I just stumbled across another blog I like. Maybe you’ll like it, too.
The Art of Nonconformity.
In other news, I’ve got a few neat projects just starting up. What are they? I’m not gonna tell you. And it’ll probably be months before they’re ready. By that time you’ll likely have forgotten all about it. So why tell you at all? Because jumping the gun is one of my favorite things to do.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, / neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. / For as the heavens are higher than the earth, / so are my ways higher than your ways / and my thoughts than your thoughts.
You remember how in Narnia Aslan seemed to grow with the children? When Lucy got older she commented on how Aslan also seemed bigger. I guess it was suggesting that as we grow in our understanding and perspective, we see Christ as bigger because we are able to see him clearer than before.
Today God and his ways and thoughts seem very high and other to me. I have never really been able to understand skeptics who insist on judgin God by a human standard and putting him into human-made logic puzzles to try to keep him from existing.
A rock so big he couldn’t lift it? The question makes no sense.
I’ve always loved this verse. It reminds me of his transendence. How he is just so friggin’ beyond and above me. It reminds me to never allow myself to think of him after my own image. Comforting.
And today I noticed something else about it. Read it. Check out the context. The verses before it talk about how God will abundantly pardon and forgive the wicked if we come to him. And the declaration that he is not like is is meant as a comfort.
“Don’t worry. I won’t hold a grudge, like you would. I won’t act in spite, like you would. I won’t fall into self-pity when you insult me. I won’t grow self-conscious if you ignore me. I’m not like you. And because I’m not like you I stand at the gate waiting for you to come back to me. And when you do I’ll kill the fattened calf and have a party, nevermind how much youve been screwing up. Don’t worry about it – I’m not like you.”
This.
Michael Savage is a jerk.
Have you ever stopped to think about what civilization is actually built on?
I was thinking about that today. What is our mighty, human empire founded on? What is the foundation that we continually are adding to as we build up to the skies. What one thing, if it were gone, would send us over the edge into anarchy? What is the ‘official’ that keeps us from killing society?
I thought it might be the economy, but then realized that paper (or digital) money has no real inherent value. So I started wondering where money got its value from, and the answer was a little surprising. General Agreement.
The only reason a dollar is worth a dollar is because you, me and everyone else I know agrees that it’s worth a dollar. The dollar is an empty symbol. A picture of value, rather than value itself. It is a request that begs ‘Please accept this instead of something valuable.’ And we all honor it, because if we didn’t there would be nothing to base our commerce on.
And I think, in our age of democracy and freedom, that is how government works, too. Government is run, by and large, by public agreement. The general public decides (generally) who runs the show, what laws to have, and other such things. For the people, by the people, and all those other democratic slogans we chant.
But I start to wonder, are we, as a mass of people, really qualified to run our own show? I have been reading a bit about some of the anti-intellectual trends in the western world over the past thirty years. And I start to wonder, are we wise enough? Are we good enough? And if we’re not…then what?
Have you ever stopped to think about what civilization is actually built on?
I was thinking about that today. What is our mighty, human empire founded on? What is the foundation that we continually are adding to as we build up to the skies. What one thing, if it were gone, would send us over the edge into anarchy? What is the ‘official’ that keeps us from killing society?
I thought it might be the economy, but then realized that paper (or digital) money has no real inherent value. So I started wondering where money got its value from, and the answer was a little surprising. General Agreement.
The only reason a dollar is worth a dollar is because you, me and everyone else I know agrees that it’s worth a dollar. The dollar is an empty symbol. A picture of value, rather than value itself. It is a request that begs ‘Please accept this instead of something valuable.’ And we all honor it, because if we didn’t there would be nothing to base our commerce on.
And I think, in our age of democracy and freedom, that is how government works, too. Government is run, by and large, by public agreement. The general public decides (generally) who runs the show, what laws to have, and other such things. For the people, by the people, and all those other democratic slogans we chant.
But I start to wonder, are we, as a mass of people, really qualified to run our own show? I have been reading a bit about some of the anti-intellectual trends in the western world over the past thirty years. And I start to wonder, are we wise enough? Are we good enough? And if we’re not…then what?
“Everything is being done to end militancy. Everything is being done for peace,” Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial information minister told reporters after talks with Mohammad in Timergara, in Lower Dir.
No, it isn’t. If it was, there would be peace.
Matt W Cook 