Folks that know me see me most often in a light blue chambray long sleeve shirt. I love those things, have more than a half dozen in my closet! My fondness for them goes way back to my early folk singing days as a kid. Chambray is a airy cotton weave, material coming mostly from India, great shirts made there, too. Both my brother and I learned to iron our own clothes, a task I thoroughly enjoy! At one point in my childhood, I got so good at ironing shirts, could knock out a bunch in an hour, I thought of starting a home business to compete with the small Chinese family laundry in town who charged $00.21 each, mildly starched and folded.
Among the grass-roots folk music types, Woody Guthrie popularized the look the most. His music identified the social challenges of the working class, and quite frankly, although he mistakenly lauded the good intentions of collective bargaining (e.g. his positive stance for Labor Unions) he came across genuinely as a voice for the downtrodden workers of America. It just so happened they wore blue chambray shirts to the factories, thus the moniker, “blue-collar” workers. It was during this same time, down to the present, that prison inmates wore similar shirts. Even white-collar criminals were issued the blues!
Now don’t get too confused here, there was an upside. Navy men wore those blue chambray shirts, too! White caps and slacks topped off with blue chambray set our “men in blue” off from the other miscreants donning chambray. But it took several decades for blue to crawl out of the mire of ridicule. Thanks be to likes of Ralph Lauren and others to spear-head a blues revolution! Blue is chick! Blue is fashionable! Blue is dress-down Friday! Blue chambray can now hold its own in the business world with the traditional white “white-collar” shirt. And if you work for a large IT company, jeans, chambray shirt and herring bone weave blazer is as close to ‘formal’ as you will get!
Let’s face it. Blue chambray shirts for both men and women are here to stay. They are not a trend revisited ( I hear bell-bottoms are nearing a comeback) but a mainstay of the revolution! Chicken Little thought the sky was falling, no it didn’t, only our perceptions. Viva La Revolucion
This is probably the most important blog I will have written to date. The material touches upon election, predestination, and the end times. Jesus admonished us to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. That is why this material, although some might think it racist, is for our personal understanding to add to our understanding of what is going on around us.
There is an old country hymn that was sung by many, espousing the condition of being ‘saved,’ it begins, “There’s a new name written down in glory, and it’s mine!” Yet I don’t believe this to be a correct statement based on a closer exegesis of the idea. So, I want to begin this blog with a most insightful verse of the Bible found in Revelation Chapter 17 verse 8b[i],
And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. (author italic and underlining)
I can almost guarantee you have never heard a sermon regarding these underlined words! This passage mentions a subject rarely if ever dealt with from the pulpit. The whole thread regarding God’s book[ii] seems to bring up salient facts yes, but facts not usually mentioned in scholarly commentaries of Revelation, or if so, simply glossed over in discussion. This might be so because to delve into the subject would bring up the concept of ‘election’ and ‘predestination,’ even racism, subjects hard to wrangle with when one is of the persuasion that ‘anyone’ and ‘everyone’ can partake of the grace of God that leads to salvation. I believe salvation is not available to everyone, and that fact alone can create discord in the world. I believe those close to Jesus understood this fact.
Related to this, I have blogged elsewhere[iii] regarding the true meaning of the Wheat and the Tares parable[iv] that Christ instructed his disciples. In the teaching tares are beings that appear human in all aspects, but are not, as they are hybrids. They will propagate and grow along side us, they will lead lives, have jobs, live in houses, create wealth, have children, join PTA, be members of your bowling team, etc., etc. but they are not of us. They to no fault of their own are offspring of the Edenic serpent[v] and we perhaps find them here in Revelation with regards to the mention of God’s Book of Life.
You see, when we read Rev. 17:8b we understand there is a book, it is God’s book of names. Names of individuals written in it before the world began. Yet the verse speaks of individuals never having been included in that book! Why? Because tares are not wheat. If there ever was an argument for predestination, the thread of God’s book throughout the bible speaks loudly for it! God’s book of names is first mentioned in the Old Testament book Exodus 32:32. To recap briefly, Moses by God’s power delivered the Israelites from Egypt, and in his absence they sinned a great sin of idolatry, not worshiping the true God whose power it was that brought them out of slavery.
