visit this blog at a new address!
sorry for the lack of content. i guess i am not very prolific.
this blog is moving to whatisthefire.wordpress.com for at least a trial period. i am a big fan of open source systems and although i like google i don't really want to see a microsoft of the internet. so please visit
whatisthefire.wordpress.com
and please help keep the internet current and UPDATE YOUR LINKS!!!
love,
Michael
do not worry yourself about any thing
because you're gonna do what you're gonna do, and the universe around you is gonna do what it's gonna do, and it either will or won't be what you want or need, but in neither case can you change the arrangement, therefore there is no worth in worry.
take peace, for all things are in the hands of God, before our time and after it, and there is no better arrangement to ask for. put therefore all your trust in him, and do as you can best discern he wants of you. for in truth what else is there to do?
God alone knows the number of my days.
and no harder is it for him to make a life ten thousand years, than a day. for all things are infinitely small compared to God.
one of my favorite poems
another of my themes is that all things (including the inanimate ones) serve God whether knowingly or willingly or not. with some people it seems to be over their resentful denial and railing defiance, but believing as i do i try to be as willing and knowing as i can. with my limited vision i think the willing part more important - ("there is a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path"). so i like this poem that i found, though not-so-happily as part of a memorial. i am typing it like it was engraved, because that seemed to add to its effect for me:
WE SAW NOT CLEARLY NOR VNDERSTOOD
BVT YIELDING OVRSELVES TO THE MASTERHAND
EACH IN HIS PART AS BEST HE COVLD
WE PLAYED IT THROVGH AS THE AVTHOR PLANNED
--ALAN SEEGER
God in the chaos: entropy-like forces in everyday life
"And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire."
-Luke 3:9
One of my themes is that just because the causality of things can be understood and explained, does not mean that God is still not ultimately responsible for them just the same. I found an example while checking the book of Habakuk to see if it said what I thought, before writing the short note inspired by it, infra, earlier. In Habakuk God talks about how the remnants of all the different nations conquered by the nation that will conquer Israel, will eye the great horde of spoils the conqueror amassed, and feel thirst for vengeance, and come to destroy the conqueror. In Ch. 2 - "Woe to him that increaseth what is not his!" (v.6) and "Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee; because of men's blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein." (v.8). God explains how he will bring something to pass, and this time it is along lines of causality cognizable by us people, with acts having their ordinary forseeable consequences - nonetheless all things are in the hands of God from the very start, just the same.
It is no diminution of God to have you understand his means.
your real capital is the capital in your head.
One of George Soros's themes from his book Soros on Soros. As he points out, you can appreciate the elegance of it more when you consider the root "cap" means head (from latin i think) - think "captain", "per capita", "capo", etc.
"...these are the same people who believed so verily that the earth was flat, and that the stars and the sun went around it."
-internal thoughts on why i should always trust my conscience over worldly reasoning.
some of life's problems are solved just by outliving them
"Orville Wright did not have a pilot's license."
-seen on a billboard
"compared in strength to God, all things are as a broken reed."
"broken reed" is at 2 Kings 18:21 and Isiah 36:6 but i think i thought of this while reading Jeremiah 42:10-22.
the book of Habacuc
prophet to God: where is your righteousness, when you would punish our wickness by delivering us into the hands of those even more wicked than we have been?
God answers prophet: rest assured, they will get theirs too.
"If they did not believe Moses and the prophets they will not believe one risen from the dead."
Luke 16:31
"And thus consider through all generations that none that trust in him fail in strength."
1 Machabees 2:61
the fire already lighted
"I come to start a fire on the earth, and what more is there for me to wish if it has already been lighted?" Luke 12:49
