grace full notes

The president is supposed to give the eulogy for the pastor-state senator who was killed in church last week but I think the coverage will be preempted by IS.  During Ramadan Muslim murderers kill their own and kill tourists on a beach.  Come on.  How strange is it that disaffected youth find this attractive and travel to the gutted countries once called Iraq and Syria and Libya to join up.  I don’t understand the inability of this faith’s scribes and theologians to reinterpret obvious out of context verses.  By not coming together, the Sunnis and the Shias can be accused of complicity, you speak with two tongues, a house divided will not stand. 

What do racists and IS have in common?  Hate.  Narrow mindedness.  Isolation.  Poverty of spirit.  No accountability.  A warped sense of mental superiority.  Simple evil, call it what you will.

Here’s the problem with only two English speaking channels.  The three incidents are significant but for the last thirty minutes they haven’t reported anything new.  A tourist in Tunisia is interviewed, he was told the beach was closed so he went back to his room.  Wow, that was insightful.  Filling in the space with stories that create the scene.  It sounds like reality tv instead of the news.  Wait, is the president going to speak?  Will the network that drives me crazy broadcast the eulogy?

The president was scheduled to speak fifteen minutes ago.  How long am I going to wait?  It is past my bedtime and I didn’t sleep well last night, the bedroom’s a/c didn’t remain cool throughout the night.  Tonight the lows will be 35 degrees Celsius.  The BBC said Muscat will be the hottest place on the planet for the next two days which I think is 300 kilometers off target.  Buraimi is always ten degree different from Muscat so!  Tomorrow it might be 56 degrees Celsius which in Fahrenheit is wow, way too high to calculate safely.

2:53pm EST  Notes

All Praise and Glory to Him

Hope…to persevere in things not seen

Rev Pinckney

…a heavy burden of expectation

He was full of empathy

The most gentle of us

Sweet hours of prayers that lasted all week long

caring for the poor is a character of a just society

…a preacher by 13 a pastor by 18 a public servant by 23

slain at 41 in his church, the pain cuts deep

The church has always been the center of the African-American life

            hush houses

            praise houses

            rest stops in the underground trails, bunkers, community centers

Our beating hearts

The church is the foundation of liberty for all.

Our nation’s original sin

God has different ideas.  He (the killer) didn’t know he was being used by God.

The killer didn’t see the light of love.

He couldn’t have imagined the families would forgive him. 

He failed to comprehend the power of God’s grace.

I’ve been reflecting on this idea of grace

The grace of the family….Amazing Grace (the organist plays)

Grace is not earned

Grace is not merited

Grace is not something we deserve

Grace is the free and benevolent favor of God

It’s up to us to receive the grace with gratitude

The flag did not cause these murders

The flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride

The flag  is a reminder of systemic oppression and racial suppression

By taking down that flag we express God’s grace

I don’t think God wants us to stop time.

What causes our children to hate

We express God’s grace by treating people equally. 

For too long we’ve been blind that gun violence inflicts on this nation

By making a moral choice we express God’s grace

We don’t earn grace, we don’t deserve it, but God gives it to us.  Again it’s our decision how to receive it and honor it.

It would be a betrayal if we fall into a comfortable silence once the tv cameras are gone

We have a deep respect of history but not each other’s history

My liberty depends on yours too.

We need an open heart

That reservoir of goodness, if we can find that grace, everything is possible.

Amazing Grace---The president sings.

The separation of church and state makes America what it is, the great democratic experiment continues to churn to give equality and freedom for all.  

collaborate this

‘Help us, teacher.’  Ten minutes into the final exam for SOCI100 Oman Society 16 student heads are up looking to and fro like prairie dogs.  They had been fasting for ten hours by exam time and for many it was their second exam of the day.  In my humble opinion they were in no shape, physically or mentally, to sit down and think independently.  Yesterday I emailed the director and cc’d the ten teachers who would invigilate this notoriously difficult or irrelevant exam and suggested students be allowed to collaborate with each other.  It’s not cheating, it’s collaborating.  No mind this was the last exam I’d proctor in the asylum but it was the fourth time I witnessed oblivious and obstreperous behavior from a monotonous youth who didn’t care enough to listen to their amiable instructor for 16 weeks.

