Come'n back! Misspellings and all.

It's a new school year, a new fall semester, and i think i'm gonna try this whole blogging thing again. I secretly hope that the few people who would gaze upon it before have moved on to much cooler and interesting things then reading the meandering self important scribbling of me, but who knows. There are really three reasons I want to do this again.

are you ready for a riveting list?...

!. I find it entertaining to write something that won't be graded or corrected by anyone.

2. It is entertaining to have something to look back on. A compendium of my thought patterns that I can one day show the young'ns and say, "see kids, this is a computer. Before it was wired into you frontal cortex we got on the internet like this. JIMMY STOP MIND LOADING PORN IN PUBLIC!!"

3. I write differently when I think that someone else might read it. More coherently and clearly and with a constant eye on my eventual candidacy for the governor of Illinois and subsequent enditment for corruption. (it's what they do there apparently)


Peace and Grace

Oh the discombobulation!!

Everyone once in a while I feel like a mess. This wouldn't really be an issue if I could look at my life and see the messiness. At least that way I would have a plan of attack. No, for me it's all this kind of internal discombobulation. The feeling that I am off kilter. That something just doesn't feel right. At this point it really only effects my sleeping habits ( I can't seem to) and my motivation (I have none).

So I'm going to go ahead and see if I can get down to the bottom of this with a bit of spiritual exercise. This idea may come from the fact that I have been reading about the desert fathers lately and I like them. But either way i'm gonna kick this party off with a 4 day fast. From now till monday at noon.

Now I know what your thinking. "Mike, but if you get your crap together how will you possibly keep up on the atrocious amounts of online T.V. you've been watching and the massive quantities of cheese based meals you've been consuming!?" These are the risks a man must take.

Wish me luck.

Ruth Rumiko Ozaki

This is My grandmother. She is 87 years old. When my mom was in the hospital she kept my family afloat financially and resisted being payed back.

She did a fair bit of raising of me and my sisters.

I'm really quite fond of her. We all are.

but unfortunately he heath went down hill really fast this last year and over the last 2 days she had a series of strokes. The doctors are saying that she probably won't last more then a couple of days.

I'll probably be coming back to california for a bit real soon. Not sure about details though.

quote of the day

"I've come to meet the legendary takers. I've only come to ask them for a lot. Well they say I come with less then I should rightfully posses, I say the more I buy the more I'm bought. The more I buy the less I cost."

Deep simplicity 3

Continuing with my previous rants...

Another thing that this all makes me think of is Chariots.

In deuteronomy God is setting up all the rules for his new nation, his new people. They are going to be a different Kind of people who run a different kind of system. Nothing like the empire they came out of (egypt) or the ones that will surround them (babylon, assyria, cannon).

And God knows we tend to just do what the most powerful around us do. They must be right, right? Look at all their stuff!

But God says this new people have to rest one day a week, they have to treat the foreigner among them the same way they treat each other, they can't harvest the corners of their fields, that's for the poor to take. Every 7 years they have to free all slaves and release all debts and every 49 years every, all ownership and land has to go back to what it was.

In the empire this is terrible economics, but in the Kingdom it's beautiful community.

Mixed in with all these rules is an interesting directive for the King
Deuteronomy 17:16
The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make
the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, "You are
not to go back that way again."

No horses...but why?



Horses were the Tanks and planes of the Bronze age. Empires were built and conquered on the backs of horses. Especially the most advanced weapon of that time...the Chariot. If you ever wanted to take over an army, to advance on a city, to push your might across a battle field, you HAD to have chariots and horses! You could defend without them...but not attack. But God says no. "your not to Go back that way again."

GOD'S people are not to be like THOSE people. GOD'S kingdom is not to be like THOSE empires.

Again He seems to be putting limits on technology for his people. He seems to know what we do and become with greater and greater power and fewer and fewer limits.
So what happens with people and groups that DO do this? What do they look like. What do they do and how do they think? Or are they just freaks in the forest who psychologists would LOVE to get their hands on?


later man...I"ll rant more later!

Quote of the day

By Henry Nouwen just before he quit his job as a Harvard professor and moved into a home for disabled adults called L'Arch, "something inside is telling me that my success is putting my soul in danger."

Deep Simplicity

Talking about this stuff makes me think of the Tower of Babel, Horses and the Amish.

Let me explain...

The flood happened a while back and Noah and all his gang left the boat, set out across what is Mesopotamia and multiplied like a bunch of middle eastern bunnies.

Slowly they move east and come to "the plane of shinara". forget the industrial revolution, this is where the first technology boom happens. They figure out how to make bricks, then morter then real buildings and a city. In this city they decided to make a building that can reach to the heavens so that they can "make a name for themselves."

It's human nature to do this. To build, to create, to advance more and more. We count this as success and a sign that we are better then once were. Think about it, the most "developed" societies are the ones with the most tech.

But God takes issue with this view.

Gen 11 says;
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." So he changes the language and scatters them all around.


Growing up I learned this story as a working against doing something before asking God if I should. But i think what it really is is a view into God's thinking on progression and technology.

"nothing they plan will be impossible for them"

we would say this is great. We want to be limitless, especially in our ability to create. But maby what were really trying to be is our own Gods. Limitless, in need of nothing and no one. All powerful.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution in 1800 our ability has been growing at an exponential rate. We live longer, go further, make faster. But the question maybe is not what can we do but what do we do with it all.

-in the last 100 years more people have been killed in war and genocide then in the previous 4000 years combined.





- Each day over 80'000 ares of forest are destroyed







-there is most slavery today then at any other time in history








- there is more economic inequality now then at any other time in history (20% own 80% of the wealth and 30% own 94%)

Maby God had something better planned for his people then advancement. And mabey focusing on that makes us loose site of what that is.