuteronomy 18
[20] But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.' [21] And if you say in your heart, `How may we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?'—[22] when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you need not be afraid of him.”

The error of counting on the futuristic fictions is most evident in what the Jews were expecting in their Messiah. Even the prophets were limited in understanding, leaving the true knowledge to those who would see it occur.
I Peter 1
“[10] The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired about this salvation, [11] they inquired what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory. [12] It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things which have now been announced to you by those who preached the good news to you through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.”

Even St. Paul recognizes the future is unclear to him about such absolutely important truths as our resurrection.
Romans 8
“[22] We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; [23] and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. [24] For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? [25] But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. [26] Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. [27] And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

Futuristic fiction is, by definition, impatient. It wants desperately to "see" and have others see the same way, be it premillenial or postmillenial.

The Oracle:
Be patient in hope, knowing we are blind to the future.
Glorify God in His fulfillments, knowing we have sight into the past.

This Morning

The light was good this morning.
The snow was freshly fallen blue.
I, inside, from window took
This to post to you.

Do You Believe That....

God rewards those that seek Him?

And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Hebrews 11:6

You have looked up into the heavens and down into the subatomic abyss. The Divine vision thunders with dread. This power to make, this power to order, this power to destroy is an Almighty, it is God. He is there and known. He is soul crushing and terrifying. But thankfully "the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" There, subtly inserting itself into this vision of almighty power is an almighty benevolence. It was made with information transfer natural to it. We can understand the world outside ourselves. It was made with gifts of pleasure arranged to greet receptors on unexpected levels. Who knew but that a strawberry and the human tongue would meet and rejoice. Even the encounter with the Living God is fraught with pleasure. We look up into the sublime terrors and, answering His suggestion that He is good and wishes to be known, find a faith which offers us security in approaching Him. It is such security that it can stand before the power of eternal annihilation and have the thing that is the threat itself reach out to secure you. It is His power that is our greatest threat and it is His kindness that makes it sublime. Do you believe that He rewards the seeker? Does this joy surprise? Can we seriously claim any other satisfaction is greater than the pleasure of seeking the God, finding Him, and being welcomed by Him?

Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud,
be gracious to me and answer me!
Thou hast said, "Seek ye my face."
My heart says to thee,
"Thy face, LORD, do I seek."
Hide not thy face from me.
Turn not thy servant away in anger,
thou who hast been my help.
Cast me not off, forsake me not,
O God of my salvation!
Psalm 27:7-9

"Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Isaiah 55:6-7

"Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets. Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few."
Matthew 7:7-14

"He who has ears, let him hear." Matthew 13:9

Do You Believe That...

The Almighty God exists?

Either He does or He doesn't exist. The evidence of the world around you either suggests the presence of an infinitely powerful creator or it suggests a chance occurrence. It is not a question of which of these options you believe but which does this world's phenomena suggest. When we say "suggest" we mean that the evidence points, through some authoritatively logical principle, at one of the two conclusions. It has to be a logical principle otherwise how could the suggestion pass from the phenomena to you with meaning.
The position that God exists has as its "suggestion" the presence of an almost infinite order, macrocosm to microcosm, physics to ethics, at a level that in many cases reduces to an irreducible complexity that has to all exist or not at all. The logic followed is that which appears designed and ordered suggests a designer since any degree of chaos (the designer-less state) is defined by the degree of disorder.
If you need an example, science would be happy to provide one. In the attempt to find intelligent life on other worlds, we have pointed radio telescopes and launched unmanned craft listening for any message from the vastness that are the heavens. Can you imagine the elation and the claims of proof that a single ordered phrase of sounds or numbers, perhaps only ten seconds or digits long , would create in the expectant researchers? To them it would prove, as it should, that an intelligent being, sufficiently capable to transmit the phrase had to be on the other end and wished to be known. In fact the space craft we have launched bore an inscribed plate which we assume would be evidential (along with the craft) of our existence to alien life forms. We presume with William of Occam, that the "simplest explanation is probably the correct one". In another secular example, we know, in archaeology, that man has lived somewhere when we see the grosser forms of ordering, say a short stack of stones or a pottery fragment, that some ancient tribe (we rightly conclude) has left behind. The discovery of Order is evidence of ordering beings. With the creation we face a range and complexity of order that would take an ordering being only describable as an Almighty God. Such is the reasonable "suggestion" from creation.

Let us pause a moment. You might not choose to believe the suggestion measured out above. It did not claim to be a proof. It was merely a "suggestion" present in Nature in which you will or will not have faith. If you will not, you have not proved, in any adequate way, that God does not exist, only that you don't want Him to exist. The same level of rational demand placed on the God-believer is required of the God-unbeliever. To disbelieve rationally you must show how the evidence suggested that particular claim to you. Otherwise you are standing close to megalomania. If you do not provide a rational argument you must be claiming that ultimate truths arise unbidden to your mind, that you have a god-like prophetic and revelatory gift. I think we can agree that you don't possess such a remarkable quality.

