pinakidion.*

I stumbled across something recently. Basically, I saw two charges on my account from KNN. Since I thought my account was already canceled, I asked that it be canceled. Chris very graciously credited me a free month for DToday. I was assured that there would be no charge in March and I believe him. Very pleasant, indeed.

However, I clicked on a link and suffered a minor setback.

I’ll make you a deal Mike. Let’s have ‘Regional’ Leaders again as you justify in this paper. The only condition is that no one that has ever served as WSL, GSL, WSE (Elder), Kingdom Teacher, GSE (Elder), or Kingdom Elder can serve in these new roles. It’s very difficult for those with a vested interest in more regional leadership to speak of the need for more regional leadership. What is the need for this added authority? What work is being prevented because these structures are not in place?

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.
Albert Einstein (attributed)

Events have happened with ICOC(Co-Operating) Church Leaders and ICOC(Community) Church Leaders, like the Southeast Festival of Faith, without the end of missions funding, the end of the ICoC, or the end of brotherhood across congregations. It is amazing what the Holy Spirit is able to accomplish without man’s help.

No matter what has been said to members of the Church Building Committee in public or private, this thinly veiled attack on those that will not sign or consent to regional leadership emerges periodically. Christians much more spiritual than I have written, spoken, begged you to consider pursuing peace instead of a one-size-fits-all agenda. (Rom 14:19-23) This course of action is not pursuant to peace. To those that cannot consent to a supra church structure out of conscience, it is a sign that such a belief is not only unacceptable, but a hindrance to the work of God. Such a claim is overreaching at best, arrogant at its worst. Rather than trying to assure us that you meant no harm, try not violating our conscience in the first place.

Simply put, state very clearly what it is that you want and why you cannot do it right now. All this other window dressing is just dancing about the issue.

Me am sick. I did all the vitamin stuff I could leading up to it. I tried everything I could think of. In the end, though, I ended up doing too much. Part of it was the failed video for Black History Sunday at church and refurbing a laptop for my wife. Part of it was not sleeping for awhile. If you heard my communion from Sunday, I sounded worse the next day.

The result, I am home sick for two days. So now, I am taking zinc and B vitamins and all the other assorted things that are supposed to help recovery. I’m also during various assorted herbal teas with chamomile my favorite. I am sorely tempted to use my grandparents remedy for these things:

4 parts Southern Comfort (required) to 1 part honey (almost optional) to 1/2 part lemon juice (entirely optional).

Fortunately for me, the tax refund hasn’t arrived yet, so that solution is too expensive. Thank goodness vitamins at the No Name Nutrition store in town is cheaper than whiskey. Still, I’m out for awhile.

At the last minute I was asked to give communion. Unable to form an original thought, I largely quoted someone else as was appropriate to the service.

One point of clarification: the moderation I mention is in reference to a Letter from a Birmingham Jail where MLK states that the white moderate may be the most dangerous foe to civil rights. It is the moderation that says, “let’s not disturb anything”. This ties into King’s concept of negative peace (no tension) as compared to positive peace (presence of justice). I didn’t elaborate, so it can sound like I am saying that moderation as a general principle is not loving. There are plenty of examples where love can be shown through moderation - again, the concept I wanted to make reference to is different.

Love at the Bottom of the Cross

I’ve been fluffing around lately. I see interesting things and generally ooh and ahh over it’s shiny veneer. I spend some time on my hobbies and enjoy world creation. Not a typo, I said world creation. The two worlds in the forge at this point are Lenga, which I’ve mentioned many times, and the Spring Football universe. The former is more or less based on the Roman Empire, the latter assumes that Donald Trump didn’t ruin the USFL. I took a hiatus from the Spring Football universe to play some board game football. I’m prepping for the draft on March 8.

Meanwhile, anything pertaining to religion has been pretty low-key. As stated earlier, I have been back to Delphi twice since my break with the ICoC blogosphere. Once out of curiosity, more recently as a result of the NIU shooting. Being a former board member, I don’t think it is possible to completely remove myself from the ICoC scene without attending and placing membership at a different church. I’m not a member of the church I attend, but I would have to attend elsewhere to really get away from the ICoC. Still, I am not going to instigate anything ICoC. Someone says something to me, fine, deal with it quickly and move on. Someone says, “you know what Gordo is saying now?” and I’ll avoid it. I get an idea in my head to see what X church leader is doing these days and a stinging self-rebuke is in order. That’s all part of my old life.

My online friend Doug went back to posting daily Bible studies. I know he enjoyed it and I enjoyed reading them. Cool stuff, really. Doing the same is not helpful to me right now, but I do plan on doing that at some point. I’ve gotten into at least three discussions lately where the disagreement turned into a criticism of my hermeneutic and eisegesis. (Not a misspelling.) In one case, I was talking about something that I hadn’t fully thought out in my own mind and admitted as much. The other two cases, though, led to disagreements about the implications of a stated belief. Someone would say something like the Bible says statement w, because of X verse, y verse, and z verse. I would respond that if you believe in statement w that implies statement U and statement U is not consistent with the Bible. Therefore, statement w may be wrong, inaccurate, or needs further thought. Then I say that we seem to have a different way of looking at things that will lead us to cross paths. That generally ends the discussion with a parting shot about proper Biblical interpretation.

