There's No Break Room

Andy works at a company in which space is limited.  There is no break room.  In fact, Andy's break room is actually inside of the delivery entrance, inside the kitchen, inside the storeroom and inside 4 offices.  How can this be, you ask Andy?

Well, there's one big room.  And it's where everything behind the scenes is done.  But it's also where everything behind the scenes is stored.  And it's also where 4 full-time people are trying to get their work done.

Andy has noticed two distinct ways of coping with this situation.  He won't exactly call it a hostile work environment if he's in a good mood.  But if Andy is in a bad mood, he will tell you that this place, which is a great place to work, has a hostile work environment.  Andy doesn't like things just everywhere and anywhere.  The first time he walked into the back room, he was dismayed at the difference between what the public see and what the employees see.  This wasn't the charming Disney discrepancy of utilitarian 1970s warehouse contrasted with tourist kitsch.  This clutter was too close to home.  This clutter reminded him of his own house.

As he reads "Feeling Good" and "When Panic Attacks" by David Burns, Andy is also cleaning up his house.  This will help Andy.

Go Andy, Go.

Thoughts On the Title Page of A Study Of History

A Study Of History by Arnold J. Toynbee, abridgement of Volumes I-VI by D. C. Somervell is a major trip.

As mentioned in a previous post, it was "issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs."  These people are so country-centric that they don't even say the city of their origin; much less which version of Royalty started them.  I assume they're in London along with the division of time.

That would make sense.


The actual capitalization of A Study of History is intriguing to me as capitalization always is, if I happen to notice it.

A STUDY OF
HISTORY

it says.

The author's name is in call caps too, but so is the word 'by.'

There are no small caps (like LORD in most Bibles).

The phrase in Latin is particularly eye-catching because of its use of spacing and abbreviation.  Because Google Blogger doesn't believe in the Tab key, or maybe because I haven't found out a better way to do this, I'm going to have to approximate the spacings.

                                                                                           Doloris
                                                    Sopitam recreant volnera viva animam.  
                                                                                                     Anon. 

Taking into account the way the spacing is translated by HTML into the blogger interface after I click the 'Publish' button, the spacing will probably be completely different.  But it seems arbitrary to me on the title page from 1947 that I'm typing it from.

So go figure.

I don't think any title page, created by OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
                                                                   New York & London

in 1947 has anything on it at all that is arbitrary.  I firmly believe that I just don't understand their rules.

Not only do I hate italics.  But Google Blogger turns them back on after I press the 'Return' key.  Excuse me, it's the 'Enter' key and
it just did it right now.

Why in the world would I want italics to come back in to play after I've toggled it off?  The mind boggles.

There it did it again.

I have toggled the italic button off several times, but only toggled it on once.  Once, I tell you!  Once!

   

I Love McDonoo's

My little cousin used to call it McDonoo's, which is my way of transliterating the way he would say it at about age 5.  It rhymes with the last syllable of Cheerios, so maybe it should be spelled differently.

Anyway, he liked the place and I've always liked the place.

Yesterdee, some of us went rather far away to see a movie.  Money is tight so I figured by choosing to go I was using a lot of gas money.  The lunch site was a little pricey for my current budget so I decided to catch a $2.00 meal at Mickey D's, which I also call Mac Donald's, with the emphasis on the Mac.

I saw a poster for the $1.39 ice coffee (is it actually iced instead of ice?) and really wanted one.  I've been proud of myself for drinking less of it, and for filling up the cup with mostly unsweet to go, but since the promotion has been in place for the low price, I think I've only ordered it twice.  I have the belief that the coffee and half and half are constructive but that there is too much sugar in my diet, and I avoid fake sugar.  But I really wanted one.  My choices seem to hover between what I want and what I think I should have.  And they're so out of whack, I can't tell when I crave something for a good reason or a bad.  Maybe the problem is assigning good and bad to everything rather than determining when something is helpful.

I was spoken to by the gentleman behind me in the line and he was a Believer, telling me all about what I need to read.  I suppose since I had a book in my hand he felt justified.  I vacillate between wanting to talk to strangers and wanting not to talk to strangers.  I had no compulsion to avoid him, but wasn't sure if I wanted to speak.

He mentioned Matthew 6- I suppose that's birds of the air and lilies of the field.  I think the line that Solomon dressed in royal robes wasn't as arrayed as these, but I'm not sure if that's where that verse lives.  I do know that the birds don't store food and the lilies have what they need to wear without worrying about it.  The subject was panic attacks, since I had Dr. Burns' book in my hand, "When Panic Attacks."

