Church Of Doug

My father's bibles

2012-01-09T00:58:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, my mother gave me the bible she originally gave to my father when he attended seminary. It is a simple bible made more useful by my father's hand written notes in the margins and end pages. Additionally, he had marked up the book in various places with colored lines or letters. Most of his shorthand notes eluded my understanding of what he was trying to note. I figured out some of them: P stood for "priestly code", E for "Elohist", etc. However, the one thing I could not decipher of his shorthand was his color-coded underlines and margin lines. Until today.

Several times over the past year, my mother has mentioned one of my father's bibles she has been reluctant to give away. It is a parallel bible my father acquired. That, along with the fact it was very old, is all I knew about it. Hoping it would be more of a polyglot, as asked my mother if I could borrow it for a short period of time. Sometimes a physical book in front of you is better than electronic text. She consented and I drove over to her house to pick it up.

It is a large book, many inches thick. There is a note typed onto a card and taped a couple pages in. The book was found in the attic of the superintendent's home at Eldridge when Dr. and Mrs. Fred O. Butler retired January 30, 1949. It is presumed that this bible was moved from Santa Clara to Eldridge when the "HOME" was moved on November 24, 1891. The card may have been typed up before 1953 because the place was originally called "California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble Minded Children". In 1909, it changed its name to the "Sonoma State Home". In 1953, it changed its name again to "Sonoma State Hospital". As an interesting side note, my research included a quick romp through Wikipedia. A search there for "Sonoma Development Center" brings up identical information as what is found on the card (names and dates). It also includes the following line: "More than 5,000 patients were involuntarily sterilized at this facility during the period 1918 to 1949. The medical director at that time was Frederick Otis Butler, MD."

But I digress.

The book in not a polyglot, but simply a parallel bible between two English bibles. The title page states it is The Peerless edition of the Holy Bible containing the authorized and revised versions of the old and new testaments arranged in parallel columns; the text conformable to that of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It contains a complete concordance and was published by the Historical Publishing Company. The two bible version it parallels are the Authorized version and the Revised version. This, to me, is not that impressive. I suppose, back in 1885 when the book was printed, it was important to show the variations between these two versions. Personally, today, I'm not that impressed.

The book is not entirely useless. Before the parallel portion, there is some extensive information. The materials in this section are diverse and detailed. Sections include:

Introductory History of the Holy Bible
The Earliest Editions of the Bible published in America
A table of contents of each book of the bible, broken down to title of the story/narrative
Revisers' Preface with a detailed description of why/how the Bible version was revised.
Religious Denominations, their history and creeds (including heretical denominations)
Science and Revelation; or the triumph of the Bible over criticism
Scripture Difficulties
List of special prayers
Valuable Chronological and Miscellaneous Tables (such as empires of biblical times with their kings/rulers)
Modern chronology from A.D. 102 to 1877.
Prophetic warnings and promises of our Lord and Saviour
Analytical Table and Harmony of the Mosaic Law
Harmony of the four Gospels (identifying each story/event and where they are found in each Gospel)
Biographical sketches of the translators and reformers and other eminent biblical scholars describing the fate of these learned men who rendered the Bible into the English Language (with woodcuts of each)

The list goes on and on. There is even a section where the book contains reprints of the first page of each book of the bible: reprinted from an beautifully illustrated Bible. There are even maps of the holy land and other places of interest.

The "extra" material in this book is beyond extensive. But the real prize was not printed in this Bible. Just inside the front cover were some mimeographed pages from my father's June 23 1963 bulletin with the day's order of worship. Right behind it were four typed pages. The four stapled pages was my father's syllabus for his six week class on the "Life of Christ: Fiction, Fantasy and Fact". On the fourth page, at the very bottom was his "Using Gospel Synopsis for Class" where he described his use of color coding and underlining to address specific Gospel issues.

With this description, I finally understand the meaning of the final mystery of my father's shorthand. I cannot wait to start using my new understanding of my father's research and study. It is the greatest find I have discovered in many years. For now, I can clearly understand what my father saw and learned. I have repeatedly learned how brilliant his mind was. Now I have the final key to understanding his thoughts.

Lord's Prayer

2012-01-08T10:02:00.000-08:00

After listening to the Lord's prayer the other day (and the normal confusion over debt/transgression) and it got me thinking: What is the original words?

The difficulty lies in two areas: translation and time. Translating any language involves a certain degree of error. There is no one-to-one relationship between words in different languages. In Europe, the Sami people have hundreds of words that mean snow, each with their own distinct meaning. English has, in essence, one. Translating from Sami to English loses meaning in the translation. The reverse requires the translator to add more to the message than was originally intended.