After confronting the people, Moses goes back up the mountain where God has manifested to give him the Law tablets, and Moses begins to barter with God. He asks God to forgive the sin of the people and erase his name from God’s book in their stead. God refuses the prayer, stating …”him who has sinned against me I will erase out of my book.” It is on this basis I put forth the thesis that every true human being[vi] has their name written in God’s book. They start out their earthly life in God’s Book of Life. As we follow the thread of this book through to the end of the Bible, we can deduce that 1) all true humans begin life with their name written in God’s book, 2) but for reasons known to God various names will be blotted out, and 3) there are those who have never had their name written in the book at all!
A possible example of category #2 above is a person who consistently rejects Jesus being their Lord and Savior up through the time of death. They missed the mark in not believing while alive, and thus are potentially erased once dead. However, there are those who have NEVER had their name written in the book in the first place! They won’t be scratched out, because they were never there! I have met people like this. No amount of preaching, teaching, witnessing or listening to Televangelists will ever bring them into the fold! They simply cannot grasp the Lordship of Christ with their mind and spirit! They are not the “called of God”, they must therefore comprise the tares grouping!
Throughout the New Testament the Apostle Paul, a Jew, viewed himself and his ministry to be for the gentiles, anyone who was non-Jewish. Knowing that the ‘fruit was ripe unto harvest’ among them, he repeatedly requests prayer for OPPORTUNITY to speak the gospel (he never asks for prayer for the ‘lost,’) so as to turn as many gentile hearts toward Jesus as were ready to accept the message of Christ. He wasn’t going to spend years in a community of rejectionists in hopes of turning a convert many years down the road! He was aware of the true meaning of Wheat and Tares. In fact these tares incited hatred among the people constantly rejecting/corrupting the message[vii]!
So from this we see that there are tares people who never had their names in God’s book of life, and then there are people who for reasons known to Jesus alone have been or will be blotted out of his book. When we understand this, we can more fully understand what is transpiring around us and by whom. The seeds of antagonism toward God were sewn in the garden of Eden, and the curse of Genesis 3:15 was God’s pronouncement that the battle was forth coming. The serpent (the Devil, Satan, Lucifer, Shining One) immediately set about a plan for heavenly conflict. That plan included the corruption of the human DNA pool. If human DNA could be so tainted, it would bar the incarnation of Christ in fulfillment of the ‘protoevangelium’ found in Genesis 3:15, the seed of the woman! We see then Genesis chapter 6 the corruption had gone on for hundreds of years, and so nearly touched every human, the only remedy God had was to eradicate the corrupted angel-human hybrids with the flood, thus starting population growth over again with the families of Noah!
Unfortunately, the Bible records that there were Nephilim and Anakim in the land after the repopulation by the time of Joshua! The conquest to gain the land promised to Abraham necessitated those Israelites drive out these corrupted DNA beings. While the term Nephilim meaning ‘fallen ones’ indicates ‘giants,’ not all angel-human offspring were giants. There were individuals that looked like any true human being. This can be inferred from the command of God to Joshua that certain groups were to be completely eliminated, men, women, children and animals![viii]
You see, Lucifer and all the other fallen angels are created immortal heavenly beings. God can’t simply erase them from existence, there is a time set for their demise. And, in the end, all that do evil will be established in a place far from the glorious rule of Christ. As to the tares, “you shall know them by their fruit,” and unfortunately, they will have their place in the lake of fire.[ix]
The passage in Romans 8:29-30 is famous for introducing the subject of predestination. Stating,
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” Romans 8:29-30
Ephesians 1:5 and 11 declare,
“He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will…In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will[x].”
