Month: July 2023

Happening in high court

eejoseph

You may think MAGA Republicans, criminal presidents and well-educated but semi-conscious public officials are phenomenal, but they, like British colonialists  of the last four centuries  and crooked cops are the grease that keeps the squeaky wheels of tyranny from being too obvious. Here is a look at the moment a Jewish high priest, presiding over a hearing, decided to assault the witness, an exceptional Jewish male who had become a follower of Yeshua of Nazareth. The account comes from Luke, a physician who accompanied Paul on his journeys throughout Asia.  It shows that miscarriages of justice have happened in plain sight and in exceptional environments.

1) Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, “Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day.” 2) The high priest Ananias commanded those standing beside him to strike him on the mouth.” (Acts 23:1-2, NASB)

⚖️ ⛔

I have seen judges muzzle witnesses by threatening a contempt citation and by having them removed from the court, but the levitical High Priest took matters to a personal level that is so low observers could not have failed to notice that assaulting a prisoner or witness was an outrage.

Punch the witness in the mouth

The order given by the president of the high court raises questions about what may have happened behind closed doors to hundreds of nameless people who found themselves outside the fold of New Testament Judaism.  An order to punch the witness in open court was clearly given to an officer of the court; it was not a knee jerk reaction by the high priest himself.  The violence that accompanies Mosaic law must not be overlooked as a temporary arrangement.  Since Canaanites targeted for annihilation and indicted tribes in the neighbourhood could receive mercy and a place in Israel’s daily life we must certainly put shunning, stoning, flogging and physical assault in the history book and leave them there.  Judges who are averse to empathizing with defendants and are quick to emphasize the maximum sentence for selected defendants, or side with vigilante justice, are existential threats to justice.  We should be ready to see more and similar outrageous behaviours in courts and in the legislatures where traditional values are more important than fixing bad policy and helping citizens to thrive.

Justice trashed despite the appearance

The gavel, the scales and the teams of professionals are often discouraging

A perfectly good conscience was unconscionable outside of New Testament Judaism

Ananias, the high priest, must have been as ruthless as the Romans who were oppressing the Jewish people, and the people who were likely to attend a hearing to silence a follower of Christ were not going to say anything against anything the hateful mob wanted. So, yes! Punch them in the mouth, for saying “A perfectly good conscience does not allow me to keep following Moses”. Punch them in the mouth and deny them access to the synagogues, cut them off from livelihood and life itself. New Testament Judea was a far cry from the French and American republics.  Judea and Samaria were often more like exotic outposts of the PRC and the Russian Federation.  That the words “, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day“should trigger an illegal reaction in court, is evidence that people’s opinions given under oath hold no water in a court that has lost sight of decency and justice. Such courts are in no position to correct their downward slide into abject hypocrisy and irrelevance.

Less than thirty seconds

eejoseph

The practice of prayer has deteriorated into the very things the Lord wanted us to avoid.  Empty repetitions and expressions aimed at the congregation instead of God are problematic.  When the Lord told his disciples, “Pray this way”,  he would have seen the lengthy and tiresome prayers people were offering and the ridiculous recitations and declarations people would offer up in the twenty first century.

Fell, fell, Digit

eejoseph

Donald J Tump, the greatest at everything he tried fell.  His fall is so catastrophic and decisive it is denied only by sleepwalking fans of rancid slogans, supporters of tyranny, and faithless religious operatives.  DJT might have become a fist, a Thor with a hammer, but he was too weak-kneed to do things required by his rabid band of deniers.  He had to fall: a total ban on Muslim immigration could not stand.  His sordid attempts to cover up and deny a trail of immoral behaviours could not stand.  The alliance of Protestants and Catholics was likely questioned in private but could only stand if both parties renounced their reason for being, therefore any success accruing has to end in failure.  Today, the 45th president of the United States is less than a finger.  He is a dwindling and vanishing digit, his shuffling profile heading to court, likely to prison, ignominy, and historic obscurity.

