Tats and Holes

Off on a very different thought today. Most things I blog about I find. I may have read something or observed something or seen something that I want to put into written format so I can analyze it in print rather than in the recesses of my mind. When you lay thing out in written form it helps clarify the thought. Writing forces one to make sense of each thought. Having to choose just the right way to present an idea often clears up unreasonable leaps and twisted logic.

Other times things come to me. And today that just happened. For whatever reason in going to my web based email an article popped onto my screen titled Eight Things No One Tells You About Tattoos. I will say at the outset I find I don't care for tattoos.

My position on tattoos goes hand in glove with piercings and other body art forms. I realize body shaping has been going on since humans found out they could reshape body parts, but I still find it incompatible with genteel living. I know neck stretching has been carried on in Asia in a number of countries, as well as binding of feet to keep them small. I know in Africa pretty much any body part that can be pierced and stretched has been done. I realize that nearly every advanced society in existence today seems bent on piercing little girls ear lobes so they can accommodate ear rings. I also realize many males now are following suit.

But to me anything you do to your body that results in permanent or semi-permanent disfigurement makes a person less attractive. The inserting of bolts, lugs and pins into one's body is in my opinion is disgusting and macabre. For me, tattooing, piercings and body art are barbaric and a reproach to God.

I have friends and family members who have very discreet tattoos in discreet places. What is done is, of course, done. But for me, I believe no one should alter their bodies except to correct disfigurement.

I remember an evening at a church I attended choir practice had just let out and three women were just enough in the way of the door that I had to squeeze by them. I do not even remember who they were, and in fact one I am very sure I did not know at the time. It was that woman that had begun to gather a small crowd of other women to admire new tattoo on the back of one of her legs. The other women were ooing and awing over the tattoo and I was thinking “how disgusting.”

I once heard a speaker speak on the topic of what influence causes people to get tattoos. Who are they emulating? I am not aware of any New Testament scriptures that address the idea of tattooing, but I do know there is one in Leviticus chapter 19, verse 28, which says: “You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the LORD.”

I also know that just a few verses before this one the law forbid the mixing of fibers within clothing. So if you believe tattoos are sin you have to wear clothing in which there is not a mixture of fiber. That seems a bit extreme and unnecessary.

But I believe it still remains that when a person alters their body in any sort of permanent or semi-permanent way they are not considering what others will think about them.

Now if you have a tattoo, you have my sympathies. But that doesn't make you any less of a person or Christian. But if you are a Christian and considering a piercing or tattoo, be sure you carefully examine your motive and the consequences.

In addition I want to make it clear I firmly believe this corporal body is never leaving earth. It will be consumed in the grave and totally returned to dust unless by some amazing stroke of circumstance it gets fossilized like many other humans and animals of ages past. I firmly believe that all of the prophecy concerning people coming forth from the grave is figurative and won't be happening literally. I, like you, may be wrong, but I believe the lifespan of the earth is billions of years longer than the existence of humans.

Humans came on the scene several billions of years into the life-cycle of earth and will disappear long before the end of that life-cycle. Human existence is far too fragile to withstand catastrophic events this earth has seen and will see. Hundreds of thousands of years before humans came into being dinosaurs were wiped off the earth by the impact of a single comet. And it is highly unlikely many more epochs will pass before earth is impacted by another.

So what we do to our bodies, in my own opinion, has no eternal effect. It is the spirit that will live on. We still have no conclusive answer on what or where our spirit is, but it is the only part of us that is eternal. Of course we can add in our reputation, our influence, etc, but those are even less tangible than our spirit.

But the why we do things to our bodies definitely has eternal consequences. And that is the reason I do not care for tats or piercings. I believe they are distractions and are mostly used as attention getting devices. As for me, one's looks is a bit down the list of things I pay attention to. Looks change so quickly. A good or toned figure fades very quickly if not extremely well maintained. Good looks are internal, not external. Sure, we all appreciate nice looking men, women and children. But so many things can go wrong so quickly and the looks are gone.