If section 4 scores higher than the rest of the sections I'll argue collaborative exam taking should be considered a new norm.  Those who knew a few of the answers shared them with others.  They all passed because they worked together.  If, however, they all fail, it will demonstrate what bothered me for two years; students  copying other’s work regardless if it is wrong or right.  What does this say about the student I’ve tried to impart a little bit of wisdom? 

This morning I had the car washed, filled up the tank, had new red seat sheet covers put on and had the oil changed and all the old Honda’s liquids filled.  All before noon may I add.  While the young Deccan was putting on the covers I looked at the car to my left and saw smoke blowing out of the cracked passenger window.  A few minutes later the young Omani man got out and introduced himself to me.  Sam.  Sam I am…nice to meet you.  Sam had amateurish tattoos of a syringe and an anchor on his arms.  On four left knuckles were four block letters.  I asked who SHAE was.  He couldn’t explain. 

I think Muslims should practice Ramadan the way Catholics practice Lent.  You can fast the way we have it outlined here, but if you want to fast your way that’s ok because it doesn’t matter what others think, what matters is your relationship with God in the process. 

The routers in the hall are off for the second straight day.  Yesterday I bumped into the landlord and I can’t help but wonder now if there is a connection here.  I just hope it comes back.  Another weekend is coming and I’d like to have access to the world. 

So, we’re down to 15 days left in the grotto slash dump slash flat slash litter box slash shithole.  Next week I’ll take the car to see a mechanic recommended by a colleague and ask him to check the once in a while squeaky right wheel brakes and I’ll ask if there is a sensor that shuts the engine off when it gets too hot and if so, have it replaced.  I can’t sell a car to anyone if I haven’t made an effort to get everything right with it even in a place like this where mechanics work on the sidewalk and use tire jacks to get under the engine.

The young man’s father in Sarangkot scanned and sent me a few dozen English questions and asked me to answer them.  The young man had already answered them I learned later, but I sent the answers back to the questions I understood because there were some written so badly I didn’t know how to answer. I learned a few years back if I point out the errors in the English textbooks the locals become terribly defensive and try, lamely, to explain this is how English is written.  Until the government issues work visas for native English speakers to teach in the government schools, the errors will perpetuate into fossilized unfortunates.  Ke garne? Chainakegarne. Sab kuchmalega.

I’ll finish Dalyrimple’s latest tour de force this weekend and today read the intro to Kay Redfield Jamison’s manic-depressive autobiography ‘An Unquiet Mind’.  I picked this up for a quarter at the Rochester Public Library and I don’t know if I’ll get through it, we’ll see, but when I flipped through the pages I discovered four pressed red maple leaves.  Wow.  I forgot all about these.  I was gonna give one to Kelly.  I don’t know what I was gonna do with the others and I don’t know what I’ll do with them now.  

silence is not always good

The longest day of the year passes, a service in Charleston and CNN is there.

I am reluctant to leave the grotto (oh really?) at night but I need to change the oil, I need to have it washed, though I could do it myself if I got up early enough, I continue to be nice to the old car and not push it in the intense heat, and if I avoid turning the a/c up full blast, it works fine, I can go as far as Lulus with no trouble.  And this is the advice you will give to the man and his family who’ll buy it?  The car is ok in the heat if you are nice to it. 

I need to find a mechanic. 

6.22.15

I don’t think “Return of a King” is widely read in England. 

Winds from the north kick up the sand and it looks like rain over the Hajar mountains in the west but it is too dry to fall here.  The baby pigeons are left alone more now as they grow, they have lost the dirty yellow fur for that familiar dirty gray.

I booked a room across from the train station in Leuven for three nights and left one night open for Brussels.  I still have to book a place somewhere in Dubai for three nights onward.  This is why you have a debit card otherwise I’d be showing up asking for a room and most of the time that works, it works at least in Nepal and Thailand and SE Asia.

A long time ago I read an article that talked about the power of inspiration that comes from being around people who inspire.   I was reminded today when someone walks away from that core of inspiration one can literally lose it.  The internet, for all its magic to keep people in touch does not replace the human speech and intellect in human form. 

http://www.gordonconwell.edu/resources/documents/StatusOfGlobalMission.pdf

Gordon Conwell estimates in 2014 there are 45,000 Christian denominations and by 2025 there will be 55,000 denominations.  What creates a denomination is more or less how it manages itself.  What factors are involved in the decisions on how they manage themselves, there are two I can think of: contemporary culture and the interpretation of the Bible. 

