Month: January 2025

Migration sinks boats

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Migration is one of humanity’s earliest developmental and survival moves.  Sometimes it has been the best move of all. I do not know exactly what triggered the first migration but one thing is clear.  The whole human race is no longer sunburnt as the first Africans were.  What brings us to disaster – boat sinking – is the racism that is popular today in the 21st century.  Racism and patriotism has fuelled many migrant moves.  The most fascinating and momentous migration of all is Abram’s from Mesopotamia, and I would not be surprised if there are cultures with a similar explanation of its genesis.  Migration is sinking the boats of Israel, the Unites States, Canada, and all those states that depend on migrant workers without showing them a shred of natural affection

From the fascinating and momentous to the enigmatic

Did the Jewish people have to preserve their stories of migration, with the narratives of miraculous and military conquest and puzzling episodes of genocidal criminality? I do not know why anyone would want to be truth tellers to this extent. Kicking people out of their land is a serious breach of international morality, but the migration of the Israelites from Egypt is a curosity from start to finish. So why should the events at the destination not be also enigmatic? A pattern accompanies all the ancient cultures of migration that synchronizes with the annual seasons, and the disruption of annual migration in Asia and North America by immigrants is the latest international crime for which we are pretending we have no solution. The United States and a few other conscientious rogue states would never accept the ruling of the inernational bodies who have a vested interest in keep track of and helping to adjudicate the movements of people.

Gentile, Jew, us, them

Moses made a number of legislative paths for migrants and strangers. Here are a few.  Do you know them?

GAYR, (like SHARE) the foreigner, masculine noun.

  1. Leavened food regulation affecting the foreigner: For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. Exod 12:19
  2. Passover regulation affecting the foreigner: And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron, This [is] the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof: Exod 12:43
  3. A circumcision regulation admitting the stranger to the seder: If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. Exod 12:48
  4. Sabbath observance imposed on the stranger: Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed. Exod 23:12
  5. The stranger shielded from oppressve treatment by Israelites: “You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. Exod 23:9
  6. Foreigners forbidden to eat the roasted flesh uased for atoning sacrifices: They shall eat those things with which atonement was made at their ordination and consecration, but an outsider shall not eat of them, because they are holy. Exod 29:33
  7. Respect the fact that blood carries life.  “Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, ‘No person among you may eat blood, nor may any alien who sojourns among you eat blood.’ (Leviticus 17:12)
  8. Giving/selling unclean meat to the alien/foreigner. “You shall not eat anything which dies of itself. You may give it to the alien who is in your town, so that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. (Deuteronomy 14:21)

What justification can there be for the criminal and unjust behaviour of governments today who think nothing of deporting people based on ethnicity? For those who look the other way when governments and religious zealots say Palestine is nothing and Palestinians are not a people there is a destiny Christ described as outer darkness.

There’d be no America or Canada to threaten Turtle Island without Immigration

Blanket emigration would be a Solomonic judgment in the case of racist Europeans wanting to overthrow God.  America and Israel have never practically renounced the dehumanization of Africans. Let us be straight about White Anglo Saxon Protestantism and its responsibility for the continuing morass of colonial capitalism.  Sure enough First Nations waged wars and corruption damaged progress,  but never let it be said that a slave economy brought them to civil war or self-denial.

Let it be: let the great again boats sink

Neither Russia, China, or America are the light of the world.  Not one of them is the salt of the earth.  So let Felonious I and his cult talk incessantly about deporting residents as if the American continent belongs to the descendants of Europeans. There is no common sense to racist patriotism and colonial thievery. The madness of the MAGA cult is spectacular, because they have control of the media. They can swamp the airwave and the public square with junk and numbing nonsense.  The First Nations of the world though would have the vast majority of intelligent people on their side. They would also have the most powerful nations on their side if they said “Let’s deport the descendants of the pilgrim fathers”. Migration helps to expose the immorality of the United States’ latest attempt to assert the influence it has lost and will never recover.

Love does not save nations from villainy

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There are too many pocket-picking opportunities in the modern version of religion for the virtues of  enlightened people to rescue society.  Politicians will not let us acknowledge that our land, our governments, and our physical well-being are all a smelly latrine that no one wants to use.   All the fresh graduates with doctorates in myriad fields have not convinced themselves that honesty is a real thing, nor that poor treatment of migrants (under any name or religious pretext) is utterly disqualifying and without virtue.  Even some of the most dedicated religious people are not convinced that love is the supreme attribute that humans can participate in.  Salvation is the gift that best defines love.  Monotheism, perfect obedience to rules and regulations, the observance of days and weeks and months and years, are all useless for experiencing salvation.

Love and war in the Davidide dynasty

Some people conveniently forget that Jesus is the king of love. His great ancestor David was a king whose heart led him to care for his enemies.   All hate is homicidal.  It is not only a Black and White reality, not only a citizen and foreigner thing,  it is also a human race issue. 