It is my belief that anything done to one's body, whether it be put in or on the body to attract attention, is wrong. And along with that goes putting less on the body to show off the skin. You can look nice wearing clothes from Wal-Mart or K-Mart, you don't need some fashion line from an expensive boutique or upscale men's store. Keep what you do to your skin, especially makeup, very subdued. Loud make up reminds me of clowns. And I like clowns. But only in their particular genre.

Tip and tip generously

I am sure my leanings toward being more civil to others is a result of growing older, an ever increasing realization that I am not the most important person in my life, and my employment over the last many years of my working career.

I pretty much worked my entire life in the service industry in the public. I spent many years responding to calls for help in the computer industry and finished up my working days in telephone support helping people with cable TV, Internet and phone issues.

One of the darker sides of being in the service industry is that no one wants you or needs you until something is broken. When things break it is normally perceived as at the least inconvenient and at the worse a national disaster. Another part of the service industry is a very prominent conception that what ever is wrong is somehow the service provider's fault. Or at the very least the service that the service provider represents, and since the customer has reached you, you are the goat until YOU got it fixed.

Having been the goat for most of my life I have learned a few things about treating other people.

The very first thing I do when encountering another individual for whatever reason I am polite, friendly and sympathetic as I can be. I always use sir or ma'am. If I can squeeze it in before the other person begins to speak I ALWAYS ask how are they doing with a smile on my face.

I learned in the military, and it was totally integrated into my demeanor on my first job in computers, that the best thing one can do next is to listen carefully showing in my body language and with my full attention that I was absorbing what the other person has to say. In computers and in customer support it was daily drilled into us to THEN recite back what had just been said, as exactly as possible, so that if there were things the other person needed to stress or change it would be apparent.

Sometimes it was difficult to keep in mind that the customer is probably upset with the situation and not particularly you. But, there were times when what happened could in the customer's eyes be construed as being my fault. It then is a tight wire walk to not admit guilt but to take full responsibility in taking care of the situation as quickly as possible.

So here are some things I highly recommend we a people living together in a confined small space in this solar system do for one another.

Always assume the person you are dealing with has more issues and problems than you do yourself. Always be sympathetic to those issues. And do your best to brighten their day as much as you can. Use please and thank you THROUGHOUT your conversation. Keep smiling unless it is aggravating the other person. Use kind and gentle words. And if a tip is typical in the situation, tip generously.

I do NOT ascribe to the idea of tipping on par with the service rendered. In other countries people in service industries, especially food service, are paid a little better than here in North America. In this country employers seem to believe that waiters, waitresses, busboys, luggage handlers, drivers, doormen and women, and a host of others work harder to be compensated in tips. Some might. But most work hard regardless.

Never, NEVER poorly tip a service provider because you think their service wasn't up to your expectations. Tell them so, but be generous anyway. That does much more good than shortchanging them. Tell them you were disappointed in the service you got and why, but then give them a nice tip and you will embarrass them. Do not ascribe to the thought that poor tipping results in better service. It actually works the opposite.

But more than the effect on the service provider is the effect on yourself. Be sure one day all of us are going to be judged not by what others did to us, but by what we did to others. By early in life getting into a habit of treating every person you encounter like they were your best friend and the one person in your life you would not want to wound will we see civility begin to creep back into society.

And please don't be the last person to poorly tip the waitress that is currently waiting on me!

Just words?

Sticks and stones

I would imagine anyone reading this blog is acquainted with the adage “Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.” And I am just as sure anyone reading this blog knows that the statement is wrong on several levels. I am not going to address the recipient of words but rather talk about the pronouncer of words in this blog. And specifically, Christian pronouncer of words.

I realize there is always a shifting or migration or even evolution if you will of all languages. And I am aware that with each succeeding generation the use of words change and evolve in meaning. What was once really good became “bad” in spoken language of many people late in the 20th century. Good could also be “hot,” “rad,” “righteous” and “radical.”

A host of words I learned in elementary school changed meaning by the time I reached high school and college. Most of them retained their original meaning while broadening out to include other meanings. And for the most part they were words that carried with them a sort of clique or following. To really understand some conversations one needed to be “schooled” in the broadening use of the words. If you hung out with the right or wrong crowd you'd become versed in new uses for old words.