To affirm God's nonexistence one has to have a "suggestion" in the World's being that rests on some logical principle as well. Remember that we are not discussing what you choose to believe but whether or not that belief was preceded by a natural and logical suggestion. What is it about things actually being within the complexity that scientists have devoted centuries to unravel on the assumption that laws and constancy keeps their discoveries true, what is it about all this that you see, which "suggests" an accident? I know you can tell a story of accident and chance but what about the changes of life in that story that requires that chance, or more accurately, the absence of will, was its cause? What principle tells you that this all has a self evident mindlessness? And also remember that this necessary "suggestion" of Nature must overwhelm the suggestion (which you accept as valid) that order must be willed. It must be huge, this suggestion and logical principle, to invalidate the reasonable suggestion of a very large, ordered, and interrelated universe brought into being by a infinitely powerful deity. Otherwise you must deny there is order (making even your thoughts disordered and consequently invalid) .

Christians tell a story of God's creation but back it with pointing to a valid suggestion we all accept, present in all the evidence. We will all accept it or face ruination of our humanity, only able to participate in life as animals. The Unbelievers tell a story of unwilled and accident based existence but when asked for a principle that sustains it merely point out more parts of the story. Telling us more of the fanciful accident story is like a simple Christian who claims the Bible is true because the Bible says it is. Wise Christians know that God's "eternal power and deity are clearly perceived in the things that have been made".

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse;
Romans 1:19-20

And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Hebrews 11:6

"And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts, and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off for ever.
I Chronicles 28:9

I'm "It".

I must be getting somewhere in life. Josh Gibbs, who knows everyone, tagged me first and referenced said tag in his preface. It is like getting a Golden Globe.

Four Jobs I’ve Had:

1. janitor
2. sailor
3. bookseller
4. graphic designer

Four Movies I Could Watch Over & Over:

1. The Three Musketeers (Richard Lester version)
2. Gladiator
3. What's Up Doc?
4. Incredibles

Four Places I Have Lived (Apart From Where I am Now):

1. Annapolis, MD
2. Ann Arbor, MI
3. El Centro, CA
4. Yokohama, Japan

Four TV Shows I Love:

1. House
2. The Office (British version)
3. Scrubs
4. The Prisoner

Four Places I Have Been For a Vacation:

1. England
2. Grand Canyon
3. Montana
4. Spokane

Four Websites I Visit Daily (or almost daily):

1. Effable
2. Michelle Malkin
3. Lucianne
4. Cedar Room

Four Favourite Foods Flavors:

1. Onion
2. Butter
3. Black pepper
4. Bacon

Four Places I Would Rather Be With My Wife:

1. alone
2. shopping for anything
3. Outback Steakhouse
4. Did I mention "alone"?

Four People I’m Tagging:

In Christian kindness (doing unto others as I wish I had been done by) I tag no one. Register your thanks in the comments section.

Carpe Caffe

At last, a coffee cup worthy of the name.
Matte black for that sober Big Haus sense of the sublime and yet, a glossy white inside so that you can see the heady, opaque seepage which graces your day.

It (or they, being 72 in number) arrived today and there was rejoicing in these environs.

In honor of their presence I dredged up a poem written over twenty years ago.

It is titled....

Coffee

It crawls from the pot echoing glory,
Victory as black as the night it defeats,
Raising the shades that blinded us. More we
Owe this gallant, this ambrosial treat.

This morning comes on Columbian feet,
Moves us to make us to run in the race.
A sacrifice placed on His mercy seat,
The God of all comfort judges its case.

Does he decry it as Stygian trace,
Or grant you the peace of St. Stephen’s face?

Annum

T'was one year ago today that I, the oracle of Big Haus, began to give my words unto the sphere of Blogo. It is time for you, from the Evantine acolyte to the anti-Futilitarian reader, to recollect, to lean forward on your keyboard, and ponder whether this year has been one well spent. Beneficial? Yes? No? Self absorbed nonsense? Got some choice terms and correctives dripping like venom from your tongue? Let us hear it, bucko. There are a lot of you out there. In this year we have had about 4,000 unique visitors so I am looking for about 4000 comments on this post. I am not so old that I cannot be chastened and I am not so full of myself that I cannot be made fuller still.

