pinakidion.*

True to my word, I have removed my page of the original article. The apology appears here.

I tend to be passive-aggresive. This time I (and others) chose to write to the people involved. There was disagreement, but the right thing has been done for Toronto, Vancouver, and others that chose not to sign.

Despite the wording of the apology, this was never about me or my interpertation. It was about staying true to the wording of question 6 in the Q&A and the stated spirit of the UP.

Now in Wordpress 2.02 glory. The comments issue has been resolved. The good news is that I got to keep my present theme.

When I awoke this morning, I realized that I was preoccupied with many things.

For years when I awoke, I would be angry and I never knew why. I found that neither the previous day’s happenings nor mediatation before sleeping changed this from occurring. After a while, I just accepted that I would wake up angry for the rest of my life.

However, without realizing it, I was awakening each morning less angry than the day before. I say that now, because I no longer awaken to a feeling of being angry at everything and nothing at all. What allowed this change was persistence and time.

I accepted that I would awaken angry because it prevented me from getting more upset than I already was. At the the same time, I prayed and I meditated. I had this Kirkregardian fatalism about it - I would do the right thing even if it seemed to be meaningless. Besides, I thought, Paul was made perfect in weakness - his struggle with something larger than himself defined him. His struggle allowed him to live in humility. His struggle helped him to remember that he was not better than those to whom he preached. In some ways, it was his Total Perspective Vortex (without the nasty side effects).

One day I woke up and I realized that I wasn’t angry. I was actually pretty happy. My circumstances hadn’t changed, I was being asked to move out of the house I lived in. There was no shaking it, though, I wasn’t angry and I was excited to have this one day of repreive. One turned to two, two to four, four to thirty, thrity to hundreds. There are times that I still awaken to being angry or being deeply sad (inward-facing anger type of sadness). A few months ago, I had awoken angry everyday for two weeks - I had maintained praying but had stopped meditating. I also got some good advice to deal with the physical aspect, not just the emotional and spiritual aspects. So, I still take time every morning to pray, meditate, and also perform a personal ritual to remove physical tension that comes about from my wrestling with God.

I say all this because recently, I have awoken preoccupied. It feels like a stress kind of thing, but it comes out as sadness sometimes. It literally feels like I become aware of the end of a conversation just as I am waking up. My first thought is “what did you just say”? The thought then repeats and a host of others start crowding for attention in recognition that I am somewhat conscious.

Biblically, it is the mentality of the third soil. I am caught up in the worries and cares of this life. I have even shifted my focus away from God being my source of joy to a stock sale being my source of joy. I never knew I had 12 shares of Met Life stock until recently, so I sold them because my family and I are way-past broke.

It’s been said before - when Peter kept his focus on Jesus, he walked on water, when he focused on the storm, he sank. And yet, the grace of God is that he sank slowly: he had time to call out to Jesus and time for Jesus to walk(not run) over to help him up. In my life, I am glad that the grace of God has allowed me to sink slowly. I have time and space to call out for help.

I mention my previous difficulty because I am aware that this present darkness will change the same way. Even when the money comes and I enjoy the good friends God has blessed me with and I live at peace with my neighbors, I am going to awaken to a stream of unrelated thoughts for awhile.

When I prayed this morning for quite awhile, I did not feel better at the end. I did not even end with “Amen”. I went from casting my burdens upon him to getting upset that certain things are happening in the first place. So I stopped. I hope that later I can be clear-minded so I can pray. This post is a part of that process.

As good as it will feel, a check in the mail today is not the answer to all my problems. It will alleviate my circumstances a bit, but it is not the answer. The answer is and always will be God.

Through God, four friends helped me financially this month. Without their help, we wouldn’t have made it with all utilities on. I also would not have the crates of Ramen noodles. Through God, another friend, not knowing of our financial situation, gave us several pounds of venision, beef, and pork sausage. Someone else paid for my wife to go to the women’s retreat. Through God, she was able to deliver a small talk that some people really enjoyed. Through God, the DBA job has finally been posted, but it will be open for only four days (this is a good thing for internal candidates like me). Through God, we have good friends that we can share other things with and have them share with us. Through God, I have two communities of friends to bring joy and happiness. Through God, I have a wonderful son that laughs all day.

