Reverting to my childhood

When I was young I considered myself a poet of a sort. Today I recovered my childhood musings from its hiding place. The Lawyers Day Book dated 1952 houses 58 poems, mostly doggerel, remaining unpublishable except maybe for here. I will not bore my readers with all of them, though some are marginally worthy of appearing here. Many are not complete. The best of the bunch is not my own. It is said to be copied from a tombstone on Boot Hill.

"Here lies the body of Lester Moore
Shot twice in the back with a .44
No Les
No Moore"
— Author unknown

Limericks were my all time favorite since the seventh grade when I purchased Bennett Surf's book, "Out on a Limerick". The style is easily mastered and limericks fairly flowed from my pen. However I will leave the limericks for last.

The book opens with:

MY POEMS

                                      Of all the poems in the world
                                      The least liked ones have been hurled
                                      Fresh off the press of the author's mind.
                                      These are not the very best kind,
                                      Written for money or for show unfurled.

                                      Poems, like treasures, are a valuable find.
                                      I want mine, in some hidden corner, curled,
                                      In an old forgotten room where spiders wind,
                                      To be found only when I'm dead,
                                      So that I won't blush when they are read.

I don't know how valuable a find this was. My opinion of my work was overrated, and I thought more highly of it than I should have. I was also very introverted when I was young, and for most of my life. Little bothers me now — the least of which are these poems. They are no longer cause to blush. My introversion came from deeply rooted pride, which I held onto for decades before the Holy Spirit persuaded me to relinquish it to Him. I went through many hardships and troubles before I realized I was such a prideful person. And I still need to be reminded every now and then. Old habits die hard.

That pride can be seen in the original title of the following couplet, "A Beautiful Poem". I have dropped the adjective.

A POEM

                                      A poem is a work of art
                                      That comes from deep within the heart.

It is so simplistic it sounds like it must have been written centuries ago, and maybe it is a couplet from someone else that I heard and do not recall. If anyone recognizes it, please let me know.

The next one was not intended to be a prophesy. How could I at age 12 to 17 know how forgetful I would become in later years?

DAZE

                                      A day is a thing soon forgot.
                                      There are so many you see,
                                      To remember them all would almost be
                                      A most improbable lot!


And now for my favorite, the limerick. Sometimes I wince at spelling errors. A true limerick writer cannot allow himself to do that. Half the fun of limericks come from the odd spelling.

                                      Two colts, a kid, and a calf
                                      Got together to have a good lalf.
                                          Said the colts, "Let us kid."
                                          Said the kid, "You just did."
                                      So they all had a lalf and a half.

---

                                      There once was a man named Marlét
                                      Who worked hard for his girl every dét.
                                          "If given some time
                                          I'd make her all mine,
                                      But I can't because of the pét."

---

                                      Have you heard of the woman of Geyser,
                                      Who insisted she wasn't a meyser?
                                          Her friends who knew
                                          Didn't say boo,
                                      And her husband was never the weyser!

---

My cat likes me

On the Inner Man

(I have already posted this in my Facebook notes, and it was published in the Trinity Gazette, so if you have read it before, I thank you for coming to this web page, and apologize that their was nothing new for you.)

Genesis 1:26 “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image…’”

The results of this study did not fit the mold of contemporary theology that believes the body is part of the image. I quote Dwight M. Pratt on "The Inward Man", with whom I agree, "Briefly stated, it is mind, soul, spirit ­­­-- God's image in man -- man's higher nature, intellectual, moral, and spiritual."

In order to further define "The Inward Man", let's begin with, "What is a soul?"

Hebrew, Nephesh modified by chay or chaim (pl.) is translated living soul, or living creatures. Both words mean created things, beings, or creatures; both are applied to either animals or man without distinction. Chay is an adjective while nephesh is a noun. They both refer to living or life.

The distinction between animals and man (human beings), comes from the words of God, "Let Us make man in Our image." This distinction is not the soul, itself. The soul is what makes each individual of a species distinct from others of it's own kind. We do not mark this distinction in wild animals that we do not view closely, but we can see individualistic preferences and behaviors in domestic animals. How our pets interact with their human owners, other humans, and other animals make up part of what we call personality. The nature of a man exists in his soul. Adam was created with a sinless, perfect nature.

Animals have individual tastes and preferences, dominance, or a place in the pecking order, just as humans do. What sets us apart is complex, and yet simple at the same time. The soul of man is imprinted with God-like desires as well as animalistic desires. We abhor evil whether it befalls ourselves, mankind, or the animal world.

But that alone does not prevent us from perpetrating evil. God has also given us a mind impressed with a conscience to govern our actions. Animals act instinctively, man acts by reason. The mind governs our abilities: our ability to think, learn, and retain knowledge, wisdom, and understanding; our talents and abilities to work and produce something of value; and our abilities to communicate and to teach what we have learned to others.

The mind and the soul overlap in the emotions and in respect to self awareness. We can prioritize our desires. The mind can govern the emotions, and soulish desires can be brought under the control of the mind, at least temporarily. When under the control of God's Spirit, our spirit can do a much better job of this than our mind can do.