Farmer’s Prayer

The skies, on wind and blue crack’d grey,
Let low light shine at empty trees.
Warm with cattle and late stack’d hay,
In barn below the moss, his pleas
To timbers echo twice sincere,
Nay, thrice the prayers arise anon.
“Good gifts from solemn Autumn here.
My barn hath life to winter on.
The wind outside brings cold a-day
And freezing death to hill and pond.
With ample food for mine, I say,
Thy barns hast Life and Life beyond.”



by Evan Wilson

Real Thanksgiving

"Thank you for doing that," said she, smiling in a way that conveyed real sincerity.
"I didn't do it," you said, being that this was the only honest response.
"Well, I pictured you doing it, so thank you." Her smile was a little more fixed and insistent.
A pause settled down on the bistro table. Someone was smoking a cigarette somewhere nearby and it added a pleasantness with the noise of other patrons. Your coffee cooled a moment longer untouched. It was time to choose your words with diplomacy and yet carry the fragile child named "Admonition".
"You are, truly, a forty watt bulb." You smile in a way that conveyed ontological certainty and took a sip.

I suppose that someone at sometime has thanked you for that which you did not do. The thanks in that circumstance are nowhere near as valuable as being thanked for that which you did. In fact, they are not valuable at all. A presumption from the above illustration is that thanksgiving is only actual, not when we do it, but when it tracks directly with reality. People can only stand before God in honor and thanksgiving with a certain submission to realities that God has defined and made.
Romans 1:19-22
"For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,"
This is not only applicable to the secular mind which fails to absorb the world that stares them in the face. This is for the Christian who shies away from the the obvious conclusions available in reality. Thanking God for your government "for there is no authority except from God" and thanking God for submission to your husband or parents. How many Christians fail to be thankful because they don't actually believe that they "look up" at parents, husbands, or kings. If you believe in that which God has made, you can render both honor and thanksgiving naturally. Have you accepted what is?
Thanking God for His grace is truly effective when you believe it is part of your reality. This is another evisceration of thanksgiving. There are things for which we know we ought to thank God (which we dutifully do) but about which we only hold doctrinal affirmation. It is not as much a part of our reality. When you drop a valuable vase on the concrete patio, you will find the difference between a reality based adoption of gravity and a doctrinal one. And when you sin do you search for grace with the same "real" alacrity with which you dove for the falling heirloom? You took that humbling and costly experience with thirty-two-feet-per-second-squared and never, ever will carry anything so clumsily and casually as you did that day. You seriously believe in gravity. You trust it every step you take. Is God that real? Is Sin? Is Grace?

Grandma gives you socks for Christmas. You thank her because you ought. It is not that you disbelieve that the socks or she exists but that you don't believe that such an action truly sufficed as a gift. It wasn't what you wanted. It wasn't really a gift in your reality so it wasn't really thanksgiving when the words trickled out of you mouth. That it is real, and you thanked her, is insufficient. Rich thanksgiving is offered according to the real by someone who has submitted to the real.

The oracle: Know what is, live no other, be thankful for it.

The Earth Trembles

A romance through the ages rang, as true
Blue belfreys clapped iron fists on five
Long tones of mood, tailing tales of virtue
Stood upon its head. Deaden’d men, though live
And married once, woo’d Fate next to the best
Of faiths. The husbands of this second wife
Were pitied souls, purblind in some protest
To some less hareem’d version of their Life.

These, "Mister Collins" each, would trip to fall
Into their lustings dark, made mud with tears,
And soiled nuptial garb for all. The gall?
They wore the stained same but naked fear
Had made their cap of sense forgot and gone.
Their shirt of mercy now meant naught but luck.
Holiness a cloak by “decree” withdrawn.
Feet shod in good news sank from sight in muck.

To woo this wench were wanton words of pride.
Her damp and dirty past, a lust refined,
Asked that the rival wife be put aside
So “maid succeeds her mistress”. Concubined
Till, by her bed, Fate addled all of thought.
They poemed her puddled beauty and her swamps.
We know it’s true that Love is blind but not
That mud is wedding cake. This grimy pomp
Is destiny that proved they knew not which.
When blind lead blind they tumble in the ditch.

by Evan Wilson

For Sin and Hell

I suppose that the question is less on whether we believe that God exists and more on whether we want Him to exist. The pre-Christian mind needs to conclude that "God exists and He rewards the seeker" (Hebrews 11:6). To be at that point one must have had a wanting for the benevolence that only a God can provide. The pre-Christian has to hope. They are described as "without hope or God in this world." If they always suspect, doubt, roadblock, stall, then the message of the Gospel will not meet eager ears. But they must hope, not for world peace or a cancer free Aunt Betty, but they must hope for the rewards of God.