Many people have a strong hostility to the teaching of predestination. However, predestination is a biblical doctrine, and cannot be denied. Perhaps the key to understanding what predestination really means has been obscured by the lack of understanding that Jesus used a figurative account to introduce a real life situation; humans are the good seed planted in the garden by God, while tares are the corrupt (thus bad) seeds sewn by His enemy. The two exist in this world side by side but are not the same. I believe Apostle Paul had these corrupt seeds in mind, those with angel-human DNA who by their very nature cannot be heirs of the Kingdom.
True humans begin their existence with their name written in God’s Book of Life. Being named in that book guarantees they are the “good seed.” Every human that ever lived then is on equal terms with remaining in God’s book. Only Jesus knows the criteria for which someone can be erased from his book! That would include the free-will of man to reject the gospel, to alienate Christ, and to believe not the truth unto salvation, and by extension, every people group in the world.
Of course, to overtly and outwardly teach this wheat and tares controversy might lead to an even harsher environment for Christians, seeing that to some degree there would be two unequal groups with irreconcilable differences. The truth might be looked upon as racist. This is why all of mankind is regarded as ‘man/men.’ Actually, the situation would be totally clear if those with angel-human DNA all looked like Sasquatch or Big Foot, but that’s not the case. So, the biblical authors, aware of this disparity, speak to all beings, to all “men.”.
Remember, those individuals mentioned in Revelation 17:8b had to come from somewhere, and by the very tenants of the verses that speak of the Book of Life, they are not heirs of the Kingdom.
The boxed numbers correspond to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance entries, provided for further word studies as you wish.
[ii] Beginning with Exodus 32:32, God’s book of names, the following thread are verses that directly correspond with the notion ‘book of life;’ Psalms 69:28, Daniel 12:1, Philippians 4:3, Revelation 3:5, Rev 13:8, Rev 17:8, Rev 20:12, Rev 21:27, Rev 22:19
The below is commentary by Martin Luther, the German leader of the Protestant Reformation.
The Saviour himself explained this parable in the same chapter upon the request of his disciples and says: “He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; and the field is the world; and the good seed, these are the children of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy that sowed them is the devil; and the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.”
First, note that the locale of this parable, the field, is not interpreted as the church but as the world. That means that Jesus is saying there will be believers and unbelievers living together within the world.
I postulate that although Luther understands the tares are the sons of the evil one, he does not have a literal application of the Genesis 3:15 curse in mind. One cannot take literally the seed of the woman (as applied to Christ) and then allegorize the seed of the serpent. Genesis chapter 6 clearly shows that Satan’s compadres in the rebellion corrupted the human DNA gene pool, thus creating hybrid angel-human beings called Nephilim. So profuse was this corruption God brought about the Noah flood, a watery re-boot so to speak. However, not all agents (Nephilim) of this corruption were killed at that time, and their blood lines lingers. These then are not true humans, as tares are not the wheat, and the corruption is with us to this day!
[vii] Jude 4 …men foreordained to this condemnation have crept in unawares… I believe Jude is obliquely referencing human-angel hybrid beings. Regardless of how many generations have passed, there remains the taint to some aspect that tares are among us. In this we see that even 2000 years ago satan-seed was working against God’s plan of salvation from within the church. How much more in this day and age in every human establishment do we see evil at work! This evil influence corrupts the hearts and minds of good people. But conversely, in this world there will be upright appearing, ‘good’ people without the Spirit that still fall into the lost category, they might even be living next door!
A couple of years ago I came across Roger Spur’s Youtube channel dealing with what he calls “mud fossils.” These are rocks at first appearance that have once been living tissue and due to the process of ‘neucleophilic substitution’ at the molecular level are now stone. I assume the same process that caused living plants and trees to become stone, as seen in the petrified forest of trees, too.
I didn’t laugh at Roger’s claims. Through his eyes and understanding what geologists hold dear in the realm of theories and explanations for the varied rock and crystal structures of our earth seemed to be challenged. Cannot an academic axiom, the saying, “think outside the box…” be the kick in the proverbial pants to foster new and insightful dialogue within mainline geology?