Goodbye, pipe-dreaming crime boss

How many of Digit’s cronies in the Congress fall with him is a well kept secret, but we know that nearly all those who condemned his coup attempt then supported it should face the music.  They can lie to the public about election losses but let us hope that their sworn statements and evidence given to the police will pass the smell test.  The first deceived themselves.

“…Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!…”

Revelation of John 18:2b, NASB

“…Ἔπεσεν, ⸀ἔπεσεν Βαβυλὼν ἡ μεγάλη,…”

Revelation of John 18:2b

Rather than being a prophet of doom or a silent watchman it is better for me to relate to the hate-free movements of people who have consistently taken care of the planet and the next generation.  As late as New Testament times people in Palestine were still associating God, his voice and awesome power with thunderstorms, moon configurations, red sunrises etc., so why did primitive cultures get labelled pagan, heathenistic, and ignoble?  Far too many people are being sucked into the abyss of politics, which is either a revolving door of Heckles and Heckles, or a despot’s perfect dinner.  Deceiving the whole world is not a cheap religious slogan.  Beware the pied pipers, beware the Merlins of Camelot, beware the physicians who do not heal themselves, beware those who divide households and then parade themselves as united and strong. Harlotry is always playacting.

The silent God

eejoseph

It would be interesting to discover the circumstances under which a believer might evaluate God as being silent to his prayers.  So let’s make sense of David’s line in Psalm 28, “Do not be deaf to me, lest you hush and I die”.

1) To You, O Lord, I call; My rock, do not be deaf to me, For if You are silent to me, I will become like those who go down to the pit. 2) Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You for help, When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary.

Psalms 28:1-2, NASB

Whatever the trouble might have been that David was experiencing, he was certain that God’s voice would keep him alive, and we must note that that is what matters. We must also note that David ascribed security to Yahweh, calling him “my Rock”. I see God’s deafness and zipped lip as both miniscule panic and poetic over-dramatization. No believer need think that God is deaf or silent. Finally, let us be aware that David wrote kee shama qôl tachᵊnunaee, because he HEARS the sound of my supplications. The son of David shows us that without his word to us we are dead.

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.

John 5:24, NASB

Watery sounds, birdsong, people at play, music, animals at night

eejoseph,

What do you listen to while you work?

I like to alternate between sounds in the foreground and background sounds. Running water is just lovely, but ocean waves breaking are superb. The laughing sounds of people at play reminds me that life is still very good and valuable. I listen to recorded music for my work as a keyboard player, both intently to learn musical progressions and peripherally to catch the soul of a song. I wish there were lions roaring in the dark, and do not wish to forget frogs croaking all night long.

Just because the cause of racists is now boldly public

eejoseph, , ,

It is said that the groundbreaking bile issuing from official sources is overdue.  People who despise government, people who are prone to use violence to get their way,  people who are unapologetically racist and xenophobic, are having their day in the spotlight.  The poorly opinionated will believe that the public airing of their views is a sign of triumph, but they willingly are wearing blinders and will not escape the lesson learned by Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. The sun sets on the kingdoms and empires.  The sun and moon also set on television clips,  the simple get lost in the spin, trapped in the web of insincerity and ignorance, and while the number of people who think that they can plant flags on things they hear on TV from people they admire, remains at the same level,  the voices become more insane in support of racism. 

Privileged but gehenna-bound

And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will be brought down to Hades!

Luke 10:15, NASB

Although Capernaum was Yeshua’s chosen hometown there was no benefit to the town from the fact.  Capernaum never became a tourist attraction and did not become a holy city.  The Bethlehem native was never compromised about righteousness and goodness, unlike the people of the so-called Book.  Just as he fled from Bethlehem to avoid Herod’s sword so he fled Capernaum to avoid the stones of synagogue attendees.