The third part of us that defines man is that spirit, which God created within us. Before the fall of Adam, this spirit was in close communion with God on a daily basis. After the fall, the spirit within man died and lost the ability to communicate with God as He designed it. We say we are born with a dead spirit because it requires regeneration, or rebirth, to regain the possibility of communicating with God. This second birth is what Jesus refers to in John chapter 3, as he talks with Nicodemus. We call rebirth being born again, and salvation because it also saves us from eternal punishment for sin, separating us eternally from God in the Lake of Fire we call Hell. Regeneration is also deliverance from the power of sin in this present life.

Our spirit is ungoverned by God's law from the time we are conceived until we turn control of our life over to God. In this respect our spirit is our life. For our entire life we will be unable to follow God's law in the way He requires. But when we turn control of our life over to God, His Holy Spirit comes to live within our bodies with our spirit, and enables us to live a life that is pleasing in His eyes.

It is the union of these three, the mind, the soul, and the spirit of a human being, that make up the true individual of our species, the inner man. The body merely houses the true human being. After our bodies die, a spirit that has experienced the second birth gives life to the soul, and the mind continues to function apart from and without the limitations of the capacity of the brain. This three part union is what is meant by the image of God, and the complexity of the union is what makes it so difficult to understand. Another thing that can add to our confusion is that this inner being is sometimes, but not always referred to as the heart of man.
Since these areas of our nature are bound so closely together that they overlap, one sometimes is referred to as the other. This is especially noticeable in the use of the word heart in the Bible. Sometimes it means mind, sometimes soul, and sometimes spirit rather than all three. This is a good thing in that it helps us understand the nature of God more easily. God is one Being in that He is of one mind, He is one Spirit, yet has three distinct personalities. He has the Father personality, the personality of the Son, and that of the Holy Spirit who comes to live within each believer. These three are so closely united that in some instances they share the same name of God. In the Hebrew there are both singular and plural names for the one true God.
We call this unity of the three personalities as one God, the Trinity. The ancient theologians called God a Tri-Parte Being, which has a wrong implication.. It may help to understand this unity better by saying He is a Triunity. Each of His three natures exist totally, independently, and undiminished as God, whereas the three parts of our being cannot do so. Each of these members of the Trinity also exist together as one God without gaining any attributes that any member of this Triunity possessed individually.
So then in the creation of man, we have the first picture of what God is like. When Moses recorded Genesis Chapter One, he was not dreaming up a God who would appear to have the image of man. Rather, God through Moses revealed that He allowed, in His infinite love and wisdom, for one of His own creation to bear His image.

Two New Things

It appears this week has produced two firsts in my life. I have been reading some of what is being bantered about as health care reform. I prefer the term "government run medicine" no matter what politicians on the far side of the aisle say. What a twisted mess of rubble it will make of this country!

I was upset enough to write my first letter to the editor. I made the mistake of using the internet to send it off to the Orlando Sentinel. Poof! Off into the Ethernet without a trace or copy. Now they can misprint it and I will never know. And if they do or do not print it I also will never know, because I don't subscribe to any paper. So why did I bother?

I could say, "Well, I'm old, I won't be around long enough to see it destroy the country" and forget it. Why do I believe this will be the straw that broke the camel's back? Because it will create a monster that will be impossible to police. Large health insurance companies have already found insurance fraud difficult to detect. When the government steps in, as they seem determined to do, it will only heighten the problem.

Take defense contractors as an example. Everyone knows the government pays five to ten times what it should for many things from nuts and bolts on up to the space program. "The government is paying for it" seems to be enough reason for many to jack the prices up, and the field of medicine will be no exception.

Look at what doctors and hospitals charge with only medicare and medicaid fingers in the pie. Wait until they get their arms in up to their elbows. Then you will see unnecessary testing and treatment explode. When the government cracks down on it, there will be people who need tests and treatment that won't be able to get it. So it will work against us two ways. It will cost more and cause taxes to go up, and we will get less for our money.

We will be very fortunate indeed if we get out of this without another great depression. Spending is much like it was in the 1920's prior to the crash. Time to climb down from the soap box. All these thoughts about reckless spending are making my head swim, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

The internet has brought out a new and different side of me that I was not even aware existed. Thinking, writing, communicating like never before has become more than just something to do to pass the time in retirement. Hopefully it holds some value to someone. To me this has become somewhat of an addiction, shaping me as drugs to the addict and alcohol to the alcoholic. I am not the same person I was before, and I sincerely hope the result is not OCD. I crave the internet, friends and acquaintances I have found on it, and a place to record my thoughts. This is not where I wish to place my dependency. But I have digressed.

My second "first" is that I have coined a phrase. Well, borrowed one from somewhere and applied it to a new area. Many people have said, "Normal people are not successful." This is often quoted by hawkers of books with titles similar to "Ten Secrets to a Successful Life". My phrase taken from it is, "Interesting people are not normal -- normal people are not interesting." You may quote me on that.

JUPITER, A HIT OR A NEAR MISS?