Many people think that money will solve the calamity of their life. They start to imagine a rich uncle who will die and they will inherit the answer. They buy lottery tickets in flagrant abuse of the odds because the "answer" is money and they have hope. God can answer many of those calamities better than money but no one can see how and many Christians live with such similar calamities that it gives a negative testimony to the lost. But Hell, on the other hand, can't be fixed by money or cosmetic surgery. Forgiveness of sins cannot be accomplished with a Roth IRA. A tax-free lottery win can bury you in the Benjamins but you'll still be damned, and to be more clear, damned eternally. To create a hope that leads a soul to grace we have to preach a problem the answer to which only God controls. The testimony of our lives must be a testimony of righteousness gained and lived with the joy of Life Eternal. No more of the entertaining church that "seekers" (who are not seekers) will attend and decide to add bits of the Christian religion to their family's sense of purpose. They haven't sought God. They have no hope of God's answer in the Lord Christ for the sins of their benighted souls.
"Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the preaching of Christ." (Romans 10)
"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for." (Hebrews 11)
The kind of hope we offer and that we create in the hearer is the kind of faith we get from our "converts" Is it any wonder that the Church today is filled with unregenerate souls? What does your church offer in lieu of forgiveness and Life Eternal? Belonging? Neat culture? Modest dress code? Ethical authority? Family protection? Big answers to all your questions? Patriarchal humbug? A youth group pop replacement? Ritualisic juju?

I know, I know, not everyone drawn by these things has done so with such a shallow expectation. Many believe that somehow, somewhere in the magic back rooms of THE CHURCH the salvation machines are working overtime to guarantee salvific grace will ooze out of the pew and leech miraculously into their's and their children's unsanctified behinds. This is Christianity folks, not Baal worship. All the belonging, all the performance, all the passion plays are but filthy rags. You family's service in the temple is pointless. The church has no grace to give.

The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved. The scripture says, "No one who believes in him will be put to shame." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him. For, "every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved." Romans 10:8-13

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13


Jesus died for your sins. When you hope against hope that that is precisely what He will address in you, you stand ready for the Faith that saves.

A Gothic Weekend

We, the elect eighteen, sat about a great table and spoke of the reshaping of Europe at the hands of Scandanvia. Gotland and Borgholm giving us Beowulf the Goth and Sigurd the Volsung. We watch a Christian heresy bring about the Fall of Rome rather than the Truth. And because of Euric the Visigoth in Spain, Emperor Anthemius calls on Riotimus the Briton. Is Riotimus Arthur? He is last seen at Avallon. And was Constantine III the usurper really the father of Uther Pendragon?
And then came victuals.
And then the Sagas... and cigars...and single malt... in my library.
Some would call it a good time. Still others would say that mankind was never meant to sustain such bliss this side of Ragnarok. We did. So there.

The Hareem

The golden tree, framed by oak,
Under glass above my desk,
Danced with joy as wind caressed
And tore her garment piece by leaf.
Day by day more lustrous few
Fell from her to grassy floor,
And all the other wives of wind
Swayed with same and nuptial joy.
The lord of this light urban wood,
Who dressed these dryads in their youth
In beauty green, o’ershadowed all.
With black and towering, tumbling sky
He treads the wedding isle
And sees their beauty, unadorned;
A promise fair of ruddy children
Springs from the Autumn ground.

by Evan Wilson

Brisk

With back to the wind warm thoughts
Of thanks within me breathe.
Collar up and cap down low, I ought
To mind the cold that seized
The world herebouts. But no, and not
A thought, my face is in the lee.
And smoke, all mine, whips ‘way and fraught
With fall, cold fingers, dancing free
About my pipe, find warmth. Caught
By life itself.
Good day, O God, to thee.

by Evan Wilson

Complaints?

"Do all things without grumbling or complaining."
Was this written by the Apostle because he didn't think there was any brokenness in the creation, any cause for complaint? Perhaps he thought we should recognize the fallenness and just internalize, husband the ulcer we have worked on since high school. Perhaps you don't understand the world in which you live.
Broken and full of fools? Yep, you betcha. To move from there to an internal or external complaint, another belief has to be clarified. Who is in charge here? Who has responsibility for governing the broken system and the annoying company of dunderheads? That is what a complaint or grumble is actually about. It is not about the flaw in the matrix. It is about the flaw in the governance. It is an emotional usurpation. It is the beginning of the seizure of power, of rebellion against those who rule, in your opinion, so poorly. The heart demands better than this. The lips cry out what is the abundance of such a heart. And finally some action, stress cadet sacrificial work loads demanded of self and others to fix what the fools wouldn't, until, with old age, bitterness and frustration hammers the mind into little miserable pieces, crumbling under the onslaught of the inevitable winner, Futility.
This is rebellion, not just against reality or the verse above. This is rebellion against God. Why did He subject the world to decay and futility(see Romans 8)? He subjected it in hope. And you thought that complaining was the the very voice of hope? If you complain, you complain like the Israelites in the wilderness. You have said that you don't trust Him to govern His world, certainly not as well as you would if you had all power. The decisions in the government of this world are different and more demanding than you think. This can be confessed. This can be changed.
I Corinthians 10:9-13 We must not put the Lord to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents; nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

We can be better than this. We can honor the governments God has granted this world. There is a way of escape. The Bible says not to rail against, not to grumble about, nor complain to, but it does have a speech proper to the failings of the world. Have the governments allowed calamity to get through? Are you anxious? Request, plead, and thank.