But in this blog I want to address specifically what I feel are words that Christians really should not use. Again, this is my opinion and my stand. I refuse to let the use of these types of words jaundice my view of one's Christianity or spirituality. But it does hurt me when I hear people that claim to love God and claim to know Jesus using this type of language.

Nearly all of the words I find undesirable and distasteful are words that gentlemen and ladies did not use a few decades ago, regardless of their spiritual standing.

During my lifetime and my Christian walk I have been personally convicted that pretty much any word spoken in anger, frustration, panic and retort are words that mostly need to not be said. So many people, myself included for a very long time, resorted to using words similar in sound or structure to curse words or dirty words.

Dirty words I see as words that name body parts or body functions in a pejorative way. You know what they are.

I believe when we are suddenly angered or hurt or surprised or wronged in some way the very best thing to say is nothing. If necessary, bite one's tongue can have a much better outcome than yelling an expletive.

In my personal speech I have worked quite hard to eliminate words like, “dang,” “darn,” “dadgummit,” and more. Any word or phrase that includes a deity’s name or position or power is improper for a Christian unless that person in in the act of true worship. Words that employ synonyms and by words for intimacy should never be used by a Christian. Words that speak of body parts other than true medical words should not be in the vocabulary of a Christian. If you need to say something about a breast, as in sharing your own or a companion's situation with breast cancer, then use the word. Otherwise you most likely don't need to even be talking about breasts. And the words tit or boobs for breast are an affront. 

While working in a hardware department I sometimes needed to use the words tit or teats to describe tools or hardware. I often got a funny look when I did. I knew the person who gave me the look had a different meaning in their tainted mind.

I have some very close friends who taught their three young children to use language like defecate and urinate to describe bodily functions, but only when it was necessary to speak of those bodily functions. I applaud them. They gave their children early on the ability to speak of normal things that happen to us all in an unembarrassing way that they can use their entire lives. I bite my own tongue when I hear parents ask their children if they need to poopoo or peepee.

I realize that the word bastard is a legitimate word and has an exacting descriptive meaning. But unless you are describing such a male animal or human it is very inappropriate.

I particularly dislike the shorten version of damnation in any of it's variations.

I do not like the vulgar word shit at all. It makes me mad in fact. To this day, January 29, 2013 if you look up the word in any accredited dictionary you will find it falls into the category of an English word that is considered “vulgar and profane in Modern English. As a noun it refers to fecal matter (excrement) and as a verb it means to defecate or defecate in; in the plural ("the shits") it means diarrhea.”

But the worse offending word in the English language vilifies the most sacred and intimate act male and female creatures engage in. If you would look up the etymology 
of the word, and you consider yourself Christian, there is no way you can use or think it again. It means forced and abusive intimate relations with the additional intent of hurting, wounding and maiming. It is a word that can be traced back to Old German meaning among other things “to strike.” It's first appearance is thought to be in a poem written about 1475 accusing certain church officials of lewd conduct.

A similar word that needs to be expunged from Christians vocabulary is “suck,” as in “that sucks.” And alongside is the expression, “kissing up.”

I worked for several years in a place where cursing was the norm. I took such a strong
and vocal stand against it before I left most of the employees would not curse around me. 
I did make a difference. You can as well.

Some scriptures you may want to think about. All KJV.

Matthew 12:35-37 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

Ephesians 5:4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.

Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

Healing Words Proverbs 12:18
Kind Words Proverbs 12:25
Gentle Words Proverbs 15:1
Pleasant Words Proverbs 16:24
Patient Words Proverbs 25:15
Thankful Words Ephesians 5:4
Encouraging Words Ephesians 4:29
Words of Truth Ephesians 4:25
Words in Love Ephesians 4:15
Words of Praise Psalm 30:4
Words Without Deceit Psalm 32:2
Words that Sustain the Weary Isaiah 50:4

Are we following the wrong guide?

I've been reading and studying lately and doing a lot of cross examination of my own beliefs and spiritual understanding. Without retelling my background and only saying I am now on the back slope of my 63^rd year and would hope that anyone who reads my blogs will not regard my positions of faith haphazardly.