One example of a ‘denomination’ whose doctrine makes it different from others are the Plymouth Bretheren and their doctrine which states all Christians are in the priesthood of believers and therefore it is not necessary to have a pastor.  Elders manage the flock, chosen, of course by the flock and the elders: 

 The Open Brethren believe in a plurality of elders (Acts 14:23; 15:6,23; 20:17; Philippians 1:1)—men meeting the Biblical qualifications found in 1 Timothy 3:1–7 and Titus 1:6–9. This position is also taken in some Baptist churches, especially Reformed Baptists, and by the Churches of Christ. It is understood that elders are appointed by the Holy Spirit (Acts 20:28) and are recognised as meeting the qualifications by the assembly and by previously existing elders. Generally, the elders themselves will look out for men who meet the biblical qualifications, and invite them to join them as elders. In some Open assemblies, elders are elected democratically, but this is a fairly recent development and is still relatively uncommon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Plymouth_Brethren

In this small example one will note the doctrine which led to having no pastor comes from the writings of Paul.  

Silence.  I have said many times here how much I’ve found the silence around me a good thing, the absence of noise leads me to consider the wonders and puzzles of God and the universe, but lately I’ve been bothered by the silence.  I live alone, work alone, and next month I’ll work in a new city where my present solitude will feel like a busy beachfront, comparatively speaking. 

I posted three things on the social media site whose name I will not note here this past month and there wasn’t a single like.  They didn’t like what they saw, they were indifferent to what they saw, they are outside enjoying life and they are not using their computers.  Yeah, and I don’t want to post anything now, I wanna be silent towards ‘them’ like they are silent towards me.  I think you’re cracking, Johnny boy, no one is shunning you. It's cabin fever.  You don’t know my family, they use silence as a weapon, I know, I used it to, note past tense, to show I was bothered or troubled or hurt by something someone said or did to me.  And what have you done to cause offense?  Nothing.  Nevertheless, silence feels louder when your only form of communication with everyone is through this damn computer.  So?  What do you want to do?  Keep posting inspiring messages with your photos, find pics you haven’t posted. 

The Oman meteorological weather service says we may see rain soon.  I’ll take a picture of the rain. 

true wisdom

My daily afflictions pale pitifully when compared with the woman and child who look for money at my door.  I am in remorse for those who suffer immeasurably and yet the sorrowed sing of love.  Love and hate, death and life, if I were surrounded by love and life surely I wouldn’t weep for those so far away, would I, but this is my choice or has this choice been made by someone else, I cannot say. 

There was no internet today, I washed two shirts, repaired the cheap washing machine after it didn’t drain, I read on the unfortunate history of the British in Afghanistan, so ill informed they were, how conceited its leaders were, I watched an Oliver Stone movie about wall street and then there was Castaway, which I showed the part when Tom Hanks crashes and lives on the island to an unruly class of ten year olds in South China.  That was ten years ago.

And I watched episode seven of John Adams.  Such passion in writing, an art that most likely has disappeared. 

Racism is in every country but nowhere is it more pronounced than in America.  And we only need to look at our history to explain it.  Unfortunately.

Hate is defeated when we forgive. 

6.20.15

Another day of no internet, it is too hot to go outside, I did grocery shopping yesterday morning so I must put myself under house arrest.  Thanks be to God for a good book.  What to make of Afghani culture in the 19^th century?  A king keeps the tribes happy and in doing so there’s no need for a national army, negotiations between the tribes is the traditional way of keeping peace.  Tribes don’t look at expanding their territories, conflicts such as dishonoring someone-he killed my ox, he must pay-grievances so Old Testament yet, are easily adjudicated.  And when the British finally left because they knew they were no longer welcome but I haven’t read this far. 

“The most extraordinary scientific advances…and the most amazing technical abilities…will definitely turn against man”

I downloaded Pope Francis’s encyclical and will look carefully for infallibilities, if there are any.  The quote above could be though it is like the God of the Old Testament, a divinely harsh and fearful warning.  What becomes of mankind when it is advised of its own self destruction.  Surely he doesn’t have the Hadron Collider in mine, does he, unless a worm hole is found and the Vegan army pours out.

“the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God’s creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet”

Amen to that, how else can one explain the presence of the divine in nature?  A seamless garment, one and the same, it argues if morality could be taught and learned from a tree or a mountain why is there a need for organized religion?