Philippians 4:4-8 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

If you are a complaining person, let it be known to you this day, that you don't sound any more like a Christian than someone who dropped the F bomb. Next time you are rendering your judgments, insert the F word before it. You know, "F-ing traffic!" or "F-ing friends who didn't f-ing remember my f-ing tastes!" I can't type it out because I am what is called a Christian. You can say it really because if you are complaining it will sound more natural, more poetically in keeping with the theme.

Since we are all f-ing dying, opportunities to f-ing complain will only increase.
But the Christian has a choice of other words to live by.
Rejoice.
Forbear.
Request.
Supplicate.
Laud.
Peace.

Dusk to Dark

Join us (Wes Callihan of Schola Classical Tutorials and myself of The Big Haus Society) for an Antiquities seminar! These are enjoyable days thinking and talking about the long ignored glories of the past.

Our Schedule:

Alaric the Visigoth through Attila the Hun
The Glory has Departed
Rome was realizing that she was in no position to be out so late alone. There were new gangs in the neighborhood and the condition of her virtue was suspect and no longer any protection.
Evan Wilson

Sandwich Lunch

Arthur, Sigurd, and Beowulf
The Tree of Dreams
The fifth century was a time of plowing, tilling under the centuries of classical glory but at the same moment, a time of planting. The seed was sown that became Western Europe's myth and cultural identity.
Wes Callihan

Attila the Hun through Theodoric the Ostrogoth
Extreme Unction
The Germanics and the Goths have played long enough with their prey. It was now a time for death and devouring.
Evan Wilson

Boethius and Benedict
Chaos & Consolation
The Mistress of the World was dying and everyone knew it. This shaking of the unshakeable was disturbing the souls. They needed to turn to something, in their religion and thought, to find consolation.
Wes Callihan

Dinner:
Residually Roman ergo Italian


Readings and Smokes:
Recessional: Lest We Forget
Wes will read perhaps of the Sagas and Evan will read C.S. Lewis' narrative poem Lancelot.

This seminar is two weeks from yesterday. If you would like to come from out of town and need a place to stay, just ask and we will see if our guest rooms are still open.

The Difference a Day Makes

Friday: Rollerblade punk
Saturday: Defender of the Freedoms of the West

Hoo Ah!

Graeme has joined the Army National Guard and was processed Friday and is serving his first duty weekend beginning today.
I gave him the haircut last night.
He will serve his senior year in the Guard, go to boot camp in the summer and enter the Army ROTC at UI in the Fall. Heck, I'm proud. The New Empire needs soldiers and I am certainly one who believes that the Legions deserve our honor and service. As always, it is Peace through superior firepower and the Story of Man is writ on the battlefield.

The Arrogance of Man

As I have said before, we define ourselves by the range and success of our wills. It becomes a problem of folly and then evil when we claim a range and/or a success where we have it not. This is the problem declared by St. James in perfectly reasonable and often echoed plans stated in his fourth chapter, verse 13. "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and get gain." This is "boasting arrogance". The remedy is not to always live spontaneously but to dodge the arrogance. "If the Lord wills" is the addendum but not for incantational benefit and as a verbal pretend awash in "Christian speak". We state it out of the abundance of our hearts. Our will in our plans is not the highest will. We are but a vapor. Even your continued living will be at the permission of powers higher than thine.

We all enjoy growing our little emotional, financial, or real estate fiefdoms but the evil (which beset many satraps of the Persian Empire) is to be confused by your downline successes. With the focus of your manifest will expected to be a guide and authority for your citizens, you too ought look up at your own overlords with similar clarity. You are a citizen of God's kingdom. He might have other plans. The rich man in Luke 12 was making very reasonable plans. His view was all downward as he said "I will do this... I will store...I will say to my soul.." God said to him, "Fool! This night your soul is required of you." The richness of our selves, found in the expanse of our kingdoms, must be second to the richness of God's kingdom. His rules ours.

Days of Portent: The Royal Treatment

Al Guyer and The Oracle in tag-team birthday splendor surrounded by babes who proffer gifts of tobacco and hooch.
As one who has an ongoing knife fight with futility, these words I hiss through my clenched teeth to those appeasers who look on this scene and say, "It doesn't get any better than this." Yes is does, and it shall, both in this life, and the Life to Come! So there.

(For those familiar with The Haus who find this scene strange, we moved the dining tables into the living room and vice versa in order to dine in long banquet pomp. We put it all back.)