I chafe at Christians who put their spiritual guidance and destiny into an hour or so on Sunday mornings. In fact, I doubt the authenticity of such. It is my firm position that one's spiritual well being cannot be maintained using external stimulus. I am convinced that a person's intimacy with God is fully dependent on their own individual two way communication with God.

That is not to belittle church attendance, I am a strong advocate of faithful and consistent church attendance and involvement. But it alone can not support spirituality.

I was in the 8^th grade when I encountered the first conflicts between what I was being taught in the home and in church and what I could see and hold in the world around me. I readily confess that seeing and holding the world around does require some enlightenment and training. Just as looking at schematic or blueprint requires training to “see” the circuitry or piping the schematic represents or the structure the blueprint describes, so looking at the world around one's self requires some education on what one is really seeing.

The best example of this to me, and one of the most amazing things to observe, is a road cut in a mountain range. I easily and often see in my mind's eye a certain very high, 340 feet high actually, road cut in Maryland in the Allegheny mountains. This road cut is on the north side of Route 40 and is absolutely spectacular. Quoting Wikipedia verbatim:

“Sideling Hill is a syncline mountain, in a region of downward-folded (synclinal) rock strata between two upfolded anticlines. The ridge is capped by an erosion-resistant conglomerate and sandstone of Mississippian (early Carboniferous) geologic age, the Purslane Sandstone of the Pocono Formation. The ridge's slopes are formed of much more easily eroded kinds of rock, including the Devonian-Mississippian Rockwell Formation, with long, narrow valleys paralleling the ridge on either side.”

Now if some of that verbiage gives you pause then for you to understand what you see when you view Sideling Hill you need a little education. I remember specifically the first time I really took notice of Sideling Hill. I was traveling from Maryland to West Virginia and had a few years earlier finished my college days where I had principally studied geology.

I nearly drove off the road looking at this awesome road cut. It was spectacular. And as I stared at it and tried to drive (you approach the road cut for at least ¾ of a mile on either side) I saw many features that I recognized from my studies. I know for sure I passed that road cut a number of times before, but they were all before I had taken a full regimen of geology courses. I was just this time seeing the road cut through educated eyes. What a difference.

And while my geological education came later in life, I was learning things in the 8^th grade that allowed me to see things in plant, animal and soil life cycles that my Christian training was not addressing. Thus began a life long interest and passion in anthropology, geology, cosmology and evolution. And as I began to see more and more evidence of things around me concerning these sciences I began diligently trying to mesh them with theology.

Happily, I have never had a problem reconciling each with the other. Many people have had a problem with me, however. I have been set aside by family and some friends because of my views. Not as many friends as family, I will say. You can pick your friends using some judgment but sometimes don't have that luxury with family.

All of that said, the last several months I have been spending much time, often many hours at night, such as tonight, researching ancient manuscripts by way of books and articles written by very bright textual critics (not critics as in critical of but critics as in critical examiners) who examine older manuscripts for errors resulting from a host of circumstances.

I am not going to go into the multiple reasons the manuscripts were changed, if you don't believe me you will need to educate yourself and that will involve much time on your part. Suffice it to remind the reader that any written document was copied by hand until the invention of movable type. The first known movable type system was developed in China around 1040. Gutenberg introduced his movable type in 1450. So for all of man's history of writing copies before that time were made by hand.

Even the introduction of movable type didn't free the copy process from copy error. The type had to be set by hand. Only with the very lately invented extremely accurate scanning and transmitting of information has copying begun to take on any semblance of presumed accuracy.

Learning to “see” textual errors in manuscripts also takes extraordinary skills developed through education, training and experience. Since I have not gone that route, and certainly don't see myself as having the time, I rely on reputable scholars to find, examine and publish problems in scriptural documentation. Then I can learn from their commitment to the investigation. If you are interested, I can supply you with a number of highly regarded textual critics who have published volumes of works describing the errors and problems contained within every modern translation of the scriptures.

Now for the kicker. Everything I've said to this point is only the prelude to what I really want to address.

What I want to say with certainly for anyone reading this is that I have discovered the real guide to spiritual living. Perhaps I have come upon it much later than you, but from what I observe around me, very few, if any, of the Christian community understand this concept. If they did, there would be no mention of the Bible as inerrant or in the words of most, “God's ordained words.”