All of this is the grace of God that I was sinking slowly.

In a few months time, I hope to awake to a brand new day - again.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

- Upton Sinclair

Trying to find a good 3-column theme, but the best looking one has REALLY TINY PRINT.

I changed the font size, but then it looked weird.

Oh well.

Back to the standby for now.

I’ve been doing some work on the Sycarion Diversions site. Just as something to occupy my creative juices, I worked up a couple of card games. Skirmish is a variation of War! and I have playtested it with my wife. It takes longer than a traditional game of War! and the tables can turn *very* quickly. It can be disheartening to have all but 10 cards and suddenly start losing badly (which happened to me). She ended up winning two of the three games we played.

Dice Poker is not playtested yet and I would like to at some point in the future. As it has no flushes, it features quite a few hand usually seen in other varations of poker.

What I can tell you is that because of the ability to combine dice, determining the odds for every time of hand is quite difficult, mainly because I haven’t figured out how many possible hands exist. What I can say is that there are only 20 possible ways to get a six of a kind, and that makes it extremely rare. It also appears that a double barrell (two three-of-a-kinds) is really rare as well, but I’ll know more once I can figure the odds.

Anywho, game design is something of a hobby that I enjoy and have enjoyed for a long time. It is only recently that I decided to add other game design projects in addition to role-playing games. (They have a shorter production cycle.)

Feel free to look over at sycarion.pinakidion.org and try out a game or two.

The recent evagenlist’s corner article is buried, now. No surprise, there’s no apology to Vancouver, Toronto, or any other churches that choose not to sign.

For reference, the link to it is here. If it is removed, I have transcribed it here.

Whenever an apology appears, I’ll take it off my site and provide links and a top page post for it.

Just to say that the only people that should be raising a fuss at the Da Vinci Code is Opus Dei.

It isn’t libel, it is defamation. Fine line, I know, but the implication that this group would resort to murder to cover up something has demonstrated harm to the group’s reputation already. This implication is made couched in a fictional story - that’s why it is not libel. The author does not purport these statements to be true. However, these implications have had a definite effect.

Case law, though, may side with the author. That’s just me, keep in mind that IANAL.

I can also understand that religious leaders may want to provide resources to deal with issues that arise as a result of reading this book. As I said earlier, step one is reminding people that this is not real, even though it is printed in a hard-cover book. Charging for it, though, is my beef. If someone spent $20 on the book and $8 on the movie, they have already been ripped off. Why compound this with another $20? If the person is really having a crisis of faith after the book and/or movie, they really need some help without the price. It just seems too opportunist. Besides, why explain the myth of Magdalene in France, the real work of Opus Dei, the life of Da Vinci, and go on and on about canonization when it comes down to one simple premise. MM was not Jesus’ wife.

For example, a good argument that Jesus was not married is found here.

There is also no ancient document that suggests Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife - even if you dig up the Gospel of Philip, all you find is that she’s the most important disciple, not that she’s married to Jesus. The closest thing you get to MM=wife is a fragment describing Mary Magdalene as one that Jesus kissed. (Judas kissed him, too. Jesus kissed other people, too.) If you want to hang your hat on that, go ahead. At this point, you’re just believing it because you want to believe it.

Once it can be established that there are no ancient or old claims of Magdalene being Jesus’ wife - the rest comes into focus. Who cares about the Priory of Sion? MM wasn’t his wife. Who cares about the V symbolizing the exalted feminine? MM wasn’t his wife. Who cares that John the apostle looks too feminine to be male or the position of his/her hands or the position of Peter’s hands in the painintg? MM wasn’t his wife. You think Da Vinci painted the Last Supper by working from a photograph? Maybe he was the 13th Apostle (not Rufus) and he was working from personal memory?