Instead of teaching our children to love others we set them off on a journey of acquiring property, an insensitive grasping for significance and power over others. 

Even many preachers of the Gospel of righteousness take pride in exhorting people to seek personal comfort and wealth and thereby ensnare their souls with a sense of superiority.  If you have this world’s goods you are one of the blessed.  You have God’s unconditional love.  It was not unconditional love that brought grace, faith and salvation. 

You have to realize that preachers like Osteen (one of the bosses of niggling theology and Pharisee righteousness) are incapable of interpreting the gospel, so they preach triumphalism, self-help, self-esteem, and earthly rewards.  They cannot expound the virtues of redeeming grace.  They are more comfortable with neo-Pharisee righteousness and Mammon.

Saving myself from this crooked generation

I won’t bother giving my body to be burnt, nor offer mself up as an assassin with suicidal intent, nor yet live in a silo of self love, thinking that self-preservation is the best example of love. The love that saves is the one we receive as God’s gift.  No one is buying that 13-dollar coin doctrine about loving God by being obedient to all his instructions.  It is curious how a reach for the supreme kind of love exposes the abject absence of love.  The leaders of the large groups of believers are not lovers of humanity; people follow them in loving themselves and their tradition.  It is surely a peculiar nation that cannot bring itself to love others like God loves the world.

“Migrant criminal” is an abominable slur against humanity

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I guess the deep thinkers in the MAGA world – the political pundit sycophants, the conservative pastors, their pastors’ scribes, and all the neo-Pharisees who occupy in Moses chair – do not know that “migrant” defines the Jewish people. Migrant and pilgrim are terms that describe the status of believers in God’s Anointed. Christians have been teaching and singing about this all the way. Dual citizenship is not an anomaly. Christians treasure heavenly and earthly citizenship (). Even if Americans of African descent do not want to see themselves a sojourners, what can we say about the horror addressed in the 14th amendment of the American Constitution? It is an abomination that Europeans have not recognized the nobility and stewardship of the Native People of North America, who move from place to place. We know it is not a crime to be a sojourner: ask Moses, ask the Bedoiun of the SArabian Peninsular, ask the Mongolians, ask the elders of your First Nations, and your will see that criminalizing migrants like MAGA plans to do is an abominable crime.

Migrant by origin and lifestyle

Abraham came from Mesopotamia. As far as we can tell Jacob built a ranch to make tending his flocks a little easier on the workers, but Isaac and Abraham tented all over Canaan. Christians take a lot of leads from Abraham. His rejection of building permanent homes is said to be a reflection of his vision of a lasting city, one (a) not of this order and (b) designed by God.

By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. Hebrews 11:9

But Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built himself a house and made booths for his livestock. Therefore the name of the place is called Succoth. Genesis 33:17

For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Hebrews 11:10

Migrants in the modern era

I suppose a few uninformed people like the governor of Florida, De Santis, might want Black people to feel that they came to America as migrants. The slavemasters, for being cruel and domineering, were the ones in chains, they were the ignoramuses and impoverished of mind. Migrants from the Caribbean, Asia, Europe, and Latin America are not worse criminals than the founders of the Australian nation. Look at who is claiming to be civilized now: a gang of plutarchs and oligarchs, all descendants of Europeans, all devoted to a criminal leader cut from the same cloth as they.

All humans migrated from Africa

I guarantee you that the think tanks have forgotten that at one time the planet was quite likely the site of one large land mass, Even if we are not open to the evidence of one land mass, it is beyond dispute that all of earth’s people trace their origin to Africa (except for those who think we have an alien ancestry). So now let us scan the planet and truly think that we are not migrants. Somebody is going to be in the docket for the crime against humanity of equating migrants with crime.

Thank you for subscribing to eejoseph

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I launched this experience to spread my appreciation of some of the amazing things happening in my life, but I soon realized that things, no matter how amazing, are usually not as valuable or interesting as persons. So I then started to publish the sayings of Jesus, correctly interpreted.  Then I began to include my labor activism, until I realized that most people, including God, are interested in fun, pleasure delight, and a good laugh.

“Life is fun but not a joke” steers away from debates and discussions.  Even in the group of less than a dozen people discussion and debate gobbles up a lot of time that is why there are no discussions between you the reader and me the writer.

Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for staying connected.

Just reading and thinking, in your box or outside your box, fulfills my goal.  Your names, your occupations, and your address (cultural spiritual or political) are of no interest to me.  Enjoy your life – have fun – and be a candle where you are.

Cutting straight and chopping off

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One of the meanings of the action addressed in the exhortation from Paul to Timothy in 2  Timothy 2:15 is often overlooked.  Accurately handling comes from orthotomeo ortho-taw-MAY-o; the ortho portion gives us the RIGHT part of the action.  Ortho also appears in Orthodox, meaning right opinion.  The other half of the word means cut.   So, putting the two pieces together we have the instruction from Paul to Timothy indicating cutting something in the proper way. 

