Love

I love the clamor of the voices of my children
I love the rain
I love an open window in the middle of winter
I love the heft of a half dozen quilts on my frigid skin
I love pears
I love the smell of a new book
I love the smell of an old book
I hate newspapers
I love the laughter of my daughter
I love the strength of my sons
I love the glory of God in my lack
I love His words to my heart
I love the tenderness in His speech
I love my parents
I love coats and haircuts and a clean shave and clean clothes
I hate allergies

Post Election

What disturbs me most I think is what the other side thinks of Trump and by extension what they must think of people like me. But I don't think the problem is sexism or racism. That's a lazy way to dehumanize an opponent. The truth reaches much deeper than that. In the past eight years we've seen a lot. Too much to let slide:

We pulled out of a stable situation in Iraq and allowed Isis to rise, leading to hundreds if not thousands of horrible acts of murder and violence to happen everywhere, including here in the states.

We've seen a President take the side of violent criminals, sending a message to everyone that violence will be condoned. What did we get? Riots wholesale, bringing with them murder and a level of contempt and hatred for those sworn to protect us I could never have imagined.

We've seen a woman lie about the cause of an attack on one of our embassies while four men were brutally murdered and then callously ask, "What difference does it make?" as the media surrounded her and attempted to hide her ridiculous almost caricaturous attitude toward death.

We wanted no more.

We saw spending reach astronomic levels.

We saw our healthcare costs skyrocket despite numerous lies to the contrary.

Through all of this we watched a President golf, go on talk shows, cavort with celebrities, and treat the office of the Presidency like his own personal dictatorship, executing orders without process like no one in the history of this country.

There are apparently two different countries existing in America right now. We have two entirely sets of values. Some of us value "social justice". These values include fairness and equality, but with no regard to values that the rest of us feel are more important, like honesty, truth, or upholding the law. Those of us that feel this way wonder how can fairness and equality have any meaning if there is no honesty or truth or law.

I think what we like most about Donald Trump is his honesty. There is no compassion without honesty. There's no tolerance. There's no trust. There's nothing of any value in a person without honesty. But this is not what we have received from the Democratic Party for the past 8 years. We've been told nothing but lies. Even though I do not believe Donald Trump is a buffoon I'd rather have an honest buffoon than a compassionate liar

I could go on, but like some of you right now, I feel sick.

So, yeah, it must be racism. Or sexism. Whatever.

The New

There are a few things I remember vividly about being a child. Disneyland was wonderful the first time I went. The first time I hit a homerun was amazing. I thought Tanya in the 5^th grade was the prettiest girl I had ever known, and when she was friendly to me I literally lost my mind—mostly my words. I lost my words. Painful things are just as vivid.

My best friend in the 5^th grade was Chris, and that time I somehow offended him, and he suddenly wanted to fight me, I was devastated. I had not cried at school since probably preschool. 

When my father would call me and my brother “stupid” for not doing our chores, I was deeply wounded. It’s the new things that affect us.

There is little that is new anymore. I am dead to everything because it has happened dozens of times before. Disneyland isn’t as exciting. Having a crush on a girl is more agony than anything else. I avoid new friendships because it is difficult to trust new people. I don’t even play baseball anymore; I’m not sure that I would be able to contribute effectively to any team anyway. I just can’t find any new things to see or listen to or do anymore.

But that doesn’t stop me from trying. There is little that is truly new, but there are many new things. Entertainment offers relatively new experiences every now and then. Music, television, movies, and books present a nice diversion from the monotony of adult existence, but I’ve seen it all before in different masks many, many times. In entertainment, we find love, revenge, adventure, agony, heroism, friendship and other worthwhile yet repetitive themes. Maybe watching a sport will have something new! Wait. No.

Sin offers lots of new experiences. Sin abounds with new stuff. We have pornography, murder, abuse, power, deception, hatred…all of these and each of them in countless forms. I could go on but I won’t. We are all desperate for what is new, sometimes even if it means indulging in destructive behaviors. We need to be children again. We need to feel something. I know this firsthand.

What is it that new experiences offer? Rest, I think. Relief. Freedom, possibly. In new experiences we find purpose for existence.

I have not felt this before. I am glad I have existed long enough on this earth to experience this. What else am I missing?

New things remove me from the humdrum of life and they also give me relief from the anxieties therein. For a brief moment, I can enjoy what I have never known before. When I was a child there was much more to discover, either at home, or at school, at play, everywhere, but now...now there is life to live. There is no time to discover. There are responsibilities and commitments and duties and (for most people) significant relationships and none of these ever end.