Hurricanes

On the bombing of Iraq

The sound of thunders coursing blue,
Ripping clouds in sundered night,
Ringed with eyes, (Ezekial's wheel),
They see the fleeing stricken reel.
Dervish, can you lift the fallen?
With cries of ‘Jihad’ from the rubble?
Twisted rock and timber rising
In anger at the tears, (surprising),
The sky gods in their justice weep.
Presumption is laid less than flat
As craters fill with smoke and dead.
The signature of nations’ dread
Upon the deed and lease of least.


by Evan Wilson

Octoberfell

And when October fell
And dark descended golden,
Hearts that dormant lay
Leapt out of Summer’s molten
Heat to Harvest, filled with angels,
With reaping to be done.
The season called for dying,
And they answered, all as one.
That angry answer roiled above.
Hands fair clenched the Holy Rood.
They come to bathe their feet anon
In the dying wicked’s flowing blood.

by Evan Wilson

The Halls of Mojo

Did they believe me?
They certainly liked the food.
They got a free highlighter and pen with their notebook.
Cigars. Did I mention I provided cigars?
They'd better believe me.

Saying the Unthinkable, You Know, Like Oracles Do

Here's a thought. What women call love is actually honor. Certainly not the broad honor (no pun intended) we give some governing official but the same heart/head notion and expression. A governor's relationship to us is as one to many. "Love" occurs when a woman is personally and intimately secured by an agent that was not in the Great Chain of Being for her heretofore.
A woman's love in marriage is weak when the husband only has possession of the honor given to "husbands" ( general honor belonging to a kind) or no honor at all. Her love is strong when she perceives and reveres the individual honor given to his actual individual excellences. This notion of honor/love becomes the love we speak of romantically when the personal, intimate securing qualities of the man reaches a certain pitch in the woman's mind as she regards her jeopardization in life. Her own personal, immediate fief needs a particular, local rule. This encounter with "love" is particular and unique because of particular and unique subjective vantages but, in kind, it is not some arcane other magic for which understanding is impossible, it is honor.
Such is feminine love.
Masculine love is all Mojo.
I guess you should have been at the seminar this weekend.

A Serious Limerick

It is not that I think that you’re wrong,
Or positions you hold, headstrong;
But the way that you say it
May gainsay or betray it-
Nay, twist my allowance ere long.


by Evan Wilson

An Oracle

Rap music. Making room for junior high poets who can't sing but would like to be famous anyway. It must be so hard to think of a tune. But easily enough to" smack mo crack hoes into next June."

Just an Observation

It struck me this morning, and I could be wrong, that the Emergent church is less of a reformation than a trend. What is that trend based on? I concluded that it is a passle of adults whose most devout, concrete Christian experience was in their youth group growing up. Look at the famous leaders. Don't they all seem to relate like a youth pastor? I am not commenting on whether it is good or bad, true or false. I am sure that many people have their lives wonderfully ministered to by such churches. I am sure that they are fellow believers.

But why, O, why do they lack this observant self description?. For the same reason I struggle with seeing the similar in me. I know that I am prone to think that my own patterns of life are "the balanced Christian way". You know, bookish, rational, tweedy, black coffeed, nicotined, poetic, and Lewisian (but not a dork who likes Tolkien). I am tempted to think that such is what the Gospel would create in every man. These are cultural differences like "barbarian or Scythian". There ought to be a clear distinction between what I prefer and what the Holy Spirit creates. It sounds obvious but why is it that we tend to fabricate for our preferences that which sounds like spiritual compulsion. What Christ makes of me upon looking at Him makes those Emergent youth leader vs. Oxbridge wanna-be philosopher distinctions fade to nothingness. My culture is the spontaneous and compulsive reaction to me according "to things which perish". My "life is hid with Christ in God."

This Persuasion

I have often said, perhaps here, that there are two kinds of Christians. KIND ONE: They are the ones who believe that Christ died to save the Church (capitalized on purpose) and the individual, in his beliefs and his life of salvation is the collateral effect of that Church. KIND TWO: This other group believes that Christ died to save the individual and the collateral effect of a gathering group of so saved individuals is a church.
That is a simplification, of course, and some might wonder if it goes any deeper. I consider that KIND ONE is a deep and abiding folly and that the distinction between it and KIND TWO is the same as between the Old Covenant and the New. While there are many ways for the saints to attempt to put new wine into old skins, let us look at five broad areas which are somewhat obvious. KIND ONE is a Christianity of the external, hoping to seep in to the soul, and KIND TWO is that of the internal, unavoidably infecting its world.
Allowing the good to go first, five categories of the internal Christian life are:
LIFE, LIGHT, LOVE, JOY, and FELLOWSHIP.
Those matching in the external life are:
CULTURE, CREED, LAW, ENTERTAINMENT, and FACTION.
Do you realize, as you look at those lists, that everything you have ever complained about in the Church, at least in other churches, is of KIND ONE? Let us compare , shall we?