All that being said, enjoy the movie as a fanciful tale full of intrigue and action. I plan on seeing it - it will be a fun diversion. Hey, I want to see the cool special effects applied to Da Vinci’s paintings. That should be cool.

BTW: Rufus appeared in the movie Dogma.

Let me get this rant out of the way before getting serious.
As stated in the preface, it is a work of fiction.

Is anyone out there listening? It’s fiction, made up, the opposite of real life, not fact.

NOT FACT!

Ron Brown writes Angels and Demons six years ago with the same main character discovering the battle between the Illuminati and the Catholic Church. There’s some bruhaha about it, but it dies off fairly quickly. Now the same hagiologist finds that the Catholic Church is using Opus Dei to protect the descendants of Jesus and maintain orthodoxy. I’m assuming his next book will involve the Freemasons somehow. It’s the only large secret organization left that Robert Langdon hasn’t dealt with.

My questions are:

• Why didn’t the Vatican send Opus Dei to go after the Illuminati if they’ve been fighting for centuries?
• Why doesn’t Robert Langdon work as a CIA agent - he’s escaped attacks from two super-secret, centuries-old, quasi-mystic organizations?

Then again, there are people that believe the Illuminati exist simply because of Angels and Demons. Recent polls have shown that the Da Vinci Code has caused some people to question their beliefs. Verisimilitude is the mark of a good writer, but really - when you put a fiction book down, suspension of disbelief is supposed to go away!

AND who are these nuts that are trying to get on the gravy train by writing books that disprove the Da Vinci Code? It’s a work of fiction! I’ve never seen anyone try to disprove the Hound of the Baskervilles. No one has tried to disprove Little Women. Maybe closer to the subject matter, no one believes that the NSA has a quantum computer that can decipher any encrpytion scheme because of Digital Fortress. I guess it gets to me that people, in the name of God, go out of their way to disprove a work of fiction for money. Ugh!

Boy, you make up stuff about the NSA and you get panned on Amazon. You make up stuff about the Catholic church and you get some attention. Mess with Jesus and the whole world starts throwing money in random directions as if the apocolypse is upon us.

If you’re going to disprove something, go after a work that claims to be non-fiction. You know, claims to be real, genuine, thoughtful, offers evidence of a logical albeit controversial conclusion, etc. (I’m talking about Holy Blood, Holy Grail.)

I feel better - more thoughtful stuff to follow

The best explanation I have seen for the Da Vinci Code was actually on A&E. Pretty quickly, the narrator talks about using the mystery of Leonardo da Vinci, the mystery of a secret group like Opus Dei, and the sometimes problematic issues of canonization to weave a fantastic story. The mind fills in the blank with all kinds of possibilities in the face of the unknown and the unknowable. In short, to make a great thriller that draws on historical people, groups, and events, you need three things:
An enigmatic central figure
A Religous Secret Society
Liberal Use of Christian Mythology

Despite all the religious material out there, I found this secular perspective the best stated explanation of the ‘code’.

Leonardo, the mystery dude
Da Vinci never really talks about himself. He investigates the range of human knowledge in his notebooks, but never examines himself. In this day and age of supreme self-consciousness, it is almost impossible to imagine a person that produced so much material without writing about himself. Because of this, the man himself is quite a mystery.

You get the sense that he didn’t share the same beliefs as the Catholic Church, but he never really says it. Despite this, though, he creates a masterpiece in the Last Supper that uses the Catholic symbols very well. He wrote in a backwards script in his journals and this makes the facsimiles of his journals look almost arcane. To this day, many fictional representations of spellbooks tend to look like something out of Da Vinci’s notebooks - a diagram or two and marginal notes written backwards. Why backward scripting? He was left-handed and allowed him to write freely across the page. It is easier to write backwards left-handed rather than backwards-slanting. (Try it!) He deeply investigated human anatomy and made detailed drawings and cross-sections. He designed weapons of war. He studied the flight of birds and thought about human flight. Studying all his notebooks is almost a complete education in itself! Working on all of the information, it would seem that he spent a lot of time to himself - he had to to produce this work. He called the Mona Lisa his master work and took it with him wherever he went, but he never explained why. For lack of an explanation, all kinds of theories have been put forward. Whatever his true reasons, Mona Lisa’s smile and androgyny has inspired many.