I’ve learned that my hope for unity will not come through doctrinal agreement because there is a lack of agreement on hermeneutic, logic, and the value of intuition. I don’t think it is possible to come to an agreement on two of those three. Unity must come through something else - not the lack of conflict, but the focus on what’s really important. What is important is the work of Jesus.

More on that later.

Still, I work through things in my mind like the nature of God’s predestination. I’ve become interested in Molinism lately, despite the appearance circular reasoning by many of its largest proponents. No one has really stated it simply, which makes it dubious in my mind. Yet, I appreciate the idea that God is sovereign *AND* man has free will. (In all candor, if there is no free will, Christianity is pointless to me. I didn’t say everyone, I said me. I wish I could take Spurgeon’s take on a few areas and just say, “I don’t understand,” but I am not as strong as he was about it.) I believe in a God that has supreme power but also supreme self-control in that He doesn’t have to force choices on all of creation in order for the universe to work out as He plans.

But all this mental stuff leaves the heart dry and thirsty. I’ve taken Bobber’s suggestion at chanting the Psalms. The effort sputtered at first, but I hope that when the book arrives that he mentioned, this effort will get back on track. I plan to write about it when I start again. In the meantime, the heart delights in the simple pleasures of my children. Jesus said that we need to become like them in enter Heaven and I understand, in part, why.

Brother Bear has no problem starting new adventures because he doesn’t think about how much I love him. He knows I do. When he’s tired, he tells me, when he’s scared, he asks me for comfort, when he’s crossed a boundary, he respects my word. He revels in what he can do and spends most of his time doing those things. He likes to say “o” and “x” and a few other letters. He likes to run at full speed. He likes to throw all the cushions of the couch. He like to dive from one piece of furniture to the next (without a net). He likes to dance. Whatever he does, he does it as hard as he can without stress. Whenever he feels something, he expresses it. Whenever he has been naughty, he dislikes the whole process, but the drama ends when the process is over. It’s as if he is saying, There’s just too many good things to do. Despite the sometimes bewildering complexity of his personality, this fundamental thought seems to keep him going.

I’d like to think he gets it from me. If not, I’d like to think that I can be that way. Either way, I am ready to get back to it. There’s just too many good things to do.

This is more cool than I can say. Gravia, the lamp the works outside the grid.

I want a bunch of these if for no other reason than they don’t have cords.

Besides, using the fundamental force of the universe to generate power is the ultimate green tech.

The picture leads to an obligatory Too Short reference. I used to have the 1988 Life Is .. Too $hort album. I had a great purge in 1993. I sold my GWAR, Ministry, Kool Mo Dee, NWA, Biz Markie, Satriani, ManoWat, Metallica, Yello, Pet Shop Boys, and other assorted albums.

You cannot prove I ever owned a Duran Duran album, so don’t try me.

Yes, the lyrics come from a Notorious B.I.G. song.

moar humorous pics

It’s Valentine’s Day. You miss me? Yeah, I miss you, too. The picture above is more for my wife and I, but if you need a hug, take one. I gotz a jar full.

I’ve been pretty sick since the Supe… uh Big Game uh football game played on Feb 2. (Do you know what to call it without NFL lawyers suing you for trademark infringement?). I almost went to a doctor. Seriously.

Good news is that I do not have pneumonia and that one day, I really will feel better. Brother Bear is pulling out of his version of this virus as well as Dancing Bear. Besides being 1 below zero tonight things are looking pretty good. (We celebrated reaching 30 degrees this morning!)

Here’s what else has been going on.

Some folks from Springfield, Mo wrote the church administrator and asked about the look and feel of our website. They asked for help in finding the same template we were using at the time. Of course, since I maintain the website, I was put in touch with them and the rest is history. They are now sporting a WordPress site.

I noticed that their web guy found a beautiful theme from LivingOS.com that provided a slideshow. Believe it or not, the slideshow is NOT powered by Flash(R). Like their web guy, the only issue was the green and yellow color scheme. Not ugly, just not the color palette we were looking for. They are still working on theirs, but I had a chance to tweak it a little bit. Now the church I attend is sporting a new website, too. I’m going to tweak the red and yellow buttons a bit, but I’m happy with it.