The gentleman told me about his neighbor who needed to call 911 for her panic attack.  I am so grateful I haven't gotten to that point.  For true, if I do ever feel like I need to call 911 for that reason, what could ever talk me out of it?  What can they do?  But how does one convince oneself otherwise?  In a way, if you think you need 911, you really need something, even if it's not 911 that can help you.

The gentleman, whose name I forget- maybe Bob? mentioned Psalm 23 and another Psalm also- "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life" in another translation, and some other verses too.  I couldn't decide if we were making a scene which would help or hurt the Gospel, and that's probably my problem.  If I'm doing what I think I need to be doing, am I making a scene or actually doing what I need to be doing.

I don't think God has an opinion about what I eat for breakfast every day.  Yet, I really don't think He wants me to eat at McDonoo's all the time.  I loved the Sausage McMuffin for $1.20 I think, and the ice or iced coffee for $1.39.  I do think it is wise to eat less at a time and less overall right now, figure out when I'm truly hangry, hungry or hungris rather than bored, happy, sad, thinking of food or wanting to taste something.

Then I left the line with my all-day available breakfast and lo and behind there were two gentlemen I was going to meet at the movies later.  They were already there.  We had a nice conversation as a Republican, a silent man and a jaded political agnostic.  I got the Republican to agree with me on several issues. 

Both parties are evil.  (I don't think he used that word.)
Each party is in business to keep themselves in business and the best way to do that is to keep the other one in business.
Most politicians have sold their soul at least a few times before they get to the point that the public is aware of them.  (I don't think he actually agreed with the severity, but the spirit of the comment.

I said Trump is running to get attention, help Hillary and maybe even win.  My compatriot did not disagree.

The movie was good by the way.  Tom Thanks played a great guy.  I still want him to play Nixon in a sympathetic light, based on that biography that shows he wasn't a monster.  I tend to believe Nixon was a monster, but deep down I know this isn't true.  He must have been a man and I think it would help the United States (or is it The United States) to realize this.

The movie, "Bridge of Spies" told America that the Constitution (or is it The Constitution) is worth preserving.  I think that's great.

Big Oil and Big Pharm

I recently went to an exhibit of art that was presumably commenting on big business.  There were logos of global corporations that had been altered to be provocative or ironic.  Dunkin' Donuts was used to comment on police brutality (I guess that's what it was about) and Sherwin Williams logo of a paint can poured out on top of the globe was used to illustrate oil's power over us.  So I suppose that's why when I heard a crinkling wrapper being opened behind me in a quiet auditorium it occurred to me that the oil companies had plotted to make petroleum products cheap and plentiful to drive us mad with all that noise so that we would buy more crazy pills to keep us sane.  Perhaps big oil and big pharm are in cahoots on this.  They both seem to be doing rather well for themselves.  Like the Democrats and Republicans, maybe they're each in business to keep the other one wealthy.

That's Aweful

I was turning around on Sand Lake Road that was packed with cars and scurrying tourists and on the radio, a speaker said that fear is a type of worship.

Christian radio is funny.  Some of it is great, and some of it is just like secular radio in that it's filled with fear-mongering.  This person was explaining that when we fear something, it is because we are actually paying homage to that object, putting that thing above ourselves or letting it dictate what we do.  It's a form of worship.

Suddenly I thought of all the fear in my life.  I don't want to be anxious for anything, but I am.  And that is idolatry.  That is giving power to something else, which may be a fact, but ignoring the Truth.  The Truth is that I am a child of God and know that God is in control and need to trust that I am provided for.  I need to trust the authorities and system and circumstances that I'm in if I am to trust God.  If God is in control, then fear is doubting his power or control.

If I'm stuck in the past I am living under the power of things that have happened and not the Thing that is; the great I AM, the God of the living, the God who is in power now.  If I am paralyzed by fear of doing the wrong thing than I am putting myself and my choices and my decisions over and above the power of God who will give me what I need to do whatever I need to do.  Joyce Meyer said yesterday or the day before on the radio that we have been given what we need to do what we need to do, so if we don't know what we should do, it's probably because we should wait.  "God is seldom early, but never late."

It occurred to me in Wendy's that it's not my job to give a million dollars to an orphanage because I don't have a million dollars.  This is so simple it's easy to miss.  I think people think of what they could do because it's easier than thinking of what they can do.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

I've often been told that the meaning of the word fear is two-fold and that the word has changed since King James.  And I think this is true.  But I also think that we are to fear the Lord.  Dr. J. Vernon McGee, the common-sense Dr. Philiest Christian radio Will Rogers/Mark Twain guy, says at TTB.org, every single day- that we need to do what God says, not try to fix ourselves with courses or rationalizations or our own thinking.  It starts with admitting that although we know some things, God knows more and He's not our buddy.  The word awe has also changed.  Awe has slipped over into awful; the terrifying aspect of fear- and from there it's been watered down to mean something disgusting or unsettling.  But something that is truly awful or aweful is getting our attention and our fear.  We're scared of something bigger than us.