LIFE is who the person has been made by their earthly and heavenly nature which spontaneously and compulsively effects their culture. CULTURE is the establishment of a broad, designed end which by the force first of dictate and then, with time, tradition, hopes to seep into the nature of the individual.

LIGHT is a knowledge whose illumination functions where it was dark, your own soul. You know to what you hold fast because that was the switch you flipped that convicted you, showed you repentance and found, by its light, forgiveness. It makes all things visible to you. CREED wonders how the church will remember what is true if we don't codify it, memorize it, and chant it back to our keepers.

LOVE is generous. LAW is the tithe.

JOY cannot forget that "I am healed!". ENTERTAINMENT, acknowledges that Christians are supposed to be happy and says, "Watch this and cheer up, dammit!"

FELLOWSHIP is finding contentment with the church. FACTION is insisting on a movement.

In order to become "members of one another", KIND ONE has you sign up with them and they train you to at least wonder, if not overtly check, the membership club card of others as they enter your ecclesia. Look back over the qualities of the external "visble" church. Is it not the religion of all earthly religions? It doesn't matter that it speaks wonderfully true things about the Triune God and the work of Christ. It as if they said "We want a religion just like the nations round about but we want it to be true and bigger and better." KIND TWO considers that if you "are" Christ's you probably value what you have in Him. You recognize those that have it too.

Certainly both kinds of Christian can be deceived in false brethren. At least to fool KIND TWO Christianity, fraudulent brothers must work very hard to fake the LIFE LIGHT LOVE JOY. I know real believers who struggle with these elements of the Faith. Usually you have already lowered the bar in your own lives regarding what those mean until even a Mormon could qualify by being like the "nice, good citizen" to which you have slipped. Go back and look at how those gifts of God are expressed in the truly changed believer. Now, how hard do you think it is to fake CULTURE, CREED, LAW, and ENTERTAINMENT?

Maybe Colossians 2:16-23 will read more clearly with this distinction made.
"Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, taking his stand on visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations, "Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch" (referring to things which all perish as they are used), according to human precepts and doctrines? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting rigor of devotion and self-abasement and severity to the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh."

Or Galatians 3:1-5

"O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so many things in vain? -- if it really is in vain. Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? "

Or if God might be more direct, Hebrews 8:6-13

"But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second.
For he finds fault with them when he says:

"The days will come, says the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they did not continue in my covenant, and so I paid no heed to them, says the Lord. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach every one his fellow or every one his brother, saying, `Know the Lord,' for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more."

In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away."

The Oracle, stolen from St. Paul in Galatians 5:7-9,

"You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?
This persuasion is not from him who calls you.
A little leaven leavens the whole lump."

Of Dark Days

Let God on high be praised above,
No threat of sunshine here below.
Dawning, mistrise, the grey of love,
O'ercast delights, mine eyes allow.
Chill discomfort demands attire
Which once obeyed is certain bliss,
And tramping out o’er moor and mire
Along with friend and pipe and this
Damp dawn is heaven here on earth.
The many gods sing high of Him
As cold, grey fear enthrones the North,
A sober joy that sunlight dims.

by Evan Wilson

Ministry Update

http://thebighaus.com//html/NORTH12.pdf

Posterity for the Too Cool

The lads, Graeme and Gunn, in whom I am well pleased, leaning with that certain "what-is-it" on the railing of Aunt Peanut's deck in Montana.

North

Lincoln green steps back a hundred paces into grey
As Odin cries for war;
The damp and calming coolness turns faces from the day
Of Baldur, Frey, and Thor.
But many thousand, pipes alit, step boldly to gate
Of Grendel’s grave, ah yet;
The mantle bravely fallen, wool, a Highland skein of fate
Weaves Siegfried in its net.


By Evan Wilson
because it is September,
the weather has changed,
and I am wearing long sleeves again.

The Oracle: The Reason Why

For those of you men who live out of town or perhaps don't see me with any regularity, this is the opportunity to spend a day going over a philosophy of manhood, relationships, and behavior unlike you have ever heard. The seemingly self-serving title of "The Oracle" was bestowed by young men coming in the night to ask questions about women. A few years back, one such gentlemen said that a seminar was in order. With his help and pressure was born....
THE MOJO ORACLES.

If you would like to come to town for it, let me know if you desire to use our guest rooms and we will see what we can do.