Basically, here is your enigmatic central character. He is a genius, but little is known about him personally. He obviously has a great deal of knowledge. The author merely has to suggest that he has some kind of secret knowledge and the rest can follow. The suggestion looks like this: A guy this smart had to know something that we don’t know, right? Throw in some of his quirks and something as ambiguous as art and Da Vinci’s your guy.

Secret Societies of the Pious and the Powerful
No one had really heard of Opus Dei before the book. I have a friend with a relative that’s a member. Third-hand info is that this family member enjoys his membership and the organization. First hand experience being a member of a secretive religious organization, I can say that it is fun for awhile. In any case, you take the fact that this small group within the Catholic Church commands quite a bit of resources without looking into their history, and all the mind fills-in-the-blanks with all kinds of things. All a good thriller needs is to point out its secret rituals (which can be genuine), play up the secrecy and point out some unexplainable events in the organization’s past. Thus the recipe for a conspiracy - thus this secret group is involved in some conspiracy.

Ever notice that most conspiracies are explained with questions? Examples include: Why was there no footage of a plane hitting the Pentagon? Why would the government deny that a missile hit it instead of a plane? Why would Kennedy fall backwards if shot from behind? How could a bullet take this weird journey and come out pristine? Why would two people make deathbed confessions about the death of Jimmy Hoffa? Why does the Catholic Church allow the radical Opus Dei folks to exist? How did my son remove his hearing aid without using his hands?

Dazzle with Brillance, Baffle with Baloney
To many Christians, the Bible must have come down as Jesus rose into the sky. To suggest that early Christianity struggled with orthodoxy can even shake the faith of some. What did they do without a Bible for four hundred years? Well, that question assumes a lot, but that’s a topic for another post. Point is that there was ambiguity about certain things we take for granted twenty centuries later. Play of the ambiguity and there is fodder for all kinds of things.

The easiest thing to do is remark about why certain gospels were chosen and certain others were not. The Egerton Gospel isn’t that controversial, why was that left out? What about the Gospel of Thomas? Go to earlychristianwritings.org to read a copy and the mind is on its way to filling in blanks once again. Like any other book, reading it outside of its history and context can lead to all kinds of strange readings. (But it is fun for a creative exercise). Most people read the Apocryphon of John and reject it outright because it is “weird”, despite the fact that at least one group of Gnostic Christians considered it inspired. Introduce the Gospel of Thomas, which is ‘weird’ in two places and contains stories found in the other gospels, and it isn’t so clear.

Back to the point - in Da Vinci’s code case, there is the contention that Mary Magdalene is Jesus’ wife and they had children. This comes from modern speculation but hey, it is scholarship. Mix in the Gospel of Mary with Mary’s conflict with Peter implying that Mary was held above Peter and there’s all kinds of fun you can have.

DIY Master Thriller
Umberto Eco wrote Focault’s Pendulum for just this scenario. A group of people try to invent a conspiracy with the Knights Templar and the conspiracy sucks them in. The characters in the book know ahead of time that they are making things up, yet they still eventually believe in their own myth. It’s dense, but worth the read.

Okay let’s make our own. First, we need one engimatic genius:

Hieronymus Bosch - check

Then we need a secret organization:

HB was a member of the Bortherhood of Our Lady, one of many groups supposedly devoted to the worship of Mary. - check

Now we need some Christian Mythology:

This one is tricky. The big myths are covered already. Let’s use the Gospel of Judas.