The most common thing great beings say to humans in the Bible is not to fear.  Yet we are commanded to fear God, not look at Him and try to be as holy as possible in His presence.  Again, the concept of Parent comes in to play.  The role of the child is to listen and be loved.  I'm trying to remember when I was in awe of my parents.  I think I always knew that I was just like them, but younger and less experienced.  There must have been a time that I didn't know that; before language certainly if not up until eight, but I have no memory of that.  This is a fundamental disrespect for authority.  I think we all have it, but most of us remember when we didn't.  I don't remember being disillusioned that my parents weren't all-powerful.  I just remember as if it was constant- the disappointment that we all are.

The Father relationship is helping me to come to grips with what God is.  But it's only part of the picture.  I can become a father.  And thinking about that has also helped me understand God.  But I can't become the Father that is God.  I can choose to follow, but I can't choose whether or not to breathe his air.  I can choose to listen, but I can't make my own lungs (as J. Vernon McGee pointed out a week or so ago).

Recently there was in the news a story about a woman who was placed in a coffin and then woke up.  She screamed and her relatives broke into the grave and took her to the hospital and then she died.  Now that's awful.  There are a lot of awful things in the world and I tend to have one of them on my mind.

Last night I dreamt about that one.  Here is the dream as much as I could capture; since the laptop is on and right near me when I wake up:

Friday January 15, 2016

I am walking along from outside to inside a barnlike structure that has a black dirt floor.  There is a pile of office chair wheels there; about 20 of them.  A black lady, professional, is sitting in the room, going throush the black dirt she has before her on her desk, in a wooden box, looking at what seems to be pieces of shells, off-white almost whole spiral shells about as big as a quarter.  I am with someone else, a co-worker and we ask what the pile of wheels is there for.  The black lady in that room says that she thinks the room used to be used for a prayer group here at our work and I think that she is making a roundabout comment about the inappropriateness of religion in the workplace by inferring that a bunch of fat yeasty white women sat around and broke their chairs, and I thought this was ridiculous and couldn't be the explanation because why would anybody just leave their broken office chair wheels sitting there, in a pile in the black dirt, a little way away from the floor of the room, much less about 20 times, since that many wheels are there now?

I mention this to my co-worker as we leave that room and the black lady behind.  We go into another room and talk about what the black lady had been doing back there.  The person I'm with says that those were not shells.  And then the person is actually the lady who was working with those items, and she has them with her and knows all about them.  She explains that there is a study going on by Columbia University of these items, which I can see in front of me now, are little round plastic hard disks.  They look like fake ivory.  She explains that they are not plastic, but actual nipples taken from a men's ruby team without much pain, by using a pistol.  I laugh uncomfortably and don't see how this could be.  I am with a little cousin, looks like Danyse about six years old.  It is explained that there is a solution of liquid put on each one as an experiment, many times over the years and that data is recorded and and it's important for science.  I want to know about the men without a nipple.  I say this is important.  Beauty is all about symmetry.  Did they grow their nipples back?  Is there just a blank spot where the nipple was?  Danyse, picks up one and we're touching them now, but they seem so un-flesh like, such a hard plastic, and she isn't sure what a nipple is.  She puts it up to her belly button and realizes that's not where it comes from, then figures it out and puts it down in funny disgust. 

I start to think of the true life story where the lady in South America wakes up in her coffin and screams after being buried, is taken out, taken to the hospial and died later and I decide I need to tell my family not to bury me except without doing something to make sure I'm really dead or will die quickly if I wake up.  Stuff my mouth and nose full of cotton, or place me in the ground without a coffin and fill it up with dirt, making it impossible to breathe.  I realize there is family around and run into the room to tell them, but it is just that black lady who knew about the nipples and I don't know if I should tell her or not, and wake up anxious.

In the dream I am at work but not working, there is a university study going on and in both situations I am close to authority but not submitted to it.  I question the validity of the only semi-authority figure in the dream.  Her opinion about the wheels laying there seems ridiculous.  I assume she doesn't want faith in the work or academic worlds and that she's going to a lot of work for nothing.

I'm reading the work of Arnold Ehret (29 July 1866 – 10 October 1922) and think that in a few remarkable cases, the body heals itself through a fast and since the advent of the coffin those people wake up into the hell of being trapped; which may or may not be followed up by going to Hell.  Is there anything worse?

