Overdue thanks to Jane of Virginia. I am grateful to your many supportive and insightful comments. They are deeply appreciated.
Thank you to Kymber for designing my little blog and entering my first entries.
Thank you to my best friend, John Wesley Smith, for entering, correcting and paragraphing my efforts. John, of Destiny Survival, has created a video on geodesic domes, that has over 240,000 hits on You Tube.
To those who read The Last Robin, you make my life worth living.
Saw a site on the Internet that warned of 10 DVD's that will send you to hell. I guess watching them will do it, not just having them on the shelf. I should have printed out the list. I might even like to watch some of them.
Maybe they are terrible, but one thing I know is that they can't send me to hell. Nothing can.
Sounds like I am boasting about my great virtue or some special immunity I have. I'm not. It's just that nothing can send me, or you to hell. Main reason of course is that there is no hell. Actually, that should do it.
As a firm believer in the Security of the Believer, I could claim Romans chapter eight as my defense. But that blessed chapter is not about the saving from hell, but the certainty of our going to heaven. What a difference.
You may remember me mentioning the chart someone made showing the true meanings of each mention Jesus and others made of hell. Each mention in the original language is grave or pit or place where the dead are burned. No suffering there, not even by implication.
Now this emphasis on a total lack of hell in the Bible does not come from any religious affiliation on my part. Neither does it spring from the idea that God wouldn't make anyone suffer. If someone could prove from the Bible that God has been or is going to roast people forever it would not change my idea or love of God.
So what is my objection to the doctrine of hell? It is textual, really. If you have been kind and patient enough to read my ramblings you know I do not mind if people believe in hell. They can believe in a god or gods that burn people up and I am tolerant of such beliefs. Nice of me, isn't it?
It is only when people maintain that the Bible is their source of belief. Only then do I object. Not that anyone cares about my objections.
Have I ever been sloppy in my writings? That is am I an earnest workman? Please say yes, because it is all I can do and I take it very seriously.
Once again, hell is a pagan doctrine and does not appear in any original text. We have about three thousand of these, more than any other ancient book. Hell has been inserted. Also Easter (Acts 12:4) by those who carried pagan ideas and those who thought it was good to threaten people into behaving.
Hell was a great money maker also. St. Peter's in Rome was paid for by the sale of indulgences, to get people out of hell by the payment of money. Luther said "If the Pope has the power to release people from hell, why doesn't he let everyone out?"
Indeed, you and I can't go to hell. There is only heaven waiting for us.
Truck, moving van, or taxi, we can make a simple bug out aid that will go places that AAA doesn't have on their maps. I just watched a nifty video showing a gentleman making a primitive frame to help you lug heavy loads through unpaved territory.
Of course the simple device is the travois, long used by Indians to haul shelters, food, and people. They have been pulled by horses and dogs, but this one was for use by people. It consists of four sticks lashed together with para cord.
The demonstration used "found" poles and crossbars. The man who made the video said he didn't want to "hurt a tree" in making one. So he found some fallen branches. How about this for a nice attitude? "You want to make an isosceles triangle," he said, which was a vee with two crossbars. One for your hands to hold, and one to help carry your load.
I think of Tarzan's shopping cart. This really fits into my idea of bugging out, not loading your SUV to hit the highway. All you need in the construction is some cord. Skilled people could use vines, and maybe a knife to smooth the pole ends so they drag more easily. The whole woods is your parts department.
Be not righteous over much; Ecclesiastes 7:16
I went from a quiet job making flavor extracts and wrestling barrels and drums, to a 13-1/2 acre, 329 room motel and night club complex.
My first night on the job I was called to a situation where two bellboys were holding some would be thieves at gunpoint with their own owls head revolvers. When I went to pick up my belt radio the boss had left a note. "You may shoot the following people." Names were attached. He had added, "Please don't shoot them in front of the curved glass by the reception desk, it was very expensive." This kind of set the tone of what was to follow.
In the three years I was to work there I held people at gun point, wrote my first arrest warrant and gave oxygen to a man already dead. The life squad came quickly and sized him up. As they drove away they did not use sirens or lights. They knew he was dead.
My partner and I drove a waitress to her car. A few nights later she had a fatal wreck. She was either drunk or went to sleep. A section of guard rail came through the windshield and cut her in two. My partner said school kids taunted her children, "Your mother got cut in two."
I worked with all kinds, including born again Christians. There were two orchestras and a Mexican trio. There were three liquor licenses. Some nights the place pulsed with sound and activity.