Synopsis of the Next Great Thriller
Okay, here’s the story. HB joins the Brotherhood of Our Lady, a wealthy group in his hometown. They owned most of his work. Not all of it was made public. HB, as a member, finds that the group is a sect of Gnsotics that reveres Judas. A cryptic message - ADJACENT SIN WON US - is found in the corner of HB’s painting “Tempation of St. Anthony”. The outer panels, featuring the arrest of Jesus shows Peter and Jesus, but not Judas. Another painting, one of many about the Last Judgement has all 12 apostles in Heaven, including a figure in black - is this Judas? Our hero struggles to come to grips with the machinations of this secret Brotherhood of Our Lady with groups worldwide on every continent. Puzzling through the strange remark on HB’s painting and images of the apostles, he comes to the stunning realization:

JUDAS WAS INNOCENT. (anagram)

Not bad for ten minutes work, if I do say so myself.

Personally
Good news is that I am in contention for a DBA job where I work. The difference in salary is about 50% if I get paid what the other two are paid. Even a 25% increase would be useful.

Bills are starting to go down, so we should be okay in the meantime.

Tabs
I changed the tabs at the top of the website to diversify my interests. Most folks come here for the religious posts, so I’ll take the other posts and put them somewhere else. Links to the Blogroll and other sites of interest are on the right side. At some future time, I’ll change the theme to a three column format to make it easier to see.

I Do Attend Church
Last week my wife was sick and this week we were at a wedding in MN. The woman that sang at our wedding got married herself.

I got to see Joel and we talked about what he is doing in preparation for the Chippewa Valley Family Church planting. It was heartwarming to hear about the folks he’s already met and talked with. In any case, it’s our loss.

I heard the sermons from the past two weeks. Considering his history here, I’m sure that Gregg M. will be our new minister soon. I asked someone to ask him about his version of events in Dallas and the financial board informed me that they will implement checks and balances if necessary. On the positive side, he is involved with Abilene and a few unity projects. On the down side, he was the president of the board for HOPE Worldwide. We’ll probably get messed up with HOPE again and that will be a crying shame.

I have no vote in the matter, so I cannot really complain what happens next. We’ll just see.

Bruce Williams, one of the Nine has written about the Unity Proposal on LA’s website. Signers of the UP are called ‘courageous’ and ‘humble’. The clear implication is that those not signing are not humble. Considering that only three churches have put something on their website saying that they would not sign, it is strange that so much attention is given to the plan’s detractors. There’s 221 signers now, that’s about half. Mexico joined, so yes, that is the taste of crow in my mouth. Anyway, here’s the end of his article in full.

With all the upheaval that has taken place over the last several years, it has become difficult to know where a church leadership stands regardless of what name is over the door. At one time, these questions would have seemed moot because of the way the churches began and were shepherded; this enabled much continuity of thought and mind. There are many good-hearted brothers and sisters who want to know where churches and their leaders stand on the teachings and expectations outlined in the Plan for Cooperation. These are legitimate questions because we all have heard of some churches and leaders who have abandoned some of the basic spiritual principles of training and assistance that enables a church and its leadership to continue to grow spiritually and numerically.

Bruce Williams

In other words, we need to know who is one of us before we can be unified with you.

Surprising is that Bruce talks about churches abandoning the principles that allow churches to grow numerically while LA is still shrinking and hasn’t shown growth in five years (at least). More importantly, we now have one of the nine that is not abiding by their own advice to other churches:

6. How should those churches be treated that choose not to
sign up?
There may be many different reasons why some churches may not sign up. They are still our brothers and sisters in Christ, and we need to continue to respect, love, and cherish one another in the Lord.

Unity Q&A from March 11.

I understand that everyone wants to feel like visiting another church that used to be ICoC isn’t like walking into a snakhandler’s convention. Think about why. We were all mandated to be the same. Now that no one is mandating doctrines and practices, it falls on some agreement to ensure that we are all on the same page.

So what happens when one of these guys goes to a church with optional d-partners? Are they going to take them to task? Hey Atlanta, I think he’s talking to you and to the folks in Toronto and Vancouver (both churches).