Can I ever have anything new anymore? I most definitely can vicariously. I can create little versions of myself, or possibly adopt another’s child and mold him into a tiny version of myself. Then I can discover the world again through their eyes. Yes, it is definitely possible, though secondhand-ish.

Can I myself ever experience a single new thing? Is innocence possible again at this late stage? Can I unlearn the things I have learned? Can I trust? Can I risk a friendship or as a single man, a crush? Does only sin offer anything new? I think I may have some idea.

God is incomprehensible. His ways are inscrutable. They are always new. I always try to figure out God and predict what he will do, but I am always surprised. He is always new. I have discovered in 400-year-old Puritan texts things about Him that affect me more than Disneyland ever did. I find what is new in Him.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

We are new in Christ. We discover ourselves in Christ as we trust Him and as we become like Him. We discover purpose for our lives. We find rest and relief from the monotonous drudgery of existence. What we seek from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon we find in Him and in our hearts, not only on the weekend, but every day. He recreates innocence in us so that our mind is awake with wonder, and we do not need to indulge in self-destructive behavior any longer. He renews our trust in others by teaching us to trust Him. We no longer have anything to fear and we are free to discover His creation as if we were children again.

Miss Suzy

I am four years old and we live in a tiny house in San Jose, California. The name of the street is Singleton, and my best mate Dax is also my cousin and we often pretend to shoot the airplanes flying by with our finger guns. I envy his big house and his many shiny new Star Wars toys. I have Luke Skywalker with the blue lightsaber coming out of his arm. He has the Death Star.

Today my mother and I just dropped off my father in the early hours of the morning when the sun is long in the East and everything we see is gold. I’m tired this morning but my mother is beautiful and she makes me crispy cinnamon tortillas again and I listen to her fat tummy and she tells me my brother’s name will be David Nicolas. She then says she likes David the King but not David the Name so we will just call him Nick.

My father comes home bringing Orange and Grape Crush again, but I don’t drink too much because the carbonation is cruel in my mouth but I want to because the orange flavor is ridiculously sweet and terribly artificial and I am rarely allowed to drink this much soda at one time. He takes me outside where he is working on the little yellow Toyota Corona, Betsy was her name, and I step on the gas because I thought that would help him but he yells at me and I don’t know why. I think I frightened him.

My mom reads Miss Suzy to me for the dozenth time and I recite parts of the book to her. Miss Suzy is kind yet timid but she has help from the brave soldiers and everything works out for her.

Soon I will begin walking to Hillsdale School. It’s right down the street and I’m not scared but I always have nightmares about getting lost on the way home so maybe I am scared. I’m the smartest kindergartener in the class, smarter than most of the older kids, so the teacher is always proud to call on me even though I rarely raise my hand. We are learning Spanish together but I will forget most of it before the first grade.

I love my parents.

Descriptive Practice - Not a True Story

My mother’s flower garden sat at the top of her ranch in upper Santa Monica. The air was always clean and crisp there, possibly because of the ocean breeze wafting in every evening. My mother passed away in 1975, and we sold her home to some investors, but the memories are as clear as they ever were.

She had about a dozen orchids that would bloom beautifully late spring for about a week then mock us the rest of the year with their ugly brownish bulbs. I had always fantasized about tearing them out and replacing them with something simple and dependable like lilies. Mother didn’t care when they bloomed, as she would always say, “it’s not the length of time that we see them, but that we see them at all.” Mother was about as present as the orchids in our young lives.

When she did make time for her four children, we would spend most of it in and around this garden of hers. We called it a flower garden, but it was just our enormous backyard. We had the bright green spring grass that was barely high enough to cover the ants, but it felt nice on our feet. She called it her garden because she always imagined herself a Victorian dilettante, entertaining society while grazing on fresh fruit and old cheese. While she was alive we complained about her frequent visits to this boyfriend or that suitor or this function or that commitment, but after she passed we only remembered our times in the flower garden.

Vulnerability

Last Friday, my boss invited us all to work and offered us food and talked to us regarding vulnerability. He's new here after our last boss left abruptly a couple of weeks ago. I guess his schtick is vulnerability, because vulnerability is the path to creativity, innovation, and something else that I can't remember at the moment.

I'm a math teacher, but I do know a bit about vulnerability, so maybe I know about creativity.