Mr. Spur said that such evidence as he collected has been scanned, even DNA tested proving the stone composition was once of human origin. What I find Ludacris is that no credentialed geologist or earth scientist has come forth having an open mind so as to consider the possibility! The laugh is on science.
Roger Spur also mentioned that such rock examples are literally all around us! He now has many followers who have foraged their respective habitats to obtain examples from the wild of human/ animal tissue turned to stone. I for one went right out to have a gander for myself!
You see, we had a beach house on Galveston Island. Nothing fancy, not even on the “beach.” But because the island is one big sand dune, we needed gravel brought in and spread for the drive. I figured I had nothing to lose by poking around in the gravel for something that might have been. And what do you know? I came up with a stone distal finger digit, the fleshy sides of stone but the tip flesh missing. Exposed was a distinct bone coming through with the nail pad still observable above it! I was so excited I kept searching the gravel. There was a chunk of rock that stood out like a sore thumb. It appears to be as if someone had cut pot roast meat into roughly inch and a quarter sized squares and left one behind to turn to stone!
My meat chunk rock just didn’t happen through some “volcanic” and or “heat and pressure” process. Not only can I detect some of the outer layer of skin, but the fascia in various layers is plain to the eye. Upon close examination with magnifiers even areas of red blood can be seen! It is quite remarkable. In one of Roger’s videos he does a chemical test using hydrogen peroxide. A catalase reaction occurs when the HP encounters blood or residual blood elements. And what do you know? After I dug/ scraped into one of the crevices on the rock, the reaction I was looking for happened! Catalase positive! Blood in there…
I have since misplaced my finger digit, but the chunk of rock meat is alive and well on my book shelf. Now go see what stony body parts you can find?!
Here are a couple pix of my stone-meat rock. You can see the membraneous layers on the right side as correspond to the diagram provided. Tell me what you think…
Hello folks, I get so distraught at the way things are. All my life the answer to everything was to throw more money at it. Be it the public education system and how our kids are or are not shaping up, be it foreign relations…, even attempts at governmental curbing of inflation: enter the FEDRES. If we can’t throw money at the problems, just go ahead and print some more. One government “system” that irks the hell out of me is our US Postal Service system.
This outfit is literally sitting on countless millions, if not billions of dollars in feduciary promisary notes, and like our central government, has all these years been plundering this hoard and crying “it’s still not enough!”
[5/23 addition. July, 2023 the rates for Forever 1st Class stamps go up to 63 cents, and a post card will cost you 51 cents! Here is some info direct from their web site (https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2023/0410-usps-files-notice-with-prc-for-new-mailing-services-pricing.htm) The United States Postal Service is an independent federal establishment, mandated to be self-financing and to serve every American community through the affordable, reliable and secure delivery of mail and packages to nearly 165 million addresses six and often seven days a week. Overseen by a bipartisan Board of Governors, the Postal Service is implementing a 10-year transformation plan, Delivering for America, to modernize the postal network, restore long-term financial sustainability, dramatically improve service across all mail and shipping categories, and maintain the organization as one of America’s most valued and trusted brands.]
More now than ever the blog I wrote back in 2018 touches on this subject and I believe it is germane to our present postal condition. If only you and I could manufacture income or profit the way they do…
I love clouds. My wife loves clouds, too, especially those fluffy, white friendly puffs that move about the sky as if slow dancing. They are pretty, but I tend to be encouraged by the taller, cumulous clouds, dark and somewhat foreboding that hold promise of rain! Here in Texas, especially during the summer temperatures are brutal, eggs fry on the concrete, and a good rain is an unrequited hope. So much for clouds.
When the Internet began we all were fascinated by the way simple typing tasks evoked waves of data that showed up on our monitors as streams of letters or numerals, being extracted by “search engines’ out there in the Internet wastelands. I can remember purchasing a Commodore 64 for my daughter. Yet it was her cousin who understood the ‘code’ enough to make a stick figure hang itself! Kool. Many of you can remember the old Osborne computers, replaced by newer IBM units operating something called Microsoft OS.
