powdered eggs

My wife was just using some powered milk for something and I got to thinking about powdered eggs.

You have never lived until you have eaten powdered eggs.

I am not sure how they are made, but powdered eggs have their own flavor, their own consistency, their own sense of self that nothing else has.

Maybe the chickens are sad, or fed something horrible and just give up on life, producing powdered eggs. I don’t know.

We had them for breakfast almost every morning in the army. They were also in the C Rations we ate on occasion: powdered eggs and ham.

I remember coming up to the grill in the mess hall and the cook would have a large pile of powdered eggs on the griddle – a large, vaguely yellow mass – and he would ask, How do you want your eggs? Omelet, scrambled, fried, eggs Benedict? We would request something and he would cut off a portion of them, flop the glop on our plates and say, Here you go.

They were awful, yet we ate them. It is funny how you remember things that were so far back. Young men forced into government service eating powdered eggs.

You get used to almost anything. My son mentioned that the other day when I was talking about wearing a mask to help me sleep. I was describing it and he said if someone were to come up and hit you at random times during the night, you would still eventually be able to sleep.

And that’s true. You eat junk and sooner or later, junk is normal. I read where people eat nothing but tortillas and beans their whole lives and it is normal. The Louis L’Amour cowboys eat bacon, frybread and drink coffee everywhere they go and are perfectly happy.

I guess it is when you have a lot of choices that you have trouble. We eat something different every night. There are some things that are my favorites, but if I were to eat those each night, I would get tired of them.

But in the army, I ate the powdered eggs and I ate potatoes at every meal and things were fine.

Of course, I was 20. That might have made a difference.

i was tear gassed once in the 60’s

I was just reading about a guy who was tear gassed in the 60’s. He was at an anti-war rallI was just reading about a guy who was tear gassed in the 60’s. He was at an anti-war rally and the police threw in tear gas and he left real fast.

I was tear gassed once in the 60’s myself. The difference was, I was the military.

We were in basic training, doing all the stuff that was supposed to prepare us for military service and combat. Fort Bliss, in El Paso was where I was stationed.

We got to the training field and came to a little house. It was probably eight by eight square.

The drill sergeant told us that today we would learn what tear gas felt like. Tear gas was used occasionally in combat so they wanted the troops to know what it was like. I didn’t particularly want to, but kept wisely quiet.

We went in by fours. He gave us a gas mask at the door and told us to hold it in our hands and put it on when they told us.

I walked into the room. No windows. Suddenly, my eyes started burning, I had trouble breathing. My face where I had shaved that morning burned. The drill sergeant shouted Wait! We stood there gasping and crying.

He told us that before we could put them on, we had to say our military ID numbers. I finally remembered it and recited it.

Then he said, Okay, put them on.

It was such a relief to put the gas masks on. They were horribly uncomfortable, but they filtered the air so well.

We stood for a few moments and he told us to go on out.

I heard that one guy walked through the wall to get out, but I am not sure if that was apocryphal or not. I know I felt like it.

Not sure what brought that on. Part of the great tapestry that is my life.

That sounded hokey, didn’t it?

daily java

Daily Java:

For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death. (2 Corinthians 7:10)

You’re talking to the guy in jail. He has been caught robbing a store. You ask, are you sorry you got caught. He looks so contrite. Yes, I’m sorry, he says. If you had it to do again, what would you do? I just wish I had never robbed that store. I hate it in here and people treat me bad. would you do it again? Oh, probably, but I would be more careful and plan better. If I had known he had that gun, I would have gone to a different store.

That is worldly sorrow, the sorrow of getting caught. I am sorry I did the thing, because now I am being punished.

Godly sorrow is totally different. Are you sorry? Yes, I wish I had never done that. It was wrong and, while I deserve what I get, at the same time, if I had it to do again, I would not rob that store.

The reason eight out of ten inmates return to jail is worldly sorrow. They think that if they can just do it the right way, they will get off. If t hey can pick the right store, go at the right time of night, threaten in just the right way, plan their escape better. If they can do these things, they will be fine. They are just sorry they got caught.

God wants real sorrow. He doesn’t want obedience out of fear, or out of duty. He wants obedience out of love.

