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Milo

// August 21st, 2010 // No Comments » // General

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The Bible Was Written By Hand

// May 21st, 2010 // Comments Off // General

The Bible was written!

The Bible, the Holy Bible– whether version King James or Revised Standard or New International– was written by hand long before it ever became a book, published by the theological authorities. This thought blows my mind.

The Bible was WRITTEN!, in ink mixed by a careful human hand, placed lovingly on hand-made paper (papyrus, lamb skin, whatever) by the sweaty, trembling fingers of people who loved the truth they had found. The Originals (they who got the Word from The Word directly), the first ever to scribe the messages at the command of God– “son of man, write what you see!”– they could not have known, could they, how long the document they created would last into the future. Could they? Without any guarantees of how long their writings would hold up during history’s long forced march, or even how many readers and hearers the infant Words of God would reach, in faith did this amazing act of truth-transmission.

How the angels looking into these scenes must have wondered at the pure dedication of these original Bible scribes! At least angels might have had bigger hints from God that one day the Word would wrap around the planet by way of printing presses, satellite transmissions, and a World Wide Web of Light.

The Original Writers, the Penmen– how carefully they must have chosen their words! Did they memorize each sentence before placing the ink on the page? What did they pray while they made their own pens, mixed their own ink, chose the perfect day and time of day– the Sabbath?– cleared a space on a table, and flattened out their treasure: a blank sheet of scroll? All those years of apprenticeship in the art of writing, learning language at their momma’s knee and craftsmanship in their daddy’s shop, or maybe under the mentorship of a clan of priests, all of the divinely guided preparation suddenly making sense as they sit to record God’s Word. So that you and I can freely neglect to read it, or not; sleep through the preaching of it, or not; text irrelevant messages while their Holy Text passes over our heads, unattended to, or not…

Did they, The Originals, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and His holy unction to WRITE, did the original writers of our Old and New Testaments know– at the moment they finished writing and checking and re-reading what God had authored– how many souls might end up enjoying eternity as a result of their devotion?

What if they did? What if they didn’t?! And they simply cast that Word from God out into the future, passing it on from believer to believer, generations on into our very day, and WOW! like magic there it is, sitting in your church pew, in your study, in your heart and in your mind and in your songs. What if they won’t know how great is the cloud of witnesses to the Word they helped bring into the world until all are assembled around The Original WORD, and see His smile reflected on a billion singing faces?

Asimov on Creating

// April 26th, 2010 // Comments Off // General

Some people may be better at solving problems and getting ideas than others are; they may have a livelier imagination, a more efficient way of grasping at distant consequences; but it all comes down to thinking in the end. What counts is how well you can think, and even more, how long and persistently you can think without breaking down. There are brilliant people, I imagine, who produce little, if anything, because their attention span to their own thoughts is so short; and there are less brilliant people who can plug away at their thoughts until they wrench something out of them.

-Isaac Asimov, Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection; chapter three, “On Writing Science Fiction”

I doubt I’ll ever be a successful science fiction writer. But I’d like to be a success at writing, and thinking, and all other forms of creativity.

Reach for American Unity

// July 26th, 2009 // Comments Off // General

We need more unity in this country.

It’s too divided, over healthcare, over race, over immigration, over elections, over conservative hate radio. Those who are making profit over the manufactured controversies, like Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity, do not need competition from the liberal talkers like Bill Maher, John Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and Air America Radio; both sides need to receive the only signal to which profit-driven professional propagandists are sensitive:

TUNE OUT, STOP THE PROFITS, STOP LISTENING.

And on the positive side, reach across the figurative aisle to your fellow American and build unity. Talk about common problems, discuss solutions without radio-style rancor, practice civics, prioritize unity in the discussion.

Stop fighting each other; fight for solutions to the very present dangers in our economy, our politics, our collective soul.

$20.00 per Gallon of Gas

// July 16th, 2009 // Comments Off // General

Scenario:
Gas is twenty bucks a gallon. It costs $2000.00 to fly coast to coast in the United States. Cities have become denser, as the exurbs are deserted, and employees and professionals cannot afford to commute by combustion engine. Plastic is made of corn, canvas bags are standard at the check out counters, and the stocks of solar energy companies are ballooning.

Reality Check:
This story, heard on NPR by me in my steaming-hot, 15-year-old Prizm as I ran errands on one of the hottest days of our summer here in Central California, sounds plausible. We Americans need things to hurt our wallets before we notice them, and the hurt needs to be worse than we’re already feeling.

Given the health care,  housing and employment markets currently, that means that the hurt levels (in this case, gas prices) have to equal to or go beyond where they have been for years in many other countries: $6.00 is one key level for the author of the book being discussed on NPR; the real change in Americans’ willingness to push for change will come when gas reaches $20.00 per gallon. One caller, a man who deals in urban real estate, longed for the price of gas to get higher; he cheers it on every time it rises.  When people can’t afford to live far from their city jobs, his market gets healthier.

Lucky for my family and me, country dwellers that are, we live within walking distance of my work and our daughter’s school (I teach there). And don’t get me wrong, like any progressive I yearn for a more sustainable economy. But given the cost of gas already, the decade-plus age of both our cars, and the already high cost of everything from food to health care to electricity (the five day forecast from posting time is 103/103/102/103/103), I tremble to think of the trauma to individual family budgets of this coming transition from oil addiction, to sustainable energy policy, if those who could be pushing for this change won’t push effectively until gasoline becomes outrageously expensive.

It’s gonna get worse before it gets better (assuming, as I like to, that it is going to get better).