The ironic thing is, he didn't demonstrate to us anything even remotely resembling vulnerability. "If you want to innovate, you must be vulnerable," he said and I agree with this. Trying new things is risky. Did he try anything new? Not really. He had us get into groups and write things on paper about what we wanted to see (at work, of course) and what we didn't want to see. Then he burned the things we didn't want to see. I've written on paper before and I've burned things before. I thought he was going to read those and I wrote on one, "Organizational vulnerability starts at the top." Oh well.

Did he say anything personal about himself, as in something that would make him vulnerable? Definitely not. Now this is something I can say "I know about that!", having been a member of the Mortifyingly Embarassing and Uncommonly Shameful Addictions Club for the past 19 years (actually longer, since I was literally a member before I knew I was a member).

If I were an alcoholic or a drug addict I don't think it would be as difficult as admitting to what I am actually addicted to, but admitting to these would definitely make me vulnerable. Admitting to a nervous breakdown, or to not having finished college in a room filled with college graduates would make me vulnerable. Maybe he overslept one time? Nope. There was nothing like that on Friday. Not even any allusion to any hint of a reference to any kind of weakness was mentioned. At all.

All of which left me kind of sad. I've been vulnerable before. It does take courage, or stupidity. I'm still not sure which. I wanted to be in a room with vulnerable people. I wanted to know that I wasn't alone. I know I'm not, in other venues, but at work, I am.

I have failed as no one I know ever has. I am a teacher in a room of other teachers, only I am older and have more years in the business, with far less to show for it. No one ever wonders why. I don't want them to wonder why, but I do want them to.

I don't want them to wonder, "Hey Mr Cortez has been teaching for 15 years, so why is he working part-time here? What has he been doing all this time? What happened to him?" Actually I do want them to wonder, but only if they are going to ask me directly. Otherwise I will be even more alone than I am now.

What have I been doing all this time? Trying hard to not be vulnerable. I tried to steel myself against failure. I didn't think I was capable of the kind of failure I have failed at, even though I failed at many things before I failed the really, really, really fantastic failure. I failed at sports mainly, and trying to be cool.

Not believing I would ever fail didn't work so well, so now I'm doing the opposite. I'm basically embracing failure. Every week I meet with other guys who have failed and we talk about our failures during the week. Sometimes we succeed and we talk about that. Once in a while we notice some guy hasn't been to our weekly meeting in a while and we hopefully conclude he just doesn't fail anymore. (Sometimes I secretly think the reason is exactly the opposite). Our group is all about vulnerability. It's the only place I can be myself, at least for now. I have trust issues. For me to be vulnerable is the most difficult thing possible, but I have to do it. I have to learn to trust not just other people, but myself.

After you've failed as much as I have, you don't believe success is even possible. I don't believe in any kind of personal success. I don't trust myself and I don't trust God and I categorically, emphatically, do not trust other people. At this point, where I am at my lowest, I have to risk the remnants of my sanity and self-worth and take the bravest step possible: I have to expose my failures to other men and be vulnerable.

I have to do this every week. More than once my lack of trust has been justified, but recently I've been able to address this directly. Most of the time I am able to breathe deeply and sink back down in my chair in relief. This week, these guys aren't berating me for being a schmuck. Thank God for them. Maybe I can trust them after all. Maybe I can trust God. Maybe I can trust myself.

No, Mr Boss didn't show any kind of vulnerability, and I don't think he's really going to get the kind of innovation and creativity he wants, but this isn't Apple and I only make $20 an hour so what does he expect anyway?

super garbage

Despite the logical consistency of [Calvinism and Augustinianism] and the renown of those who have taught it, the perspective has many fatal flaws...God is the only actor; humans are but characters in the novel...All participants in the storyline do exactly what the author determines. All have their traits laid out by and have no existence apart from the author. The plot moves inexorably to the end determined by the author. What he desires is precisely what occurs; there can be no variation.

John E Sanders, "God as Personal"

So this is a fatal flaw how?

Sanders begins his discussion with the idea of control beliefs. Control beliefs are the foundation to other beliefs. They are what shape and control our interpretation of the Bible. Does God change? Is He all powerful? Is He all-knowing? While he diligently questions the control beliefs of Calvinism, he neglects to do so with regards to Arminianism. Calvinism, he says, is subject to the beliefs of early Greek philosophers like Plato. Yet he completely assumes the truth of the beliefs of Arminianism, namely that in any interpretation Scripture, the will of man is always free and he must always determine his own destiny. Any other assumption is "fatal". The Bible never assumes the truth of free will, however.