When you love someone you do the best you can for that person. And what you surely do not want to do is hurt the person. If you do, you are sorry.

It is real sorrow. Not, I am sorry I hurt you because now you are mad, or won’t fix me dinner, or won’t go to bed with me.

It is sorrow that you caused pain and suffering to the person.

Without that, repentance is meaningless.

I have seen people come down for altar call for “repentance” who would say something on the order of “If I have done anything to hurt anyone in any way, I ask forgiveness.”

What does that mean? Nothing. It is a blanket repentance designed to assuage rather than to really say you are sorry.

Real sorrow brings life because it keeps us open to each other, open to God. False repentance, worldly sorrow, brings death because it doesn’t care. And lack of caring will kill even the best relationship.

daily java

Daily Java:

And what union can there be between God’s temple and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said:
“I will live in them
   And walk among them.
I will be their God.
   And they will be my people.”
Therefore, come out from unbelievers,
   And separate yourselves from them, says the Lord.
Don’t touch their filthy things,
   And I will welcome you.
And I will be your Father,
   And you will be my sons and daughters,
   Says the Lord Almighty. (2 Corinthians 6:16-18)

I do not believe in interfaith prayer meetings. I cannot see any way that I can pray together with a group of people who worship a different God. Or who, in worshiping God, do so in a way that negates Jesus.

If you believe in the Bible as the divinely inspired written word of God, you have to accept what the Bible says. And the Bible plainly says that Jesus is the only way to heaven, the only way to God. Acts 4:12 says There is salvation is on one else. God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.

That means you either believe in Jesus as the Son of God, as the way to God, or you do not come to God.

That also means that you I do not have anything spiritually in common with Jews or Muslims or New Age practitioners. I do not pray to the same God. And, again, if they are not praying to Jehovah God, the God Almighty, do not pray with them.

There has been a big move lately to combine everyone in prayer services, to show diversity. The problem is, in God there is no divine diversity. Yes, there are a lot of ways to come to Jesus. He is the center of a multi-faceted stone, but he is the only center. There are no others.

When it comes to praying to God or believing in God, the is one God and Jehovah is his name. There is one God and Jesus Christ is his only Son. There are no others, no matter how tolerant we want to be.

This verse was used a lot in one denomination I was acquainted with to encourage people to leave a church they felt was not completely right and form another. They were to “come out” of the church that might have some error and form the one true church. In other words, it was used to encourage division.

You can give just a cursory glance at Proverbs and Psalms and others and you can tell that God hates division. He always says work in the situation. Do not divide it. In fact, he never gives authorization in his word to tear a congregation of believers up for any reason.

But it does say, don’t hang around with unbelievers. Do not marry them, do not get into business partnerships with them, do not entangle your life with theirs. It will only lead to grief.

After all, as a Christian you have nothing in common with them.

i was just listening to the sound of a TV from another room

I was just listening to the sound of a TV from another room.

My daughter plays her living room TV pretty much 24/7. We do not have satellite in our room and do not want it. We quit cable about six months ago and are happy without it.

Oh, I know. Occasionally I want to watch a weirdo rearrange furniture on HGTV, or watch a movie on Turner Classic Movies but in general I am happy.

She loves her TV and watches it all the time. It is going in both the living room and the bedroom.

So, since we are staying with them until we get an apartment, and if the door to our bedroom is cracked, we can hear it.

We have become people of relative silence in the past few years. Maybe the radio will be playing, but it will generally be soft and kind of background. We will watch a movie at night, but that is about it for the TV. I usually do a lot on the internet, but she doesn’t have internet right now, so I tend to do a lot of writing and reading.

The noise from the other room can get irritating at times. It is like being at the beach or park and someone is playing a radio a ways off. Or talking on their cell phone in the mall rather loudly. Or letting a big truck idle for a few hours. Or hitting me on the head with a small, annoying stick every few seconds.

After a while, you get to where you tune it out and don’t hear it as such. But it is there, always under the surface.

It is kind of like listening to an old guy gripe. Okay, I’ll shut up.

what is a good idea to us in not necessarily a good idea to God

“For,” said Peter, “it is written in the Book of Psalms “‘May his place be deserted;  let there be no one to dwell in it,’  and, “‘May another take his place of leadership.’ Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.”  So they nominated two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. Then they prayed, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs.” 2 Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.  (Acts 1:20-26)

What is a good idea to us in not necessarily a good idea to God.