The United States is an aborted frog-prince

There is no free lunch for homicidal cultures.  Lots of people associating themselves with Christ of Nazareth like to think of ultimate justice as the annihilation of wrongdoers.  They believe in unending punishment and ignore the successive generations of public villains and private sinners.  They play with capital punishment and mouth platitudes about Christian virtue. The wonder of the American rise from under the British colonial boot and the new national psyche is still unprecedented in the modern era, and God must have inspired the vision of rights and liberty as basic to all human beings, even though American powerbrokers feel they can change ALL to SOME and get away with it. The pressures to steer the United States into the mold of the nations whence the pilgrims came are immense and unrelenting.  One would have to be pretty naive to see as unrelated to these pressures the perversion of religion and politics.  Instead of the land of the free and the home of the brave, we are witness to “a home for demons, a cage of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird.” (Revelation of John 18:2). Believe your eyes: all kinds of crime and immorality get the approval of legislatures and high court justices.  The prince in shining armour of the American Revolution is today, 200 years later, a Wizard of Odds, clamouring to ensure a place at the table of honour for criminal types.

Nobody knows justice like the Nazarene.

Solomon was wise, learned and discerning, but he made the mistake of embracing the spiritual priorities of all the nations within the young king’s reach.  We make the same mistake concluding that ancient customs are the best, and like Israel, cannot seem to be able to pull away from the agricultural and astronomical elements of all primitive cultures.  We have no excuse for trying to combine the nobility of human beings with the interests of earth’s rulers.  Governments will continue to prosecute people for doing things the Almighty authorized.  You have no leg to stand on when the very things you proscribe are in your bosom, mouth, hands and feet (Romans 2:17-21, 3:13-18).  There is no such thing as a spiritual government.  Every example before us is like an agent of Sheol, dealing out pomp and ceremony and death. Each one parades  their wealth and tradition like a hypnotist.

Who is drumming up war with Caesar, Herod, or the Council?

It surely is last gasp bravado and chest-thumping when instead of providing peace and security for all the people in their care leaders all over the globe are arming their supporters with increasingly lethal weapons and hateful rhetoric.  The alliance between religious movements and political parties is as abominable as partnerships can get.  Yeshua did not join a political or religious party and he raised no militia against Rome.

24) When they came to Capernaum, those who collected the two-drachma tax came to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the two-drachma tax?” 25) He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth collect customs or poll-tax, from their sons or from strangers?” 26) When Peter said, “From strangers,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are exempt.” 27) “However, so that we do not offend them, go to the sea and throw in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for you and Me.”

Matthew 17:24-27, NASB

The megaphone justification fizzles

We are witnesses to an unspeakable disregard for facts.  Because worms do not eat them up and the ground does not open up and swallow them we should not think that their causes are just.  Even if the majority marches in support of racism, xenophobia and misogyny.  The doors are closing of tribalism and insurrection, but people are loathe to acknowledge the fact.  The voices of intolerance are loud and urgent but God has a generation that will situate itself in the valley between tradition and the here and now.  I have to imagine that the Jewish public at the time of Solomon’s Temple felt that Yahweh had swept the country free of Canaanites, but God had a surprise for them, and in such a way as to make sure that it could not ever be forgotten. David bought the property on which the temple was built from a Jebusite, one of the nations destined for dispossession by Yahweh in the instructions that came from Moses.  Inconsistencies in national policies do not escape Gods notice, as surely as the xenophobic policy the Israelites thought they had could not be laid at Yahweh’s feet.  No magaphone or megaphone can prevail when hearts get turned to hearts. If we keep falling for extreme sound bytes and violent revolutionary slogans just because it is on television and comes from an elected official, we may never recover from the tinsel that passes for public discourse, and we may never see the light.  Tune in!

What is creamy chocolate rice?

eejoseph,

What’s your go-to comfort food?

It used to be a secret. Now the intelligence agencies and legislators of our times are going to eat like princes. Rice cooked in milk until it is soft and melts in the mouth, spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and coconut, may look like rice pudding until you add cocoa. Light or dark brown, sweetened with sugar and/or raisins, this edible is also a favorite of some of my closest friends. I make this for me, and paradise would be having it made “like mommy used to make it”. Bring your 5 hour version of rice porridge.