There's the phrase dead ringer, and before the embalming process.... well, I don't want to think about it.

This is current fear of mine; not of death, but awakening into being trapped in a coffin- well it is not something I need to think about.  It could be the basis for zombie and vampire lore, and it could be another reason just to bury people in the dirt and not fill the earth with chemicals and wooden boxes.  But I'm not engaging in burial reform or studying the undead.  

The current fear is giving worship, or power, or control, or magnifying- a terrible thought that is a possibility.  Whether or not the fear is possible, there is no good reason to give it this power.

The other day TTB.org's J. Vernon McGee says a man is supposed to worship his wife.  Are we supposed to fear our wives?  I don't think so.  I think worship is giving honor, praise, recognizing status, etc.  And that's what we're supposed to give to people and ultimately God- not to thoughts and choices and perplexing conundrums.  Worry, anxiety, fear- is all idolatry.  It's putting the circumstance above Providence; the pride of place in making the right decision yourself above the system God has created, and the idol of the way things could be or could have been above and more important than now.

All we ever have is now.

All we ever have is God made.  Genesis 1 is a very small introduction to the past.  It encapsulates 2 thousand to 200 million years.  According to McGee again, the words about the past are so few because it's not important.  The story of man, and the story of the Man Christ are what is important.  That's why the whole thing telescopes into so much information about his last three days.  The story gets faster and faster and faster until the Passion, which is layed out before us in four ways.  Two words or three describe the creation of galaxies and then whole chapters describe a day.

This is leading us to now.  We are now.  In this moment we can choose to acknowledge that Christ is working currently, alive after living here on this planet awhile, or we can see only ourselves; our problems or our successes or just us.  Is it just us, or is it Justice?  Is it I am or is it I AM?

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If you don't remember the 1970s, this will give you a taste of what it was like. I'm coming to think that perhaps Diana Ross was the most important entertainer of the 20th century. She wasn't the most successful, but she did very very well. What she did that was so important was that she bridged the gap between all around entertainers that could sing and dance and do both comedy and drama, and do all of it well..... and the stars that came later who did one thing very well. First, she ruled as the Lady Supreme, which ended the girl group era on a high note with her crowning achievements there. The accolades concerning The Supremes are only comparable to those of The Beatles, and clearly they were not white men. We're talking about a time in American history when some people could only drink out of certain water fountains, sit at the back of buses and walk through service entrances rather than the front door. Secondly, she became a Disco Diva- and one of the best. This hilarious clip falls in between her first and second incarnations. After this clip, Diana Ross took her place among the top three of all disco divas. And none of them had any successes comparable to what she had already accomplished. And she was not done. For a third iconic transformation, she became a 1980s ballad/anthem songstress and was one of the best of those as well. She toured with Pavarotti, for heaven's sake, despite the clear genre difference. She could do everything asked of her, except fail to sparkle, just like the stars of yesterday- Judy Garland, Lucille Ball, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby.... and yet she holds her own competitively when compared to greats of the subsequent decades like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Madonna and Mariah Carey. You could also compare her career to those of Elvis, Barbra Streisand or Liza Minnelli. You may have a favorite who is not on this list, but the stats are undeniable. Compare her career to anyone's. And she is still performing and sounding better now than she did in 1968, NOW, in 2016 at the age of 71.

If

If you don't see the glory of God anywhere, you're not looking.

 Wisdom from Dr. J. Vernon McGee today from TTB.org:

“The human heart resents criticism.  Human nature rebels against judgement being passed on ‘em.  We like to be handed a passel of little rules and regulations, and that’s the reason all of these little courses are so popular today; because Christians want to be legalistic whether they know it or not.  They don’t want to live by grace.  Give ‘em a few little rules that they can go by- and we have as a result, a group of Band-Aid believers today.  They just put this little Band-Aid on and they think that that’s all they need to heal a broken leg or something.   

Why?  Because this old nature that you and I have, it will purr like a pussy cat when flattered, but it will bristle like a porcupine when failure to do a job is recorded.  And that’s the reason that the present position of Christ and his contemporary work, as One who inspects us, is largely ignored by the Church.

He occupies the position as Judge of the Church and members.  And he does not flatter.  He does not ignore what he sees.  He doesn’t shut his eyes to sin and that which is wrong.  His constant charge and command to His Church, as we’re going to see:

Repent!  Change!  Or I’ll come to you and I’ll remove your lampstand.  And the Church as smarted and squirmed under this indictment down through the ages and still does. 

It’s a natural resentment that’s in the heart.”