Here is what I know now. The Holy Spirit is our guide, not the printed words in the bible. The Bible is used to dictate everything from how people come to God, to how people should dress, to where they should go and the list is endless with fundamentalists and realists. And the scary part is that a lot of people proclaiming what the Bible means in our lives aren't equipped to understand it.

Yes the Bible is a wonderful tool. And yes we can find instruction, comfort and guidance within it's pages. But it is not the final word. The Holy Spirit is the final word. The Holy Spirit is instantly accessible and omnipresent.

The Bible that has been passed down to us was written by people. The Bible that has been passed down to us has been copied thousands of times by people. Many, perhaps most of the copiers of the ancient documents were not literate. They were trained to simply copy an image. You see the letter, and you copy the letter.

Complicating the process is the fact that some of the earlier languages, especially Greek in it's several variants, did not use spaces between words. And much of the Greek was written in all upper case letters. Even if the scribe executing the copy was literate, he would have to be extremely familiar with not only the language but the context and the environment that the image he was copying was written in. If certain concepts and ideas were not familiar to a scribe, he may mistake a word as being incorrect or misspelled and alter it for clarity.

Many places in the four Gospels accounts of events were altered by scribes to “align” them to each other, in spite of the fact that many events remain with discordant descriptions between the gospel authors.

People claim, and the Bible itself claims, that all of the words were inspired by God. I do not contest that at all. I am very suspect of the idea that the very words recorded were God's actual words to the author. I certainly believe God impressed ideas and concepts, laws and guidelines on the author's mind in the region of the brain that facilitates what religion frequently calls the heart. But the fleshing out into structured current language of the day was done by the author within the limitations the author understood at the time.

Every writer that ever lived wrote from the recesses of their mind, their heart if you want to use that simile, but their words were influenced by thousands if not millions of circumstantial and environmental influences they had accumulated their entire lives and were currently experiencing. No one can write what they can not conceptualize.

For those who ascribe to KJV only, get real. You aren't thinking through the process. If God wanted His Words recorded for all time don't you believe He would have made provision for the preservation of them? If that had been done we would not be able to back track through the manuscripts and find so many variations.

I have of late come to the very disconcerting realization that many Christians worship their translation of scripture more than they worship the creator of all things. The Bible, with all it's amazing power and wonder, is still just part of creation. In areas that are problematic and controversial the Holy Spirit takes care them.

Please get over the idea that one Bible is superior to all others. They are all useful and beneficial if treated with due respect and not elevated to unjustifiable esteem. Only the trinity is worthy of highest esteem.

The originals are gone, darling.

Pretty hard to believe all of the time that has passed since I last blogged. So many things has happened in my life I hardly know where to begin to catch up. I'd like to catch it up, for my own clarity and not so much for anyone else's. I see the last time I blogged was in August of last year. It was also interesting to me that I mentioned nothing of my cancer. Probably because it was at least secondary in my priorities then. My emergent priority in my life has become very clearly the acquisition and understanding, as well as can be ascertained at this point, what are the original scriptures and how do they impact us in the present. In the midst of all this research into what scripture scholars have written about the ancient manuscripts I have had to maintain my own faith and grasp of what God and salvation means to me personally.

While I want to know the deeper sola scriptura as scholars call it, I am convinced it is not necessary for salvation because God in his omnipotent wisdom has managed the thousands of changes and errors to not impede or invalidate the message that has come down to us today. Even though it is very obvious to those who are willing to examine the manuscripts through the ages that the scriptures we have in hand today are quite different than the scriptures mankind began with. But the more important issue is that most Christians do not have the inclination to dig very deep into the scriptures. Today's Christians are much more inclined to be of an instant gratification mindset which is a product of the fast pace lifestyle we lead. We want things now, and we want it with minimum effort and input of our own resources. We are so used to fast results in every part of our lives, having to spend considerable time in reaching goals is something akin to alien to us.