I thought that I couldn’t get angry at the UP anymore. I think the Gang of Nine needs to muzzle him before he discredits the whole lot. He needs to make a public apology to Vancouver and Toronto at least. He should also apologize to the folks in Atlanta, New Mexico, and other places that have decided not to sign. What a jerk!

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My Son
I had intended to call my son kathemai on the site - his name appears in Rev 4:3 like mine appears in Luke 1:63. However, I couldn’t get past the word meaning “he that is seated” looking like the feminine name, Kathy Mae. Since my son now prefers to sit up over anything else, it seemed appropriate.

In any case, today is the first day that I remember where he looked at me and grinned. He genuinely smiled at the recognition of his papa, and not because he thought that my nose was a great chew toy. In my estimation, this is the first day he recognized his Dad. (As compared to Mom, whom he recognized around day 18.)

Literary Theory
Some have decried the death of literary theory in American circles. I dunno. I read Derrida, Lacan, Russell, and others in college and it was not enjoyable or even meaningful to me. Most of the folks I read appeared to be more interested in philosophy and the search for meaning as opposed to providing any real ideas about art and literature. All I got from Derrida was a very obscure and meandering way to say “the artist’s intent is not necessarily important to understanding his/her work”. (I’m sure that he would have said that I was not reading his work correctly and that I am obviously oversimplifying concepts I do not understand. Oh well.) The last essay of any note that I read and enjoyed about literary theory was written by T.S. Elliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919). Maybe I have simply appreciated his ideas summed up in this quote “literary criticism should be completed by criticism from a definite ethical and theological standpoint.” I could write more about this, but on to the point…

I believe there is no real literary theory in the US because our culture as a whole is anti-intellectual. One author, Paul Auster has remarked that we have been this way since Andrew Jackson was president. Again, there’s something to that sentiment that would require another series of posts.

Seriously, though, the US is largely anti-intellectual. We do not want intellectual political leaders (Dubya,Nagin) or commentators (O’Reilly, Limbaugh, Franken). We do not want intellectual religious leaders (Falwell, Joel Osteen, e.g.). We do not want intellecutal artists (Spears, 50 cent, Aguliera, Mapplethorpe, Clive Barker, and many more in every discipline). Very few go to see Ted Kooser, the US Poet Laureate, when he travels outside Nebraska. Truth be told, most folks here in Nebraska wouldn’t know what he looks like. If they saw him, they’d probably ask him what he thinks of Steve Spurrier. (He looks like Lou Holtz). It’s no great secret that we pay Tom Cruise 100Mil a film, but we really follow him because we wonder about Katie Holmes and the practice of complete silence during a Scientologist birth. I’m not saying that art has to be some huge intellectual exercise, I’m going to watch MI:III when it hits the dollar movies. I am saying that there is a place for at least a little thoughtfulness - some evidence that effort was put into a work. No one should have to read How to Do Things with Words by J.L. Austen, but at least read Brooklyn Follies or How to Eat a Poem before moving on to Stephen King, Clive Cussler, or tuning in to the next episode of American Idol.

Christianity and the First Internet Generation
We grew up with computers - I was programming basic at 8. I surfed the web in 1989 with this really cool browser called Mosaic. We were all ‘connecting’ to the university mainframe in order to play MUDs. I did spreadsheets with Microsoft’s Multiplan on a TI-99/4A. I even attempted two computer projects for the science fair only to have the programs crash both times. Those were the days.

During all this, however, members of my generation found a new resource to gather information, the internet. Quite frankly, so much info poured in that we really didn’t know what to do with it. (We were, after all, the generation that played Trivial Pursuit.) Not knowing what to do, we simply tried to memorize it all. In the process, the definition of an intelligent person shifted from a person with great mental ability to a person with tremendous recall.

People my age that strive to be close to God seem to make the mistake that their relationship to God is somehow marked by how much they can cram into their skulls about the Bible, its culture, its languages, etc. As Yancey has said in “The Jesus I Never Knew”, he could list all of Jesus’ miracles in order, but had failed to understand the signifigance of any one of them.

