poop deck or crustacean (bottom dweller)

Do you want to be up on the poop deck or down on the very bottom? The choice is yours. Crustaceans are "bottom dwellers", feeding on waste from other creatures. They actually have to "stir things up" with their appendages, in order to feed.

The poop deck is a place that is elevated for vision. It is the place of observation and navigation. Poop is from a Latin word puppis that simply means elevated. On sailing ships, the helmsman, who steers the ship is on the poop deck.

Tobruk

I have been reading about a WWII battle for the Libyan town of Tobruk. Several times, it changed hands between Allied and Axis forces. But, what caught my attention is the 8 month siege that the Australian defenders resisted against German guns and dive bombing. Over the 8 month period, the Aussies lost 12,000 out of 14,000 men, while the Germans and Italians lost 8,000 out of 9,000.


With the help of Brits and Poles and Czechs, they broke the siege on December 4th, 1941; in an operation that began on November 18th.







The story made me think of the spiritual paralles with:

• Siege
• Bravery and courage
• Perseverance

There are times in our lives when God lets the enemy lay siege to us. God is not only the God who brings you out of something, but also the God who brings you through it. Most of the book of Job, for example, is about a man going through something. Bad things layed siege to Job's life. Will he persevere? Will his faith hold?

The post-script to the story is that the Allies chased the Axis forces so far that they got over extended to the point that the Germans were able to counterattack and retake Tobruk, by the following June.

But the end of the story was that the large scale Allied landings in North Africa gave them the upper hand and Tobruk was re taken for a final time

333

Did you know that today is day 333 of this year?

I read that there were 333 prophecies in the OT that all came true about Jesus.

Jeremiah 33:3
'Call to me and I will answer you. I'll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.'

in quintessesence

Jesus is the purest possible, most concentrated embodiment of God. Not "he was" or "he will be", but he is and was and will be, always God. One with God and God. Jesus is the divine extract, the very substance of God. Because Of Jesus we can know God better. What is God like? Look at Jesus.

I see a cone shape that starts at infinity, with God The Father and goes down to five six feet, encircling Jesus. God, who is beyond human measure, is concentrated down to one person, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are a Christian, then you get to partake of and participate in this same essence of God that Jesus carries. Jesus is quintessential God, but we can be godly and Christ-like, through Jesus: in quintessesence.

Neo returning to the source

Remember this little speech from The Matrix Reloaded where your mind probably went into information overload?

Architect: The function of the One is now to return to the Source, allowing a temporary dissemination of the code you carry, reinserting the prime program. After which, you will be required to select from the Matrix 23 individuals - 16 female, 7 male - to rebuild Zion. Failure to comply with this will result in a cataclysmic system crash, killing everyone connected to the Matrix, which, coupled with the extermination of Zion, will ultimately result in the extinction of the entire human race. Neo You won't let it happen. You can't. You need human beings to survive.

This fictional conversation might have been inspired by a school of religious philosophy, born in the third century called Neoplatonism. Neoplatonists believe,

that all people return to the Source. The Source, Absolute or One, is what all things spring from and as a superconsciousness is where all things return. It can be said that all consciousness is wiped clean and returned to a blank slate when returning to the source.

Not what I believe and I flunked Philosophy in college! Just interesting to know where in the heck they might be getting their ideas from.

manifest destiny

Manifest destiny is commonly known as an idea that started in the 1840's by John L. O'Sullivan, advocating the expansion of the United States westward, through any means. That's not what I want to write about.

The word manifest means, "to be caught in the act". What a person truly is may be hidden, but from time to time, they are "caught in the act" of being their true self. I think also that we manifest when we are in movement or moved upon.

The word destiny means "determined". I believe in free will, but also that some things are determined. I lived my life and made day to day choices, but I believe that it was determined or my destiny to meet and marry my wife. Destiny is most easily looked at backwards and helps explain your life before a given event. To look forward to your destiny or to walk into it takes faith. Before I met my wife I felt destined to meet and marry someone like her. I believe I had words I heard from God that gave a glimpse of her. But until I met her and made her my wife, I was only looking forward to that destiny and believing for it.

So when I think of manifest destiny, I think of how do I right now, line up with what my destiny is? I think this is the essence of the prophetic life. As I heard Graham Cooke say, it's like we tie a rope to our prophecy that is out there in the future for us, and seek to bring our selves into becoming like the person that will have that prophecy fulfilled. This isn't some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, but a wise answer to the question of, "what do I do between now and the time when my word is fulfilled?" A simple example is that if someone received a word that they would be a missionary, they would want to get some training.

So, for me, manifest destiny simply means watch how you are living today based on your future determined by God.

Solid Rock

Delirious in Singapore.

my new coffee machines

The Kitchen Aide Proline grinder is outstanding. It's built like a tank and is very consistent.

The Presto is a very good coffee maker. It heats the water properly and the stays at a low enough temp., so it doesn't cook the coffee.

The Gaggia is great. After a bit of practice, I'm getting good crema and able to follow the golden rule. You could pay more and have an all metal housing, but what's inside is what makes great espresso!

leadership

If you've spent any amont of time in the north american institutional church, most of what you've learned about leadership is probably wrong. You might think you are following Jesus example, but you're probably just forcing an extra-biblical, big-business or military grid onto the Bible to make it fit.

I agree with these brief thoughts by Len Hjalmarson on leading:

• Instead of leading from over, we lead from among.
• Instead of leading from certainty, we lead by exploration, cooperation and faith.
• Instead of leading from power, we lead in emptiness depending on Jesus.
• Instead of leading as managers, we lead as mystics and poets, “speaking poetry in a prose flattened world” and articulating a common future.
• Instead of leading from the center, we lead from the margins.

My comments:

Jesus was constanly among the people. We need to be with people, beside them, in their lives, and with them. We are not over or ahead of people. We aren't detatched and unreachable. And we don't refer to people as "our people". They are God's people as we are. We don't order people or play master/servant with them.

Real Christian leadership is hard becaue it's counter-cultural. Jesus word on leading was to not to do it like the culture does it.

Incontrovertible and Inconsequential

Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
and don't go back until they've watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
not come back empty-handed.
They'll do the work I sent them to do,
they'll complete the assignment I gave them.

Isaiah 55:11

incontrovertible and inconsequential were the words that I wrote down this week after the election. What God has already set in motion will be. God needs people to pray and they are and have been.