__________________________________________

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/science/space/25hubble.html et al

Discovered late Sunday night July the 19th by an Australian amateur astronomer, the black eye left in Jupiter's atmosphere is estimated to be as large as the Pacific Ocean. Hubble's photos released to the media are creating quite a stir among astronomers world wide. This was another object no one saw coming, and all anyone can do is guess what it may have been.

No one claims that the planet surface was struck. It is believed that the comet, asteroid, or whatever it was exploded in the atmosphere before it could impact the surface.

The guesstimate is an object the size of a mountain on earth plowed through the murky atmosphere of the gas giant leaving this atmospheric disturbance in its wake. An atmospheric disturbance the size of the Pacific Ocean would certainly be some disturbance! Many try to speculate what would have happened if it had hit earth. Others are thankful for Jupiter's gravitational pull from its great mass (second only to the Sun in the Solar system). Jupiter attracts or deflect a large amount of matter that would otherwise enter the inner portion of the Solar system, but it cannot stop everything from entering.

I am thankful that the Creator of heaven and earth designed it this way. While Jupiter is no guarantee that something might slip by and impact the earth, we have a design that God set in motion. He revealed to the apostle John that the earth will go through some very hard times astronomically speaking, near the end of time.

I am also reminded that there will be signs in the heavens before the return of Jesus Christ. That time is constantly coming closer as the years go by. One day He will arrive. I sincerely hope everyone who reads this will be ready, should that day be within our lifetimes.

ON PHILOSOPHY

"The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it."   — Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970), The Philosophy of Logical Atomism

What then is a good place to begin? "I think, therefore I am." That seems simple enough, but what if I only think that I think? Then at least for that second, the time it took to think that thought, I existed. Perhaps this is why some of us seem to fade in and out. We need to think more in order to be more.

Then there are the times I can't remember what I was going to say or do. Does that mean I do not exist for the senior moments when I cannot think of something? What about when we sleep, or those who are in a coma?

It is said that Socrates liked to tease his interlocutors by saying that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing. If he truly knew nothing then he could not know that he knew nothing. (But surely that was his standard joke.) Applying "I think, therefore I am" would erase Socrates from history.

Perhaps it would be truer to say, "I am because others think I am". At least there are more to say so than if I am the only one who thinks so. The rule of the majority in the free world is considered better than the rule of one. In Israel in Bible days, the testimony of only one man was null. It required two or three witnesses to establish a fact. I would hope, in such a case, that I would not depend on the will of the majority, however. I would not like to be thought out of existence just because most people would like to see me go! (The paradox grows).

"To be, or not to be: That is the question....", wrote William Shakespeare. As I see it (and much of philosophy is opinion) one's existence is best placed in the hands of a holy God. To be is to be foreordained by God. Not to be is out of the question for me. Sorry Hamlet, I think you were wrong. At any rate Hamlet does not exist.

Jeremiah existed as an example. In chapter one (v.1-3) he sets the stage for the main event in his life, God's call:

:4 Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, 5) "Before I formed your inward parts and before you left the womb, I have established your leadership and set you up as a prophet to the nations."

Besides establishing the value of life in the womb, God also shows that He has a plan for each individual He brings into existence. Sometimes the call goes beyond the natural ability of he individual. He allows rebuttal:

:6 So I said, "O LORD Most High, I do not know how to speak out because I am just a youth".

Then He overrules our excuses:

:7 But the LORD told me, "Do not say, 'I am a youth', because to whomever I send you, to them you will go, and whatever I command you, that is what you will say. 8) I am the one selecting you. Have no fear of their faces because I am with you."

Jeremiah was a perfect example. He responded that same day. Jonah had three days and three nights in the belly of a sea creature. Moses was allowed 40 years on the backside of the desert. God works differently with different people. The one thing they and we have in common is that we exist for a purpose. The question in my mind then is no longer, "Do I exist?" but, "Have I fulfilled the purpose for which I was brought into existence."

Hopefully we have not arrived at something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. Can you say you agree?

Oh, my aching back!

I dug a ditch today and learned a lesson. I'm not as young as I used to be, but I already knew that. The sun was hot; (I knew it would be) BUT clouds came up and blocked the sun periodically and kept it cooler than it would have been. God is good, but I knew that. Back filling the hole is almost as hard as digging it, especially when you are tired, but I knew that.

The new thing I learned was the meaning of what the unjust steward said in the parable of Jesus. In the story he is about to be found out in an audit and knows he will be dismissed. Among other things, he says, "I can't dig!" As a Marine, I was taught the "can do" attitude. Of course I can dig, I just put in a day doing it. Bur if I accomplished as pitifully little for an employer, I would soon be fired. I am now fully acquainted with that feeling, "I can't dig," meaning on a regular basis for pay.

The sedentary lifestyle takes it's toll. Evidently that is all the steward had done. I now know how he would have felt. I sat behind the wheel of a truck for 3 years, at a desk for pay for 4½ years, and now at my own desk for 3 years in retirement. Perhaps I would not announce it from a street corner or write it on a cardboard sign, but I do have to admit it here. I can't dig.

Tomorrow I will lay the rest of the pipe, make the hookup, and fill in the rest of the ditch if it doesn't rain. Somehow that seems like a lot of work. Maybe it will take two days, I don't know. I can't dig.