After reading so many "Christian theologians" make this primary assumption without drawing attention to it or explicitly describing it, it bothers me far less than originally. They rarely make even a veiled attempt at upholding Scriptural truth. They create a different scripture entirely and a different God and they profess their belief in them. As such, they can say whatever they want. We do not believe in the same God; we do not believe in the same Bible. I will forever agree with an unbiased and literal interpretation of the Biblical text, however deterministic it seems, because I trust in the determination of God.

This is the real problem Arminians have with Calvinism. They do not trust God and they do not trust His will. In a contest between their will and His, they choose the importance and fallibility of their own.

pure garbage

If God has decreed all events, then it must be that things cannot and should not be any different from what they are. And if this is the case, what sense does it make to try to make a difference?
Exhaustive Sovereignty: A Practical Critique, by Randall Basinger

Notice the title of Basinger's essay isn't "Exhaustive Sovereignty: A Confirmation of Biblical Truth". No, far be it from Mr Basinger to uphold the plain truth of Scripture which says in numerous passages that God's will and his decrees are the basis for existence, and that we are subject to them.

Notice also that in this passage, Mr Basinger's entire conclusion rests on the necessity of comprehending the mind of God: What sense does it make? What sense, indeed. The solution, he declares above, it to toss out the Biblical revelation entirely, here referred to as Calvinism.

Let us throw aside what we do not understand and declare a new gospel that makes sense! God and man, working together! God limited; God no longer sovereign. Man is able; man is partner. Through man's will he is equal (?) to God.

The Arminian believes that what actually occurs in the world is, to an extent, consequent on the human will; God's exhaustive control over the world is denied. This means that things can occur that God does not will or want; things not only can be different but often should be different.

So now prophecy decreed generations before its fulfillment is not dependent on God's power, but on man's will. God declares what will be and somehow by chance it comes true. Or perhaps by the kindness of man's nature, he allows God's prophecy to be fulfilled.

This view is obscene. There are no words for men who pretend to honor God but who blatantly despise Him and His sovereignty over them. I have none, anyway. Besides "obscene".

We do not live in a world that is intended to "make sense" to us. No other assumption could be more arrogant in a world where God exists, much less in a world He has created. No other attitude could be more offensive in a world where He sent His Son to die for His people, rebellious and hostile towards Him, whose hearts He had to recreate before they were even willing to love Him.

There is nothing of Scripture in the doctrine of free will.

no absolutes

imagine a world with no physical laws. there is no law of gravity. there is no law of death and decay. there is no magnetic attraction or repulsion. there is no friction, plants don't consume carbon dioxide and expel oxygen, bees don't pollinate flowers, and trees don't blossom in the spring. nothing is constant, nature is fickle and things that go up may or may not come down.

there is no fire; there is only cold. or not. i don't know.

will this circuit carry a current? who knows? will friction keep me from sliding all over the world or not? if i open my eyes this morning will the sun even be there today? if i open my mouth will the air carry the sound of my voice or will it complain how i hurt its feelings?

when do we plant? how do we walk? what do we eat and how? how do we start a fire? how do we breathe? does any physical action have meaning? can i predict anything at all that will happen in the next moment?

imagine a language without rules. imagine every person speaks differently than every other person. how do we share? how do we love? how do we express anger and offer forgiveness? how do any two people connect? imagine an entire world of isolation and chaos.

in the mid 19th century charles darwin published on the origin of the species. it was his attempt to explain the origins of the biological world in purely material terms. that is to say, it was an attempt to explain our origins apart from a creator.

as a scientific theory it was complete nonsense. it was literally pure conjecture. darwin made a few observations about animals on the galapagos islands then did a thought experiment. now while einstein's thought experiments proved true, and were based on mathematical and physical principles, darwin's thought experiments were based on fantasy mutant creatures: giraffes born with multiple varying lengths of neck and other rampant ridiculous macguffins. however...none of that mattered to the atheists in academia. finally they had something that appeared remotely pseudo-scientific they could use to eliminate God from every aspect of university life. it was their supreme unholy grail, and eliminate Him they did.

years later, when these same professors realized that God was no longer relevant, they also realized that His commands were no longer relevant. Enter moral relativism. murder isn't murder anymore. Neither is adultery or theft--nothing is wrong. the moral quality of an action doesn't depend on any supernatural absolute, but on the feelings or whims of the person committing the action, the circumstances of the action, and anything else that said person may deem relevant: diet, hobbies, disability, literally anything.

what holds a society together? the laws that govern how we relate to each other. things like kindness, forgiveness, justice, patience are all necessary. without rules they do not exist. without them society degenerates into chaos and isolation. the academic titans have torn down the foundations of our society without giving us anything to replace them save their impermanent sand blocks of hurt feelings and personal opinions.