Our first portable computer was a Sharp PC5000. It boasted a “module” similar to an 8 mm VHS tape in size that could store 124KB. Did you get that, 124 kilobytes, period! Those bytes were used for programs and data! Wow, how times have changed. No longer kilobytes, but gazigabytes of storage. Spinning hard drives gave way to more stable data platforms like solid USB drives, etc. As if these weren’t enough, the clouds rolled in.
Somewhere out there in cyberspace is this “cloud” that can store everything we can throw at it without data byte limits! They call it a cloud because they want you to think of those fluffy, friendly white things floating around. We have happier thoughts of fluffy white clouds up in the sky than what the alternative might be. Truth be told, there are numerous “clouds,” housed way underground, some the size of a small city! Why underground, you ask? I suppose one so you don’t see it, gasp, and fall over clutching your chest, being shocked by the enormity of what is going on! Don’t forget, governments need access to ‘clouds’ as much as we do, data co-mingling is not a new thing, just how you mine the bytes. More likely it has to do with keeping those cloud super-computers cool, it’s cooler down below (for a couple hundred feet at least).
Folks, there is nothing we can do about it, the cloud is with us and has changed our life. But that doesn’t mean life gets easier or simpler, it is just more complicated with steps along our path of enlightenment. And there are those that profit big by the subterfuge. Case in point. Historically, when you purchased something from a merchant, say Sears & Co. you went to the store, picked out the item, paid for it, and took it home. If later you wanted to return the item for a refund, you took it back to the store and were paid on the spot! Enter ecommerce. You select an item at a merchants site, you pay for it with your trusted bank Credit Card, and no sooner than the blink of an eye one of the trusted delivery systems drops it at your front door!
Now then, if you have to return the item, (Buddha forbid!) you are faced with shipping it back, at your cost or theirs to be determined. So, you wait until THEY inform you the item is safely back and initiate a refund to your credit card. Those few days Your money is still in their hands, I mean, bank. Now, here is the grimace. The mechanics of you purchasing the item allowed for a quick payment to the merchant. However when you ‘get a refund’ you must wait anywhere from 3 to 7 working days for it to show up in your account. Did you catch that, ‘working days!’ Where is it on weekends or holidays? Once the merchant initiates the refund the whole process seems to enter an ethereal dimension all its own, a cloud perhaps! Your ‘money’ is out there, somewhere, but it doesn’t show up at your credit card company’s door for those 7 working days! Where does it go?”
I love it when this happens to my money with a bank. I have no idea the technicality of ‘who has ownership rights of the ‘money’ once refunded but not received. Is there a fiduciary out there collecting interest however miniscule for that 3-7 (could be 5-10 days!) day period? Why does it take so long to get a refund when the NSA can turn on your phone and eavesdrop on your conversation at the drop of a hat? Money in the hands of the elite never stops generating after its kind. If you think of the millions of people experiencing wait times for their money, somebody else is doing the cashing in on the miniscule interest or charges generated during the waiting period. Done millions of times a day involving millions of card/ bank holders, and what at first appears miniscule becomes a sizable chunk of change! A cloud may hold it, but somebody somewhere is experiencing a gargantuan Rainmaker day!
This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, places and events are either products of the author’s imagination or when factual, used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This is Part One in a historical fiction series entitled: SAVAGE ENCOUNTER, there are 24 chapters I will be publishing individually, be sure to scroll down to the desired chapter. I hope you enjoy the book. Gratuities can be made to bluebonnets_trb@msn.com through Paypal.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Colonial expansion during the 1700’s witnessed the Dutch East India Company (VOC) controlling the spice island territory of the South Pacific. At some point Den Hague, the Dutch central government took oversight of the faultering company. Then, with the dawning of the 20th Century, the discovery of oil in Sumatra, Indonesia engendered new excitement for the colonialists bent on expanding Dutch control. Set against the backdrop of steamy untamed equatorial jungle and vast South Pacific ocean areas, easternmost Netherlands New Guinea offered the promise for profits like never before. Like a jewel in the rough, it needed to be cleaned, cut, and polished. Untold dangers lurk for those who try.