More later.

Friend in MN
A friend of mine in MN is going to start a ministry in a couple years specifically aimed at the gay community, mainly because he was a part of that community for a long time. As he said to me, the goal is not to change from homosexuality to heterosexuality, but to strive for holiness. As he pointed out to me, the opposite of homosexuality is holiness, not exchanging one sin for another.

He regularly talks to the folks at Adullum Underground, but doesn’t seem to be making much progress. I read on Adullum every once in a great while just to see how he is doing. Every time I go, though, I cringe because I recognize myself at 19 in almost every post.
More later.

Saturday, our family became a part of a peer group of deaf/hard of hearing families. It felt good to talk to other parents and to hear from others that understand. It was the first time that I remember where I spent more than fifteen minutes around two people signing. The group covers every approach to dealing with hearing loss, but most chose total communication - sign and speech.

What was meaningful to us was the chance to work through our grief. In all the information I have read to date, it is normal to grieve hearing loss for months. It is also normal to go through the five stages of grief repeatedly. The number one thing we could do to work through our grief was to meet other families with deaf/hard of hearing children, especially families with hearing parents. In this case, the suggestion has proven true - in some ways it feels like a warm sunbeam. It turns out that a family is five houses up the road - single mom, four deaf children, very organic/natural, and a great soul. For my wife, it was good to not only find a hearing mother of hard of hearing children, it was good to find one that holds similar parenting/life choice beliefs.

My wife used the analogy of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon to describe her feelings and it serves as a metaphor to describe my own feelings.

The Struggle with God
See, I don’t struggle with the existence of God. I don’t even struggle as much with bad things happening to me. Most of the time, my struggles are the result of my own foolish actions or unwise choices. How can I be angry at the universe and/or its creator if I create 90% of my own dramas?

What upsets me is that God has the right of non-disclosure. He has total perspective, but he does not need to share any of it with me. He can keep a secret and make His decisions in secret if He chooses. I know that God works for the good of those that are called according to His purpose, but he gets to see the end of the story before I do. I read Job and I think, “I can’t believe you did this to Job and never told him why. Job would probably curse you if he found out that the source of his troubles was a stupid bet. If not him, then I certainly would. Are You in a bet regarding my life, now? Is that why you keep these big secrets from me?”

As such, my emotional reactions to difficulties tend to start with ambivalence to God. I figure that since God already knows the outcome, He has already worked out the best possible one. This, of course, frees Him from any accusation from me, so why bother? His answer can always be either, “my ways are not your ways” or “if you had My perspective, you’d understand that what is happening and will happen really is the best possible outcome for everyone.” So I ask if He can impart a little of this precious perspective with me. His answer tends to be, “Of course, my son. You’ll understand in time.” At this I usually tell God that I tend to gain this perspective after all the junk already occurs. I ask Him if He’s talked to His son lately about what life is like for those of us that DO NOT LIVE OUTSIDE OF TIME. Being outside of time, I continue on, You can see that I have already learned my lesson, worked through my aggravation with You, etc. etc. The problem is that I am not there yet. Again, this perspective thing is a real issue with me.

God then usually reminds me that he is not Douglas Adams. He isn’t using weird verb tenses to talk about our life together or to talk about my present difficulty.

So I laugh - not because God can paraphrase Douglas Adams (as ironic as that is) - but because I fear that I am not talking to God at all. My first reaction is to belive that this is proof that I really am just talking to some construct in my mind that I call God. God doesn’t reference the Hitchhiker’s Guide to anyone else. It sounds like something I would say and if God’s voice sounds like my own, maybe I really am crazy.

Then I laugh again because if God didn’t use the Hitchhiker’s Guide, I wouldn’t really listen.

I know full well that I am putting words in God’s mouth as I wrestle with Him. You would think that this puts Him at a great disadvantage. (It doesn’t.) However, something about Him comes through either in nature or Scripture or both. I may never know exactly what He would say to me if I heard His voice as clearly as I hear my own, but I can know something about His thoughts by what He has done already.

