Disjointed Thoughts: Life, Death, and Prostitution?

This is the first of a mini-series that I am writing called "Disjointed Thoughts." Here I'll discuss different thoughts that I have recently been chewing on and wrestling with. Perhaps there will be a way to tie them together or perhaps not. Maybe one of these thoughts could turn into a full blog later on one of these thoughts, or maybe they won't. Let's get the dialog going.

Hold my milk, and watch this...

Life and death both continually reoccur in nature everywhere that we look. Death must occur for life to exist.
Night must occur before a new day begins.
The moon must go dark before it can be full again.
Small atoms must face a violent destruction for their energy to create and fuse larger new atoms.
Stars must supernova to create new galaxies.
Plants must die to provide the nutrients for animal and human life.
Plants and animals must die, be buried, and ferment to create petroleum for energy.

This pattern of death brings new life is beautifully painted all around us from the beginning of time.

Two Stories, One City

Let me tell you two stories...

 

The first comes out of 2 Kings 17, and it's a story of what the Assyrians were notorious for doing to the people that they conquered. Assyria has just conquered Israel and type keep the people from revolt against the king, the king blended people from five other people groups into the land of Samaria with the Samaritans. The people from the five other nations brought with them their own gods, mixing together five different traditions of gods. Lions became a problem in the region attacking villages and brutally killing the people. A wise thought came to the Assyrian King; maybe the lions were a result of the people not worshiping the god of the land of Israel? So he sent some of Israel's priests to Samaria to teach the people how to worship the Lord, and they settled in Sechem. However, the people continued to worship the gods from the five nations, made their own priests, did not follow Torah, nor worship God properly. "They woshiped the Lord, but they also served their idols." Even though they claimed to worship God, they did not.

 

Along walks Jesus hundreds of years later to the town of Sechem...

 

Every. Single. Day.

 every. single. day.

Looking back on the last year: my story is won of success and of failure, of highs and of lows, of love and of strife, of pastures and of desert, of community and of loneliness. Life is hard, and we could all say that. Even through our riches, our blessings, our relationships, life is trying and testing. It becomes very easy to be miserable, angry, and selfish, slowly losing hopes and ideals; while it is even harder to strive towards those goal and ideals, bettering yourself, those and around you, and the world along the way.

Lech Acharai

As time draws in and April comes to a close, a great and interesting your will come to a close;
a new milestone, a marker to evaluate life.


Still cannot believe it.

"Oman is Beautiful"

"Oman is Beautiful"

This phrase is the environmental safety campaign slogan of the national oil company of Oman. It appears on posters on every wall in the company's offices and facilities. When you look at one of these posters, a picture that looks like it was taken shortly after the invention of color photography, filled with dull and dirty colors, tell a story of anything but a beautiful country. The poster looks like something out of the past, hardly a place of beauty.

Root of It All

Shema

As this is my first real blog, I would like to start off in the same manner that faithful children of God at the time of the Messiah, "men of old," would before beginning something. These words would be spoken in churches and synagogues, in homes and on the road, before something new and something old, before going to bed, putting on clothes in the morning, leaving for work, and before sermons and teachings; they'd write them on their doors and in their hearts. They spoke the words of Shema.

Spud Date.

Welcome to Houston.

This sign welcomes me back at the Bush Intercontinental Airport after returning from a drill rig.