there is no grace without justice, and there is no justice without right and wrong. There is no love when there is no law governing what love is and what it isn't, who to love, and who to punish. there is adultery, anger, revenge, and hate and every form of sexual perversion but there is no love.

this is the society we live in today. whether its gender confusion or racism or abortion  or socialism, we must have absolutes to counter these with love, patience, kindness, grace, and forgiveness. murder is wrong in any form. adultery and homosexuality are wrong. theft of any kind is wrong. as christians, we do no one any service by being "tolerant" of what God calls sin. all we do is further the collapse of the world God has given us.

we are the light of the world. if we don't know what is right and what is wrong, no one else does. if we are not the light of the world, there is no light in the world.

Polyester

I started reading a book called "Polyester Christians". It begins with a lot of detail about what it means to be a cotton Christian (i.e., a Christian who uses natural, or authentic fibers). True to form, the detail focuses on what should be done. Examples include consistent prayer (good), consistent miracles (wut?), visiting the sick (also good), listing the twelve apostles or the ten commandments (good yeah, but I believe in ideas more than specifics) and a bunch of other superficial things.
I used to attend his church and these are the same things he's been talking about for the past thirty years. That would be fine if he had begun with any sort if depth to his theology, but honestly, no one starts out with any depth. That's what it means to be "green".
Doing good things is fine, but we are not called to do good things. Evil people do good things. Atheists give to the poor. Pagans feed the homeless. Wiccans care for their elders. Are we Christians because we do these while we recite Scripture? Do we do these things better than the godless? What makes us different? What makes us "Christians"? How do we even become Christians in the first place?
This last question may give us some good insight. We become Christians through our trust. We trust in God and He changes is into the image of His Son, and we share His love with the world. But everything begins with trust.
The evidence of our trust is not what we do but who we are. It is our character.

The Line in the Sand

“Jesus was the only one who raised the dead,” the Misfit continued, “and he shouldn’t have done it. He thrown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left eh best way you can—by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness.”
From “A Good Man is Hard to Find”
Flannery O’Connor

In one crude yet surprisingly rational monologue the Misfit describes the dilemma we post-Christ humans have to face: do we follow Him or not? If Jesus spoke the truth, then we should all follow Him. If He didn’t, then He’s a liar, and worse than any demon, and nothing matters on earth than to do exactly what we want, no matter how destructive or immoral or sociopathic.

Flannery O’ Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a story about a family, who through pure happenstance, come across a murderous escaped convict. The grandmother manages to identify him out loud, provoking him to murder them in order to insure his escape. His fellow convicts murder the rest of the family while he has a discussion with the grandmother and she pleads for her life. It is in this conversation that the convict lays out his very logical rationale for what he is doing.

He says Jesus was the moral turning point of all mankind, in all of history. Jesus drew a line in the sand and said in essence, “I stand with the Almighty, and He stands with me. Join me or perish.” Not only did he say that, but by his actions he proved his words to be true. He rose people from the dead. If it were not for this, we could dismiss Jesus as some lunatic, or the worst kind of liar, but this action, the resurrection of Lazarus, lent the most irrefutable credence to his words. The Misfit lays out the choices we now have: either Jesus was telling the truth, and we should all toss everything aside and follow him, or he was lying, and nothing else matters in this life except to do what makes us happy.

If Jesus was telling the truth, then everything he said about God and about justice and heaven was true, and the only rational, logical choice is to follow him and trust in everything he said. If he was lying, then he is the worst kind of liar, claiming God to be on his side and demonstrating the power of some otherworldly omnipotent monster to back up his claims and seduce us to the worst kind of hell. If Jesus was lying, where did he get this power from? Who was really behind the miracles he performed? If not God, then who?

If Jesus was a liar, then everything he said about truth, and love, and justice have no meaning. If Jesus was a liar, the only meaning this life can give us is pleasure, however we can find it. If he was a liar, then every action he did to help people, his compassion, kindness, and power all have some darker and cosmically ominous significance.

What kind of person would come to the conclusion that Jesus was a liar? A person like the Misfit, yet the Misfit was a monster. His conclusion that Jesus was a liar led him to a life of “meanness”, for it was the only pleasure he found in life, and murder was the only purpose with any meaning for him.

Jesus laid all of existence bare when he raised Lazarus from the dead. There would no longer be a middle ground between God and men. We can either follow Him or call Him a demon. Any kind of compromise between the two is complete nonsense.