In a male dominated world, a world of cultural and social indignities, struggle and challenges, the lives of three extraordinary women converge in this tale. It is as much their story as they each grasp inner resolve, each in her own way embraces the prospect of an uncertain future, and each seems hellbent to initiate change.
I have always been fascinated by those individuals who had the moxy to stand on a street corner somewhere and play/ sing their music. For some of us singer songwriter musician types to do so is almost akin to begging for money like with a little tattered cardboard sign and that snotty-nosed kid by our side we see so much of!
Not too long ago I came out of my local Walmart. Didn’t get far before I heard this fellow bellowing out and banging his guitar. I’m serious, bellowing out and banging! I packed my purchases in the car, shut the door and walked back to get a closer look. I was curious, he was doing some kind of funky up-tempo blues just banging the same chord on his guitar. The lyrics weren’t any better, I think it was a four word phrase that he repeated over and over and over again. I stood there for awhile hoping he would work up something with more acumen. At one point I interrupted and asked if he knew any other songs. That was my mistake, he began to belt a two or three word phrase over and over and over again!
Being a member of the Fort Worth Songwriters Association and the prestigious NASI, I was immediately aware this guy banging there was stratospherically NOT a songwriter, not a very good singer, and totally an anomaly for a guitar player! Yet I stood in awe as folks came forward and tossed a few bucks into his tips container. If the word mediocre was fair of his performance, having a set of brass ones set him apart! I have often said to my wife, “I’m going to go play on a street corner somewhere!” Because frankly, it looked like a fun and profitable experience.
She’d always shut me down, “ Oh, you don’t need to make a fool of yourself on some public street,” or some such verbiage to chink my moxy and keep me from being a public laughing stock ( in her eyes). But nobody was laughing at that guy! They were tossing bucks his way! And he was the guy who’d get the hooked end of a cane at the local open mic!
I’ll be frank. It’s not that easy for singer/ songwriters to get a paying gig. Open mic opportunities just fill the gap at some establishments with no skin off their nose. They call the experience “exposure.” Plus, tips at such places are diverted to that frothy specialty coffee drink or bottled beer, not the tips jar! On the other hand, singer songwriters take the craft seriously. We study the makeup of the music that embraces the lyrics. Rhyming is essential, a well engaging “hook.” And it seems each genre has it’s own set of parameters that make the combined crafting something to be proud of. Did I say pride? That may be the key to this whole busking idea. Letting go of it.
I’m reminded of the gal I’ve seen over the last 20 years. She didn’t have a nice sounding guitar, kind of clunky and out of tune. Her voice could barely handle the notes of the songs she sang, but there she was. I’d see her at small gatherings, a side-ally act sitting off the back of her rusting pickup belting out Beatles tunes, etc. She was at the trade days weekends, the swap’n shop meets and the most obscure events. I have to figure if it was money, she had tapped into a steady stream of it cause busking for her just wasn’t a one night stand… she made a vocation out of it! In the process, with little talent, not much effort, but lots of moxy, she probably made more money with tips than I have ever have seen trying to sell my tapes and CDs! Yup, busking is on my bucket list!
NOWADA OF THE DANI TRIBE Please, for a moment, let me share my simple life with you. I am trapped in a world you can’t possibly enter. Oh, some have come, tourists and missionaries, anthropologists and government types, and those most curious. You see, you outsiders refer to us as ‘stone-age’ people, and quite frankly, up to 100 years ago, many of your educated believed us to be something less than human. Truth be told we never had opportunities such as you. This world I speak of encompasses all that we can see, together with the realm of frightening darkness, the place of immaterial spirits, and unseen creatures, and the ghosts of our ancestors. We can’t escape this world, it defines who we are. So, I want to tell you of our pain, something we embrace each day with every breath we take. Now, please, you take a deep breath. Go on, breathe deeply. What do you feel? Peace? Well-being? Satisfaction, perhaps? Had there been such a thing as a cosmic coin toss, what I share here might have been your story!