Jesus chose twelve apostles. Maybe the number had some significance, maybe not. The number comes out a lot in the Bible so maybe so.

But the apostles felt that it was necessary that they keep what Jesus had done. So when Judas died, they felt they had to have another apostle. After all, this was the way they did it in the past, so it was probably necessary.

Lots were cast and Matthias was chosen. He was happy and Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) was not. Maybe he just had too many names and the apostles felt it would be hard to get him on the letterhead. James the son of Alphaeus was bad enough.

So they chose Matthias, had an installation ceremony into the apostles, everybody was happy and shook his hand and he got to sit in a special chair.

And you never hear from him again.

God does what he wants to do when he wants to do it. He doesn’t need us to try to preserve the tradition. If he wanted another apostle, he would have had an alternate appointed already so he could step in.

Later on, he chose Paul, an apostle chosen later (1 Corinthians 15:8) . Then later, Paul even mentions some of the workers and calls them outstanding among the apostles (Romans 16:7). One of them was even a woman,

The thing was, Jesus did not need his people to help him. He could do things well himself and in his own time.

We need to remember that. God does not need out help. God is his Name and Jesus Christ is his only Son.

the more you know, the harder it is on you

The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief.
To increase knowledge only increases sorrow. (Ecclesiastes 1:18)

Ecclesiastes is in my daily Bible reading right now, so I am seeing several things in it that strike me. And this is one.

The more you know, the harder it is on you. I believe that to a large point, the old adage “Ignorance is bliss” is true. The less you know, the less you have to worry about. Simple people tend to be happier.

My wife and I are two examples of this. Ella is by no means unlearned, but she and I have a totally different outlook on life.

I am an accumulator of information. I find it everywhere and it sticks in my mind. What is more, for the most part, I remember a lot of it.

Ella, on the other hand, enjoys receiving new information, but will not go out of her way to get it. She enjoys it (to a point) when I bring up new things, but does not go out to seek it on her own.

It makes for a marked difference in our personalities. Quite frankly, I know too much. And the more I know, the more it weighs on me. The accumulated information does not necessarily help me. She knows what she wants to know and is happy. I have to know more and am not, as a general rule, a happy guy.

And I learn a lot of stuff I don’t need to know because that is the way I am made. Some things I learn, I do not tell her because it would make her unhappy or bothered. But it is a personality quirk of mine that I have to learn them.

Once I do, they sit in there inside the maelstrom that is many times my mind. They may come out at some odd time and people are surprised that I know whatever it is I know, but in general, most of the knowledge I accumulate is useless. It is a shame I do not go to cocktail parties, because the kind of stuff I know would be great there.

Occasionally I will ask her, maybe while we are driving around, what are you thinking about?

Her response will be something like, I was thinking about how pretty those flowers are. Or I was thinking about the song we just heard on the radio.

I am usually thinking about 17 things, all unrelated, all of them twirling around inside my brain competing for attention. And there are times when I would love just to shut them all up, to think about flowers without thinking about conversations from 30 years ago, and something I had read, and the Hebrew word for something and what might happen to the van next, and something I had read and the political situation in America right now and missing my kids and our financial situation and my knee hurting and – on.

I envy her in her ability just to let things go.

daily java

Daily Java:

History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. Sometimes people say, “Here is something new!” but actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new. We don’t remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now. (Ecclesiastes 1:9-11)

As a student of history, I see repetition everywhere in our country. Nothing really new ever happens.

In politics, in other things, you see the same thing happening again and again.

Someone once said, “Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.” And it is absolutely true.

After all, people are not any different than they ever have been. They just are allowed to act differently at times. But their root ideas and characteristics are always the same.

You see that in your own life when your kids make the same mistakes you made when you were their age. You try to tell them and all, but they will not listen and end up doing the same thing.

History repeats itself.

And there is nothing you can do about it.

There is new technology and new literature, new music, new art – but even then, they are merely reworkings of former literature, music, art.

Technological advances give us the ability to do some interesting things, some things that people before us would have considered magic, even.