But the greatest lesson I have learned in my 35 or 40 year journey down this path is that nothing I learn is handed to me. It takes digging, considering, cross checking, verifying, proving and careful understanding of words, terms and concepts I have not known before. I do all of my research with several resources at hand to help me grasp what I am reading. I have even had to abandon books and articles until was able to shore up my foundation in that particular venue or vernacular. I sometimes find myself ordering books or finding articles that bring my understanding up to a level that permits my understanding of the topic I had begun.

It has been a arduous journey thus far, and I find now I have only begun to scratch the surface of the knowledge base that is in print already. I am hopelessly behind and can never live long enough to catch up. But I am pleased to find I am absorbing enough to be able to move within topics that a few years ago I would have been dumbfounded with.

Romans 11:33 NLT reads “Oh, how great are God's riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!”

So for all that I learn, I also am aware that it is an impossible task to mine the depths of the scriptures. One of the interesting things about scripture that stays in my mind as I search is the fact that all of the ancient manuscripts have been massaged and interpreted by the thousands of scribes and scholars who's task it was to copy the manuscripts. Some of them did great good in combining, realigning and merging the fragmented and often misaligned documents into more understandable, reliable and meaningful text, but others, consciously and often unconsciously, rendered documents invalid and thus ineffective by misinterpreting earlier words and phrases.

But through all of the changes, good and bad, the essential message of the scriptures have remained the same. When examining the scriptures in today's world, we have to separate what are essential to salvation and what isn't. Way too many groups are putting far to much emphasis on scriptures that are so dissimilar from the original manuscripts they are no longer meaningful.

I have been carefully reading a book by religious scholar Bart Ehrman titled “Misquoting Jesus.” The subtitle is “The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.” If you are one of the multitudes who ascribe to modern day translations as being correct to the originals I would invite you read this book carefully. How anyone can claim in this enlighten time that we might have printed material that is faithful to the denotation of the original writings of the Bible escapes me. I would love for you to tell me that with a straight face. If you can, you are miserably mistaken.

There is no possible way any of the original texts from the Bible authors are still in existence. And even what we have shows problems within itself. I would direct your attention to the two completely different stories of creation we have in nearly every modern translation, including ALL forms of the King James Version. Look at the first two chapters of Genesis if you doubt it. Chapter 1 has the full creation story laid out in day by day sequence. Chapter two repeats the creation story but claims different events on different days. So which one is correct? I am confident to say neither is completely correct. Both narratives leave out an incalculable amount of creative events, transitions, and sequences because the writers had no grasp or understanding of them. They could not speak to things they knew not of. And this is only one of thousands of examples.

Let me illustrate one concept that Christians want to sidestep in order to make the Biblical creation story fit their own ideas. Suppose I describe to you something very old in it's lifespan, something like, say a car. The Hudson Motor Car Company produced automobiles from 1909 through 1957 in Detroit, Michigan. In 1954 the Hudson Motor Car Company merged with the Nash-Kelivnator Corporation to form American Motors, but the Hudson name was carried through the 1957 model year then dropped.

If I was to produce a paper describing the 1917 Hudson Phaeton in great detail, you still would be hard pressed to see it in your mind's eye without any pictures or drawings. But if I found a 1917 Hudson Phaeton buried somewhere in a field, pretty corroded and rotted away, I could recover it and you would then have a much better idea about what the automobile looked like in 1917. Sure, it would not be in great shape, and parts may be entirely gone due to rot and corrosion, but you would have much better understanding of how beautiful and magnificent the 1917 Hudson Phaeton was.

But Christians want to reject all of the remains of ancient animals, humans and plant life and pretend they are not real or representative of real living creatures and creations. I am saddened when Christians reject fossils and remains discovered in the earth and call them all kinds of things other than what they are. They are the remains of real, living creatures who actually occupied our earth thousands and yes millions of years ago.

But instead of believing in real remains and impressions of remains Christians want to reject them and hold to an extremely incomplete story of a 144 hour process because they have the idea that by laying aside an elementary story of creation they will somehow invalidate the creator and the rest of the Bible.

To quote the last words of an old altar call song we sang ½ billion times, “Oh how sad.”

I wish I could find then afford a restored 1949 Hudson sedan. In Burgundy, yes, a 1949 factory color.