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)

I have thought of this action as that performed by a joiner, a worker in wood, who cuts things precisely so that they can fit together by simple gluing. But let’s not take that gluing too far.  It has now dawned on me that the proper work recommended by Paul would involve separating things that are not necessary. 

For example, taking the Lord’s teaching in John chapter 4:21-24, one must cut away anything related to either mountain, Jerusalem or Gerizim. 

21) Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22) “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23) “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24) “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:21-24)

Worship in spirit and in truth does not need any mountain anywhere, needs no dedicated priesthood, no sacred objects, and no fixed times or seasons.

A second example, takes the Lord’s role as the prophet,  and parks any prophetic saying once an instance of Yeshua’s utterance on the same matter is available.  So there you have it:  “properly handling” or “correctly handling” or “rightly dividing” as the King James version says, most certainly includes chopping things off.

Y’all can’t go home

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17) “Speak to Aaron, saying, ‘No man of your offspring throughout their generations who has a defect shall approach to offer the food of his God.

There was no invitation to God’s inner sanctum for the majority of the Israelite people. Only a levite had access, and then only those meeting certain banchmarks. Americans in 2024 proved that they do not have a heart to discern God’s will for leadership. Which nation does? A businessman, many times found corruptly dealing with customers amd prospective clients would not even be allowed to clean the ashes from the altar of burnt offering. We should not think that any Levite was eligible for tabernacle functions. Furthermore, God was so on the trail of symmetry that even persons

Who might not be priest

  1. a blind man
  2. a lame man
  3. he who has a disfigured face
  4. he who has a deformed limb
  5. he who has a broken foot
  6. he who has a broken hand
  7. a hunchback
  8. a dwarf
  9. one who has adefect in his eye
  10. he who has eczema
  11. he who has scabs
  12. he who has crushed testicles

Who might be not president in the United States.

  1. A felon
  2. A 22 year old
  3. An insurrectionist
  4. A non-citizen

For that compromised Chief Justice and all the members of Congress going home after the inauguration of a known felon and pathological liar is going to be like never before.  All the talk about oversight and wise deliberation comes crashing down around the power brokers in the United States.  They might as well stay in Washington because they no longer represent the people.  Going to their districts or going home from the debacle of American boorish-prudence and another deeper dive into the abyss of falling for false pride. Can the justices find a home with spouses who are up to their knees in admiration of Jim Crow and colonial empire fantasy?

Nationalism ends up in corruption and destruction

It is an incontrovertible preface to catastrophe when a nation trusts in its military prowess and acclaims itself as invincible. Every respectable nation puts some confidence in its military, but it is an entirely different matter when a nation prioritizes its military spending and authorizes the use of its military to solve even social problems. The genius of American constitutional is the challenge of balance, not dominance. Three Hebrew boys were Yahweh’s instruments in outwitting the Babylon empire. Haman, the Persian, found out that assassination and murder does not prevail, just as American and Canadian discrimination could not erase the Native nations of Turtle Island. Corruption gets another kick at the can for the largest audience in history. Amecian corruption of the levers of power is no worse than first century CE corruption in the province Judea. (There was no sovereign Israel in the first century CE). A crash comes quickly, just when the rich and powrful think they have captured the fortress of human dignity and crushed the aspiration of the masses. The calamity will be so great, the generals and mighty men will call for the rocks – not the huge resources of WMDs and wealth – to cover them. The rock will say, “Sorry. We are not able”. There is no home for felons and sycophants in America. The media circus is a temporary roadside shack. Knock, knock! Silence.

Divine righteousness is a lamb anticipating dying for sinners

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YESHUA HAMMASHIACH – whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; (Romans 3:25)

JESUS THE CHRIST – for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:26) 3:25)

What righteousness looks like: rejoicing, enduring, sitting

fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

Empire builder failed the test

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So what if rotten apples make it? Don’t we know they even fake it?  Fifteen years ago my son and I wrote Empire builder.

Empire builder
(spoken)
Empire builder failed the test
Empire builder don’t know what’s best


gee whiz technology is not what we needed
wisdom’s calls have gone unheeded
sitting in the grass is what we do
now it’s time, flush the rhetoric of the civilized and privileged crew
of Empire builders


Empire builder, not so fast
it’s time for a change
colonial mansions couldn’t take the blast
there used to be a home on this range
so what if rotten apples make it
we know they even fake it
better fruit keep Us alive and safe we call that best


Empire builder you failed the test
there’s no gold in mistreating the guest reaching for the stars while this rock’s the best
you keep racing and forgetting to rest


so what if rotten apples make it
we know they even fake it
better fruit keep us alive and safe we call that best


Empire builder you failed the test
all fall
Empire builder don’t know what’s best, fail!
Empire builder boohoo