“St. Francis communed with all creation, even preaching to the flowers, inviting them “to praise the Lord, just as if they were endowed with reason”

“There has been a tragic rise in the number of migrants seeking to flee from the growing poverty caused by envi­ronmental degradation.”

The UN estimates 60 million people were displaced last year but I haven’t read of a case where they are moving because of the environment.  Africa migrants from Sudan, Eritrea, Libya, the list goes on, are fleeing war.  Same goes for Middle Eastern countries and those from Burma.  War creates poverty.  In the 1930’s people in the US moved because of drought.   I’d like to read more on what the Pope says here.

“True wisdom, as the fruit of self-examination, dialogue and gener­ous encounter between persons, is not acquired by a mere accumulation of data which eventu­ally leads to overload and confusion, a sort of mental pollution”

What is the point of reading anymore, no that’s not what he’s saying.  Mental pollution is statistics, ESPN kind statistics, like the number of curve balls Verlander pitches in five innings before he’s pulled.  Do I need to know this?  No.  I understand in keeping statistics eliminates speculation, like keeping track of a student’s progress in class, but look at the speculators on Wall Street, what do they give to society, nothing.  They’re betting right now Greece defaults on its loans and pulls out of the Eurozone.  What good is this?  This is mental pollution.


Too many candidates blathering on and on is mental pollution.  CNN is mental pollution.  Too many choices about anything is mental pollution.  Keep it simple, everything that is important has been said.  Of course everything that has been said has also been taken out of its original context and has to be challenged.  Sigh. 

you can't or you won't end evil?

I bought a one way ticket last week and this evening I bought another one.  Yesterday I watched a young man with downs syndrome speak to a man driving a white Land cruiser and then the young man removed his sandal and threw it at the car as it pulled away.  The man picked up his sandal and threw it again with more force and did it one more time.  Throw it harder, Sadiq, harder.  Then the angry man pushed the gas station attendant and threw a swing, another attendant got in between the two when the police arrived and escorted the troubled soul. 

"Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain."  Pope Francis

Climate change burns the planet up, an asteroid hits earth knocking it off its axis, Jesus returns and leaves again, my car died 200 meters from the flat.  I am glad it didn’t die when I took Rool and his wife and daughter to Lulus after they fed me a Ramadan-lite lunch.  How can I eat in front of you, please take some grapes.  The man from Dhaka is going to buy the car if it doesn’t die for good before then.  It’s ok, you make me strong, have more noodles? 

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/18/world/europe/encyclical-laudato-si.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0

Tilling and keeping the garden is the postscript to dominion over the garden and we haven’t done that too well, have we, though in very civilized nations the garden has been kept, at least, in parts. 

Psalm 130:  out of the depths of hell on earth, O Lord, hear our cry.  Why don’t you end evil, why can’t you end evil.  

I didn’t see life outside until eight this morning, a dusty desolate city on the first day of fasting and as the minute comes to break the fast the neighborhood is empty again. 

Come now Lord, Come now.  Yell it out, yell it out, keep cooler heads, confront evil and end it, right, and tomorrow hate rises again from the tears of sorrow that mutes our cries in vain.

“The heart of South Carolina is broken.” 

And yet, and yet, America can’t give up her guns.  When will the 2^nd Amendment ever be reinterpreted to the way it was intended.  I don’t know.  Nine humans die praying.  Oh, Jesus doesn’t it touch you how loyal these innocent humans were, a Pastor included, wow, God, you must be touched, perhaps not touched enough to bring heaven to all and end evil.  I don’t understand you.  Who has to be shamed, isn’t that what people are doing now to change bad behavior?  Oh, right, God can’t be blamed for bad behavior, man kills man, God doesn’t condone it, no, but it didn’t have to happen.

I looked at these modems that could connect me to the internet but the man at Omantel said they were out of stock.  I looked at one in Lulu’s and balked because I wanted a 4G and not a 3G and that’s all they had and I made it home and turned on the laptop and lo! I had a connection again.  I don’t know why but I am glad I had it, so glad I didn’t want to shut down the computer again so it’s been on for seven hours but once again I have lost it.  Is it my sadness which disconnects I don’t know.  I told a colleague even if I don’t use the internet all the time I want access to the outside world.  The BBC and CNN went single minded today and everything else was overshadowed.  I downloaded the Pope’s encyclical, I booked a room for three nights in Amsterdam, I can’t do these things if I am under house arrest.

 

A question, Jack.  When did your grotto become a dump?  My soul hurts.