The Mojo Oracles are for Men only.
This year the seminar will be
Saturday, September 30, 2006
10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
at
THE BIG HAUS
325 North Polk, Moscow

Seminar Schedule: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
First Session: THE SUM OF ALL DESIRE
Are there basic reasons for everything every man does?
The first session explores the claim that we are all after something simply obvious. It is the underpinning of a rationally sound pursuit of being a man.
Sandwich lunch
Second Session: HIERARCHY & SUBLIMITY
As the prerequisite to honour and dignity, a philosophy of position has been lost in modern America. Regaining that mode of thought is essential to becoming the gentleman.
15 minute break
Third Session: NOBLESSE OBLIGE & THE SEVERITIES
The more masculine virtues of Honour, Dignity, Integrity, and Gravity are the oft ignored virtues, and are not friendly to the modern egalitarian outlook.
15 minute break
Fourth Session: THE MOJO
The Biblical understanding of the Attraction called “Woman” and the benefits of that understanding in resisting temptation and winning a wife.
15 minute break
Fifth Session: The Word of A GENTLEMAN
Gathered from the teachings of that penultimate gentleman, Philip Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield, and the Book of the Courtier by Count Balthazar Castiglione.
1 hour break
Roast Beast Dinner— 7:00
Attire: Casual
with, after dinner,
CIGARS

FIN — 10 p.m

COST:$50 —Make checks payable to The Big Haus Society
Cost covers a notebook with essential documents, lunch and dinner,
cigars (if you want one), and a certificate of attendance.
Send to: The Big Haus, 325 N. Polk, Moscow, Idaho 83843
Payment required in advance to secure a spot (which are limited).
Cancellations less than a week prior will only result in a refund of half the registration fee, due to cost of materials.
For more information
call Evan Wilson
at 882-8679 or 882-4885
or ewilson@turbonet.com

You Are Quite Wrong

Mark 12
18 And Sad'ducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, 19 "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the wife, and raise up children for his brother. 20 There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no children; 21 and the second took her, and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; 22 and the seven left no children. Last of all the woman also died. 23 In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife."

24 Jesus said to them,
"Is not this why you are wrong,
that you know neither the scriptures
nor the power of God?

25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him,

`I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?
27 He is not God of the dead,
but of the living;
you are quite wrong."

This passage has interest to we Christians in the defense of the resurrection of the dead. "Gotcha," we say to the Sadducees. But it also has a side, but necessary, point concerning the Christ's cosmology. Christians, especially Arminians, like to move God to some place outside of Time in order to make classical theism fit with freedom of the will. There are basic problems with that move but this passage is not usually addressed in the argument. It should be.
If God is atemporal the Sadducee's point could be held and Christ's argument eviscerated. If the Sadducees or Christ knew of an atemporal place where God normally dwelt (and it seems today that Christians without a thought in their pretty heads know about God being "outside of Time") then the verse quoted by Christ would naturally be applied to God’s relationship with the patriarchs being “always” (from His atemporal vantage) and would not necessitate an “afterlife”. He, God, could be the God of the living because He is atemporally and consequently, permanently there in their living times. That would answer the verse speaking of the patriarch's "present" relationship with God and His with them. But Christ leans on the present tense of the remark as if their past state and now dead condition was of no consequence. But was not their past life a place that God could access in His atemporal dimension? So certainly would the Sadducees say if they knew of this silly notion. Christ is affirming that they are alive in the Now, in an afterlife synchronous with our earthly life, and only if that state is true can his appeal to the tense of the verse bear any weight. His relationships must claim the actuality of the beings related to and the Past and the Future have no "living" people and are not places that even exist in the relationships of God.

The oracle: Jesus Christ's view of the afterlife necessitates transcendent heavenlies that don't transcend "was, is, and will be".

After all, (and I mean "after"), Amen.

Of Mysteries Too Great for Mere Mortals

A miracle happened last night. My wife, the Amazing Missus, was preparing the Big Haus menu in the dining room as she listened, with one ear, to me reading aloud C. S Lewis' essay "Religion: Reality or Substitute" and leading a subsequent discussion in the living room. While it is a tremendous essay, all of that "smarty pants" talk faded to nothingness as reality ripped at the seams. She was writing, in her lovely, loupy, girl cursive, something she never usually writes. The words "frozen waffles" flowed from her mechanical pencil. And, (be still my heart), as the word "waffles" found graphite reality, from my lips, a room away, sprang the word "waffle".

Yes, dear friends and dearer enemies, this place, this Big Haus, is a vortex of arcana. Banshees roam the halls and leave unwashed kitchenware by the sink. Dang their filthy hides.

The Nonesuch

All views that I have held have been questioned by minds greater and lesser. All views of mine, singly and severally, cannot put aside, as Lewis put it, "the logical exclusion of dispute".
Except for this one.
I was, west of the Azores and north of Trinidad, the cutest child ever born.
This pronouncement includes mine own children and, of course, yours.

Admittedly, in the spirit of Christian humility, I have not worn well. Each of you can feel free to consider yourself a better looking adult than the Oracle.