A young receptionist had been offered $30 and a bottle of booze to have sex with a patron. He gave his room number to her. Her friends said she was pondering the offer. I felt I should intervene. I told her, "You know I never say things like this, but you really look stunning tonight, with your black dress and pearls. Any man would be proud to have you on his arm."
This was out of character for me, but she glowed and said, "If you came in here to make me feel good, you succeeded." She did not go to the guy's room. A little after this, she met a young policeman, a real gentleman. To see them together was to know they loved one another.
So why all this biographical material? I want to contrast this immersion into a little, oft times, corrupt world with my experiences with super pious people. They may have their place, but they are not for me. I can appreciate honest sinners and broken hearted people a lot more.
J. Vernon McGee said, "If you visit a church where the people use a different sounding voice and act super pious, for God's sake get out of there!" I know what he meant. I feel the same way.
Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil. Genesis 49: 27
A lady in a church I once belonged to spoke of King Saul on the road to Damascus. Someone she knew gently told her that she had it wrong by about a thousand years and had two people confused. Maybe more study was needed?
But let me say in her defense, that she had something right. Both King Saul and the Apostle Paul, formerly known as Saul, were from the tribe of Benjamin. This tribe, described by Jacob as wolf-like, would not be be one you would choose as a source of diplomats. I'd hate to cross such people.
And yet God called Paul from this tribe noted for its ferocity. For a time Paul lived up to the characteristics of these people. He tells us in a number of places, with what zeal he persecuted Christians. He held the garments of those who stoned Steven, approving of those who killed him. He further tells us that he sought permission to go beyond his bounds and persecute Christians in distant cities.
After Paul's dramatic conversion he himself was persecuted by the very people he once worked for. How many times God reverses our natures. The fierce become gentle and the fearful become bold.
Yet Paul never abandoned his tribal identity. He affirms it in more than one place, as in Romans 11:1.
I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid, For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, [of] the tribe of Benjamin. Romans 11:1
But what of the tribe itself? The book of Revelation tells of their fate.
Of the tribe of Benjamin [were] sealed twelve thousand. Rev. 7:8
Paul was redeemed and so will be his tribe.
Lord my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me...
Psalms 131:1
As a kid I thought a lot. I spent a lot of time alone so I had lots of time to think. My mother had told me about God. I tried to see him in the clouds. What did He look like? Could He see me?
I was thinking on God one day when I asked myself, if God had no beginning, how could this be? The idea of eternity hit me. This was when I realized I would never figure it out. There were things beyond our ability to understand.
It is very common to hear people talk about the mysteries of the universe. For instance, what is the origin of man? Did he come from a distant galaxy? Wow! A little college chum of mine used to say, when a professor was talking, "I don't know what he's saying, but it's deep." He caught on to overly deep things, pretentious meanderings.
As to the origin of man, try Eden, think on Eve, the mother of all living. Then their is Adam, the first man. How can you be earlier than First? I remember a comedian debunking the saying, "The early bird gets the worm." "But what if some other bird gets there before him?" He was on to something. Maybe it was the pretensions of some of us--the making of mysteries out of things that have been revealed. It is as if simple answers are looked down on.
Back in the 60's it was popular for young people to carry a little red book of the sayings of Chairman Mao. Mao had a saying, "If we all furrow our brows, the answer will be found." Of course, false reasoning is a job for some people, literally. Without giant questions that can never be solved, they would be unemployed.
I love Psalm 131. David as calm as a weaned child. I believe in knowledge, as much as you can get. Moses had "all the knowledge of the Egyptians", according to Stephen. But God put him in the desert to further his knowledge.
Furrow away, but there are some things too deep for us all.
; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. Song of Songs 4:9, NIV
My memories of my wife's jewelry box are how poor it is. I still have it. It is one of the few things I took with me when I moved into my apartment. Not that this box and its contents have any quality or value. The box is plastic and the jewelry is cheap.
She did not care for such things, or of fancy clothes. She had one long gown, which she was buried in. No make up, no hair dos. A couple of bobby pins did it for her. Yet she could sparkle without them.
Once I was eating with her aunt and uncle when she came through the door in a wine colored corduroy coat. Her aunt commented on her new coat. She plucked at in an off handed manner. "It's cheap, but it'll get me through the winter," was all she said. She had a determined and cheerful manner. At that moment I thought, "I want to marry you!"
Her cheerful toughness never left her. She kept it through the thirty five years of our marriage until she died, knowing her time was limited to hours. She told me during our last talk, "Knowing you has been a trip."
"Really?", I asked. She looked at me in mock rebuke.
What will our robes be like in heaven, and what will our crowns be like? I long to see her finally decked out as she deserves.