Time is the other obstacle. Translators tend to pick words that appeals to their issues of the day. Translations of translations are like photocopies of photocopies. Once a translator moves on from the original and translates a translation, the errors increase. Time allows for translators to add phrases, like the doxology, to the original message.

Jesus, being Jewish, (gasp) relied on Hebrew texts for many of the things he is claimed to have said. Consequently, I went looking for Hebrew and Aramaic versions of the prayer, in addition to the traditional Greek and Latin. Based on my findings, and understandings of the languages, as they were used at the time, I think I have an interesting translation which more accurately represents the prayer than most of what I have seen in English.

Oh Thou, from whom the breath of life comes, who fills all realms of sound, light and vibration.
May Your light be experienced in my utmost holiest.
You Heavenly Domain approaches both within and without.
Let Your will come true - in the universe of all, just as on this material world.
Give us the understanding and assistance for our daily need. Detach the fetters of faults that bind us, like we let go the guilt of others.
Let us not be lost in materialism or common temptations, but let us be freed from that what keeps us from our true purpose.
Amen

Mind you, in all of the examples of prayer in the Bible, the above prayer is not used. It is simply used once to teach people how to pray. This makes me wonder if the exact words are important, or if this is simply a guideline for how to create a prayer (like a template).

My research into the Lord's prayer, included wandering into the Didache again. In it, I found another example of where time and translation changed early text into something more desired by the translator. The Didache includes the phrases used in the Eucharist. The Didache states the phrases as:

Concerning the Eucharist (communion) give thanks like this:
First for the cup:
We give thanks to You, our Father, for Your holy vine of David, Your servant, which You made known to us through Jesus, Your Servant. Glory to You forever.

Concerning the broken bread:
We give thanks to You, our Father, for the life and knowledge that You made known to us through Jesus, Your Servant. Glory to You forever. As this broken bread was scattered over the hills and was brought together becoming one, so gather Your Church from the ends of the earth into Your kingdom, for You have all power and glory forever through Jesus Christ.

Do not let anyone eat or drink of your Eucharist meal except the ones who have been baptized into the name of the Lord. For the Lord said concerning this: "do not give that which is holy to the dogs."

I'm intrigued that the breaking of the bread is more in line with the feeding of the five thousand than it does with the cannibalistic eating of Jesus' flesh. I know, my comment about the five thousand is as accurate as "This is my body broken for you."

Original Sin

2012-01-04T19:09:00.000-08:00

Here's a topic that confused me for many years. The thought is pretty straight forward. We are taught that man is born with original sin. Consequently, we are born sinners. In essence, we are paying the debt for the sins of our forefathers. Naturally, others have argued this point and the concept was modified to imply that we are born "unsaved". Since we are devoid of God's grace at the time of our birth, we are sinners. (My twist on the current justification.)

Leave it to the apostle Paul and later church leaders to add this idea into the collective belief system.

If we were to accept that we are paying for the sins of Adam, then I would simply argue that Jesus claims to have washed away that, and all other, sins. So, anyone born after the death of Jesus would be cleansed of the original sin.

If we take the more modern definition of original sin being the absence of holiness, I have to ask: Did God create me? Am I not a son of God? Are we not all children of God? What holiness, then, do I lack from my birth/creation? We are taught that when we are born, God breathed life into us. How imbued with holiness do I have to have to avoid the state of the "absence of holiness"?

The absence of holiness implies that human nature, in its natural state, is undesirable or somehow deficient. Man is not a being God gave free will to, but rather something God allowed to be created imperfectly. This seems illogical to me. A loving god, filled with compassion, creates an object and withholds God's love and compassion? This borders on contradiction.

Perhaps "original sin" is something created by Paul to scare people into a moral alignment. If Paul's implications were insufficient, then Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon, pushed this invalid doctrine along further. Calvin's total depravity caused us all to be condemned to hell before we have a chance of redemption. What could motivate a person (other than riches and fame) to propose an idea where God places man in hell and expects man to struggle out of it?

Original sin presupposes man is a failure with a chance of redemption. In the inquiry: Is man inherently good or evil, the proponents of original sin must stand on the side of evil. I cannot agree with this. If anything, man's nature is neutral and loved by God.

Christianity without Constantine

2011-12-29T15:37:00.001-08:00

(wow, today's been a great day for clearing out my pending folder...)

Think aboutit. After the crucifixion of Jesus, Christianityspread to new areas. Over time, thepeople directly associated to Jesus died off. The message, however, did not. Ina culture steeped in oral-tradition methodology, the stories of Jesus werepreserved. Like twelve blind men tryingto describe what an elephant is, based on their reference point, the word ofGod was transmitted to the dispersed congregation. All of the messengers described the elephant,but emphasized those portions most important to the audience the message wasspread to.