My name isn’t important, you may think of me as Nowada. My friend here is Gudupi. We are not sisters, but cousins. We belong to one of the Dani tribal clans located in the Baliem Valley, in the Highlands of Irian Jaya, Indonesia. I’m showing you my hands right off so you see for yourself my constant daily reminder our life is difficult. Whereas we take joy at the birth of a son or daughter, a large part of our existence involves mourning our dead. We Highland Dani still have a high mortality rate compared to say, Coastal tribes in proximity to the ocean.
Fresh from a funeral, Gudupi is covered with chalky mud. She will grieve in this fashion for some time, often without eating food or drinking water, or tending to her garden, and every Dani woman knows the importance of her garden plot. We Dani people are sedentary hunters and gatherers, having garden plots carved into the sides of the mountains. We use stone hand axes to work the ground. Our men will clear a plot, but we women must dress it and plant the crop. Usually, ubi-ubi, sweet potatoes. If we are not vigilant, wild pigs can decimate our food supply overnight! It takes two cycles of the moon for our crop to mature. Thus tending our garden plot is very important and arduous. The outsiders and missionaries bring more modern tools, tools with sharp metal edges. Only a few Dani men can afford to trade for such things. We rely on various sized sharp pieces of hard stone for our tools. Additionally, we women must gather the fire wood for both the men’s living hut (honai) and our own (ebei). Our hut houses have two levels, the lower where we gather and cook, and the upper berth where we sleep because it’s safer from snakes and spiders, plus the wafting smoke rising takes the chill off during cold nights. They say this is what causes our many breathing ailments.
We carry water from the stream, tend the babies, cook the food, forage for green edibles, and weave our carrying bags (nongkin). The outsiders sometimes provide us with white-man’s clothing, but it doesn’t last long. We weave skirts that cover our feminine parts of soft grasses, soft and airy. Men will wear woven cloth shorts, but these foreign shorts cover their manliness without allowing a measure of bravado. Some men wear the penis gourd (koteka) and the shorts together! But we think that’s funny! We laugh when they are not looking. Tall penis gourds are the traditional Dani male coverage. The larger the better! Our men cut trees, hunt the deer and wild pig. They make the bows and arrows they use in war and hunting. Some prefer ironwood spears. Occasionally, there is a clan incursion. Our men defend us to the death so we’re not taken for slave wives. If they are not doing these things, they tend to the enemy skulls that adorn the men’s meeting house. Of all these tasks, the obligation to mourn the dead falls more to us than to them. Ancestor ghosts can cause mischief and harm. We consider them with oblations placed in the trees. We believe that in dying they pass to the unseen realm. Hundreds of years experience has taught us they do not wander. So, our desire is that our oblations please them and they will stay hidden in the forests. Ancestral ghosts can be very annoying, bringing sickness and famine, and often miscarriage. Consequently, one tradition we dare not forget is the digit removal ceremony. The missionary suster (nurse) often refuses to give us their medicine if one of the women has had a digit removed. They want us to stop doing it, they think our tradition is crude and inhuman, but they don’t understand. When a next of kin dies, the closest female must undergo the digit removal. Occasionally, more than one digit is removed from the same finger. A clan elder will usually perform the ceremony during the time the dead one has been funeralized. He uses a small sharp pointed stone to separate the finger. He wraps the stub in leaves with tobacco spittle. Eventually it will heal. The digit cut off accompanies the dead, thus there remains a connection between the two realms, living and the dead. I have refused cutting my first two fingers on my right hand because I need hold my garden hand ax very tight.