But for all its trappings, what are you doing with a cell phone? You are talking to someone else. The fact that the person may be 3000 miles away is amazing, but it is still conversation.

You research on a computer and write, you look at stuff on the web. But essentially, all you are doing is visiting the library and using a very advanced pencil.

What you are doing is no different. It is just how you are doing it that is different. Phenomenally different, that is true, but basically the same.

New politicians come in with new ideas that are basically the same. A singer comes out with a new song that is basically the same.

The longer you live, the more you recognize this. The more you see patterns in what is done and what people are doing, what is accomplished and what is messed up.

The writer of Ecclesiastes says this. No matter how hard you try to do something, it has probably already been done and the people who did it are all dead.

Depressing way to look at stuff, but true. Of course, the book of Ecclesiastes is a depressing book to begin with anyway.

But it is 100% true, that is for sure.

make the right choice

Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) and said, “Brothers and sisters, the Scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus. He was one of our number and shared in our ministry.” (With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) (Acts 1:12-19)

A lot of times you just do not know what to do. In a time of stress, people will do all kinds of things, some constructive and some destructive.

The eleven apostles met together and prayed to relieve their stress. They were quite frankly scared and didn’t know what else to do. So they prayed.

Jesus had left them and they were, at least in their minds, without the presence of God, so they sought that presence in the best way they could: prayer.

Judas also felt abandoned. He of course had brought it on himself when he betrayed Jesus and brought the anger of the rest of the group on himself. He too was without the presence of God. So he did what he felt was necessary. He killed himself.

Both of these were adaptations to stress. But one sought God, the other sought death. One sought relief, the other release.

It would have been easy for the apostles to have felt abandoned. Jesus had told them to wait until they received power, but how long would that be? It could be days, it could be weeks, it could be months, years, decades. How long?

Judas was without God and felt abandoned. He saw no reason to live. He had lost all of his friends, his job, his support group, his own sense of self-image. He was a traitor and a betrayer, one who turned on his own friends and his own teacher. He was no good.

At least in his own mind.

But when it came down to it, he did no different than Peter, except that he got paid better. Peter denied Jesus for a temporary place at the fire. Judas got thirty pieces of silver. But the action was the same. Both denied Jesus. Both got paid. But one came back and the other didn’t.

You betrayed Jesus yourself, not long ago. You can do as Peter did and return, loving Jesus once again. Or you can do as Judas did and figure it is all hopeless and leave your life behind.

Make the right decision.

daily java

Daily Java:

So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time, we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view, How differently we know him now! (2 Corinthians 5:16)

Do you remember the first time you ever saw the girl who would become your wife? Maybe you fell in love immediately, as I did. Maybe you weren’t impressed by her. Maybe she was just one of many.

Now that you have been married for over forty years, you see her automatically when you enter a room. You know all about her, what she likes, what she dislikes, what she thinks. You have talked to her a million times, made love to her, held her while she cried, laughed with her – you know her intimately.

In fact, you know her so well, it is hard to go back to when you saw her the first time. Others can see her for the first time now, but not you.

So it is with Jesus. He has been a part of my life for more than 51 years. I see others come into contact with him for the first time and they are so excited. To them it is a brand new relationship. To me it is an old familiar relationship.

The problem comes when you want the new again. Why can’t I feel like I did when I was first converted to Jesus, or when the Spirit first came into my heart, you ask.

But the problem is, you can’t.

A lot of married couples have this desire to reclaim the excitement of first meeting, of their honeymoon night, or talking to someone they barely know. But you have been with this woman for over 40 years. You cannot go back to the beginning.

You can rediscover. That you can do. You can rekindle and renew. But you have been too long together to pretend it is the first time.

We want the mountaintop experiences that come from the newness of something. That is natural. But at the same time, we want the maturity that comes from knowing someone so well.
 As exciting as the first part of our marriage was, we had a lot of disagreements as to how we would live and be together. Our relationship is so much easier now. We sit together quietly and are good friends now.

The same with God. I have been with God so long, I know him and his word so well, that I can be comfortable with him. Yes, he is God and is unpredictable, and I never want to take him for granted, but at the same time there comes a point in any relationship where it becomes familiar.

I know my wife now. I know Jesus now. Both are long time relationships that I treasure.