The Point of the Title
There is a biological reason for butterflies to struggle out of their cocoon. If a well-intentioned person removes the cocoon too soon, it hurts the butterfly for the rest of its life. Spefically, working through the chrysallis forces blood into the entire surface area of the wings. Without the struggle, the wings do not gain the strength or health needed to allow the butterfly to fly. Somehow, God has created each cocoon to be just the right strength for each butterfly. Some emerge sooner than others, but always after the necessary refinement to their wings.

My wife and I had a long talk yesterday. She was feeling distant from me and was frustrated by this. I wanted to get upset at her because I am generally weary of all our other difficulties - so I just want to be left alone. I get frustrated that I makes 49K gross, yet three days after payday we are broke. I get frustrated that I am seeking professional help with my struggles with my denomination past and present seemingly to no avail. (And no, leaving doesn’t automatically help.) I get frustrated that my wife and I greive over my son’s hearing loss in different ways and that somehow I am the bad guy because I tend to greive faster. I get frustrated that I have to pretend to be busy some days at work. I get frustrated and these and many other things. But most of all, I get upset that it appears that all of this is caused by my inability to let go.

So I understand that she is feeling neglected by me.

Yet in all of this, God does not let me out of the chrysallis too soon. It’s not because of lack of concern, but because He is truly aware of what is happening.

No updates here in a couple years. I think we’ll start using this for our son’s pictures, but I’ll let you know.

Anyway, I hope to update the site and the software soon.

I begin double employment soon, but the reason I haven’t posted much lately is that I have been working on other things. Mostly, I’ve been dealing with work stuff now that we are in the national media.

Outside of that, though, I have been working on one of my hobbies - world design. This time, instead of Dira, it is generic place for the creators of the Action! System. The rules are free (as in beer and as in speech), under the OGL. (The OGL is closer to the Creative Commons License is some ways than the GPL.) One company has made a fantasy setting, but there are no free rules for magic. Since the forums went down, there is not even a quick guide to converting from other systems.

As I am want to do, though, I did not want the generic rules to reflect Yet Another Middle Earth Like System. Unlike Dira, though, there would be elves and such, because the generic rules need elements of the familiar to RPG folks. So, I came up with the following goals:

• Blend elements of Chinese and Japanese ideas of magic with the traditional western elements.
• Create a magic language that is not Latin and does not sound like Latin, yet is simple to use as a role playing device.
• Allow for low magic settings and high magic settings.
• Work out the mechanics of spellcasting and magic item creation in an almost textbook fashion. This allows non-spellcasting characters to learn magic, yet still be unable to use magic.
• Move away from the idea of ‘formal schools of magic’.
• Set up different types of magic that are distinct, but not stronger/weaker than others.

I published a bit about lenga, the language of magic earlier. The grammar is similar to Esperanto (Nonus end in a, plural is denoted by a tse- prefix, verbs have three tenses, adjectives end in e, etc.) and the vocabulary is inspired by various Bantu languages. I enjoy fiddling with this.

There are two types of spellcasters in this system, echewa and surgura. Echewa believe in strict mental discipline and controlling the wild force of magic through formula and intense study. As such, they excel in magic requiring control. The cost for their percision is power. Surgura believe in directing, but not controlling magic. As such, they tend to create various mental and physical buffers to encourage magical force into desired outcomes. As such, they excel in protective and shielding spells, but tend to have unreliable outcomes when using magic. A person cannot become both, nor can they switch.

Spells are divided into five groups representing the five forces of nature: Wind, Earth, Fire, Water, and the Void. A spellcaster can focus on one group, or cast spells in all five. There’s no difference in the magic available to an echewa or surgura - the difference is in the effect.

As I stated some time ago, casting a spell has five components - the first one is a mental ability that is available only to spellcasters.

Anywho, that’s what I’ve been up to. I hope to have my idea playtested next month. I’ll let you know.