Along those lines, I’m working on committees for three upcoming events. First is Black History Service on Feb 24. I hope to have a video up on the site that we will be using for service. Second is the Men’s Retreat. That’s in early March. No cool link to it, yet, but we’ll see. Since I’m on the committee, it’s probably not going to be one of those Wild-at-Heart-Let’s-Act-Like-We’re-Five events. At this point, we’re thinking of having a loud track and a silent track. The silent track is for those that want to unplug and be with God. They will have outdoors and more meditative group things. The loud side will be for those that need a passionate setting to inspire them. Not really rah rah, but real. Everyone, of course, will be together Sunday morning and Saturday morning for football/Capture the Flag. After that, is Easter Service, complete with special songs and dramatic presentations. I’m doing the programs because I will be in NC on Easter Sunday.

Speaking of Easter, I’ve been invited to give the closing Benediction at the Sunrise Service at home. I really hope to get there in time to do that.

Also speaking of Easter, we celebrated Ash Wednesday last Wednesday for Men’s Midweek. This was the liturgical service complete with the ash mark on the forehead tradition. It was quite beautiful and inspiring to many there. A few seemed offended, but most of us, especially me, really enjoyed it. It was the first church service in a long time where I felt something instead of learned/blocked-out-wrong-information something.

Other than that, I am involved in a Statis-Pro Football by internet group based out of Virginia. My team, the Nebraska State Armadillos, are looking to draft a star quarterback to lead the team to victory.

I know, it’s sick what you can do with public domain images these days. (Thanks WPClipart!)

I’m also working on more stuff for my Sycarion site. Things there are moving along well. I discovered a tool called yould that has sped along the creation of the Lenga language. Lenga is a relex of Latin. Basically, it follows all the grammatical rules of Latin, but the words are different. I’m at the stage where I’m going through the vocabulary list (17,000+plus words!) and checking for internal consistency. It’s enough at this point to use for adding flavor to descriptions of the Bedrian Empire, Dira (the world), and names of common objects.

The Football project is on hold while I play football as I mentioned earlier. Since my game is based on Statis-Pro and I haven’t played against a human being in years, I figure this is a good time for a refresher. One of the coaches lives in my area, so I will play a few games “in person” instead of through IM chat.

Lastly, I did cave once a couple weeks ago. I went to the Civil Discussion Forum at Delphi. It took five minutes for me to realize that I didn’t miss it. I also asked someone for a copy of an article that Gordon wrote about Christianity and Psychology. I knew what it would say. It would say that Psychology is incompatible with Christianity. Get a lot of advice for mature disciples before visiting a therapist (in practice, this means “get others to talk you out of it”).

You have to understand that the ICoC comes from a strong tradition of nouethic counseling. The Scriptures are sufficient for any problem in a believer’s life and each Christian is competent to counsel another Christian because of the completeness of God’s word (and not the abilities of the individual believer). It sounds very good, and I believe that it is possible to some degree in everyday problems and facing common challenges. I think we can help each other raise our children. However, combine this with the Shepherding ideas from the Ft Lauderdale Five, and this man and you get something entirely different.

From Nouethic Counseling, you got the mistrust of Psychology (See PschyoBabble and Competent to Counsel and this article). From Mumford and company, you get that obedience is the highest form of worship. From Kip, you get the boundless energy of someone that knows he is the star of the show. Almost thirty years later, the fallout from the ICoC and others groups is still happening. We weren’t the only group to take the worst aspects of both of these good-intentioned ideas.

Now take the architect of the ICoC’s discipling system (Gordon). He wrote the book on discipling (now discontinued from DPI). He was a Kingdom Elder. Considering his experiences, training, and methods over five or more decades, it’s no surprise that Pyschology is not to be trusted.

I understand wanting to guard the heart from worldly ideas. I quit listening to talk radio. I will not watch Oprah. I generally avoid the incendiary aspects of the blogosphere (although I have been one of those incendiary folks). However, any system that has a built-in fear of outside ideas is ultimately going to collapse on itself. Mumford’s group did it. We did it. UBF did it (and still is doing it). When I consider that the perfect love of God drives out fear, I hope to allow God to be the filter of new ideas. I hope that I do not give into fear so much, that I set up an artificial rule saying that any new idea is probably ungodly. (I also do not want to embrace every new idea at the cost of ignoring God’s loving guidance.)

My experience with a secular counselor has shown that a “take every thought captive” approach works very well for day to day problems. I’m going through a workbook with practical exercises that demonstrate some of the thoughts I entertain that separate me from those I love. For the bigger issues, like abuse, there is a way to determine what is magnified by my perceptions and what was genuinely wrong. More importantly, there are ways to find closure or acceptance.

In any case, I hope to avoid articles like this in the future.

True my life is busy, but I feel that it is starting to have meaning again. I didn’t say purpose, it’s not the same thing. Meaning, however, is just as important. I find meaning in my game stuff and website stuff. I find meaning in raising the children (even if I am the only one not doing the Raising Kids God’s Way stuff). I find meaning in making my wife happy. (found two dozens roses that I could afford and took out the trash) I find meaning in my search for God. I find meaning in sharing God with others. I even find meaning in researching Molinism, though I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

I hope your life has meaning. I promise that it won’t be two weeks until the next meaningful post and it will be much shorter.