Yes, every aspect of our daily life seems to cause pain, yet had it not been for the outsiders, we would not have known that life for others is more pleasant. You see, ‘stone age’ people have little in the way of life activities that offer a contrast. Even less are activities that might bring a smile. We survive knowing the pain we feel, for us, is life itself. Carrying heavy firewood, mending stone and wood fences, birthing children, cooking wild pig with hot stones in a fire pit, weaving the articles and skirts we need, tending the wounded, and yes mourning the loss of the young, the old, or the warrior in between. Our traditions and rituals serve us so we never forget that our ancestral ghosts would be mad if we changed our ways. I would love to have more fingers, but our world is not something individuals control. We fear great calamity would befall us if we do not strive to maintain a balance in nature, as you outsiders express it. Dani people are proud. We never forget that ancestral ghosts have power to bless us or to cause us harm. The fearful things lurk unseen in darkness, and our pain reminds us of who we are. Story written by Theodore A Henning II
There is a video[a] circulating on the internet purporting to be a 2005 intelligence meeting wherein Mr. Bill Gates is expressing his concerns regarding religious fanaticism, by offering a solution. In the video a couple MRI scan photos are displayed on a screen, one showing a small glowing section in the front right lobe. This Mr. Gates explains is the area of the brain that corresponds to spiritual stimulus, such as might be exacerbated by religious zealots or fanaticism. The second photo shows a section more centrally located along the right side of the cortex. It was glowing way much larger than the previous, and this area represented repression or ‘disdain’ for the things spiritual, as was pointed out, this area ‘lit up’ when scripture was read to the individual during the MRI procedure.
I cannot vouch for the validity of the video, or that it was really Mr. Bill Gates delivering. What does disturb me is the potential of the information reported therein, and the intent of the meeting in the first place. Since discovery of the Vmat2[b] ‘god gene’, what was suggested in the presentation is the use of a virus, respiratory in focus, to target and alter the Vmat2 gene in humans, thus in essence diminishing if not out rightly destroying the ability of human response to spiritual/ religious stimuli (God), making these people “normal,” without further possibility of them becoming fanatical.
Of course Islamic fundamentalist fanatics were in view during this lecture, but… Only two representative MRI photos were demonstrated, 1) the area of spiritual response in the first, and 2) the area of “disdain” as Bill put it. There was no middle ground area, and with a wave of his hand, the intent was to neutralize the god-response area of the brain and make such neutralized individuals ‘normal,’ as in the disdainful MRI photo! AM I the only one to catch this in the video? What is ‘normal’ about disdainful reaction to things spiritual? Responding with disgust and or disdain to religious stimuli; e.g. preaching, scripture reading, prayer, praying, singing hymns or vocally worshiping our creator is not anywhere near ‘normal’ behavior. It smacks of something un-human, demonic even. What was unclear about the information speaks to the question, “Do these ‘normal’ individuals show any response at all, however small in the religiously sensitive area of the brain?” The MRI presented did not show this, it was dark.
So then, does this mean that some people have the Vmat2 gene and others do not? A test for the presence of the gene would be the simple road to answer this question, because not all people can be MRIed while listening to Scripture! The use of a virus to crush the Vmat2 can not be singular, either. It would not be a ‘religion specific’measure, but one that touched upon the whole human population, because all humans would have this gene! Yes, do something about those Islamic zealots, and throw in the Christians and Jews, too! That’s what I see coming with this.
,As I have postulated in several of my earlier blog posts (The Witness of Two, and Part 2 The Art of War in the Heavenlies )[c],[d] it is possible that right here and now there are individuals living and walking among us that are not true human beings, but angel-human hybrids. As such, they cannot respond to the Gospel message of Jesus Christ as true humans can. Further, these hybrids are the ‘Tares” of the Gospel message, Wheat and the Tares. Remember, Jesus instructed that these ‘tares’ appear so much like the ‘wheat,’ it is only at the end-time harvest would they be separated without harming the wheat. But that doesn’t presume we might not be able to identify who these tares might be, because “You shall know them by their fruit!”
Even if the video is bogus, a Hollywood-ish stunt, the cat is out of the bag so to speak, and the method of religio-cide succinctly presented. And don’t you tell me there aren’t those out there thinking of how to implement the scheme!
WideAsTexas.com 