As a result, Christianityhad Jews in Judea seeing Christianity as Judaismwith an enhancement. Many of themcontinued to practice Jewish customs, but incorporated Christian thought intotheir lives. Gentiles in Europe who were taught God’s message is for everyone, notjust for the Jews. The learned that God’slove did not require conforming to Jewish customs. In all cases, God’s message wasfoundational. The extra tidbits werethere to help the locals digest the message.

Hence, it isreasonable to see how, over the years, numerous writings were made to put topaper, that which had been transmitted by oral tradition and how the writings,while very similar (they were skilled oral traditions), would have regionalvariations.

Jump forward afew centuries. The year: 325. The place:Nicea. Constantinewanted to unify the Holy Roman Empire. He wanted peace within his borders and wantedto be the head of all important things within his empire. He sees various diverse groups of Christiansand says to himself: “Self, I need unity in my land and these Christians arenot unified.” So, what does he do? He calls a council of “all” church leaders tounify the religion. Of the hundreds of churchleaders, a vast majority came from lands held within the Holy Roman Empire.

In the yearspreceding the council, different Christian groups held differing opinions onthe deity of Jesus. The Romans were Trinitarians. Ethiopians held that Jesus was purely godwith not human aspect. In Alexandria, Jesus was seenas purely human, albeit divinely inspired and in perfect lock-step with God’swill.

So, when Constantine assembled thechurch leaders, he loaded the group with Roman church leaders. His reasoning, I presume, is he was moreconcerned with unifying his empire and his empire’s Christian groups than hewas about the religion itself. Hence,bring in the congregations within the borders of the Holy Roman Empire and get them to agree to a single version ofChristianity. Oh, and bring in a handfulof outsiders who seem to take an opposing stance on a topic of the day. Opposing, meaning they did not agree with theRoman Christianity perspective.

The Arianquestion remained alive, despite the creation of the Nicean Creed. Arius was invited back into the Christianfold. Christian groups outside the Holy Roman Empire continued to believe in non-Trinitarianbeliefs. There are still, to this day, peoplewho consider themselves Christian without accepting the Trinitarian solution.

Does not acceptingthe Trinitarian solution make these people something other than Christian? Is God’s message to us is we are to believein three (and only three) beings all homoousian? Was Constantinemotivated by God to draw Trinitarian leaders to confirm the deification ofJesus, or was he simply unifying his lands?

If Constantine had notbrought together the council, what would Christianity be like today? Would we have agreed to disagree on issues ofthe deification of Jesus and concentrated on the message of love andcompassion? Or would we have broken downinto internal squabbles and have God’s message lost to the history of time? Can a person be a Christian without buyinginto a consubstantial theory?

To me, the pointis the message. The message is God’slove. If a group is living andtransmitting God’s message, does it matter what other stuff is mixed into theirbelief system? I say it doesn’t matter,provided God’s message is clear and is provided center stage in the theatricscalled a church service.

Compassion: The preface

2011-12-29T10:41:00.001-08:00

I want to write an epistle on compassion. First I need to clear my head of all the confusion generated by my verification of my sources. So, here goes.

Compassion: (n) a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

This made me wonder if sympathy is the right word. I always thought sympathy was a disconnected understanding of another's feelings, while empathy was an understanding from a mutual experience. Shouldn't the better word be empathy? Unfortunately, while researching the differences between sympathy and empathy, I discovered every person seems to have a different understanding of the two words. How then, can I understand compassion if I cannot understand the definition?

My research seemed to come to a stand still. So what happens when I don't learn what God wants me to learn? God increases the volume of the message. I'm standing in line with my wife, waiting for a Master Chef audition, and we meet another contestant. Her name, in her language, means "compassion". Then we go wandering into various stores in search of Christmas presents and my wife points out a small version of the Mandala of compassion. I believe when we don't learn the lessons before us, God presses the point.

So, back to my study.

I once challenged myself to find the fewest words to wrap up everything God wants us to know. Is there one word to define everything? I started with the golden rule. Jesus was asked about the most important commandment. Love God. But Jesus doesn't stop there. He goes on to talk about how we are to interact with one another. Perhaps "love" is all we need.

Off I went to look up the meaning of love. I will not waste your time with the waste of time I spent looking for a clear definition. There are too many meanings for the word and simply using the word love without a back story for the word would create more confusion than clarity. To simply say “Love one another” leaves too much to interpretation. I thought “Show compassion to one another” would be clearer.

Unfortunately, most definitions of compassion presuppose the object of one’s compassion is somehow suffering. Besides, the use of the word sympathy has almost as many meanings as love. What is needed is a cleaner definition of God’s desire for us. Something like “Show compassion to one another” without the need for the recipient to be suffering or the giver to have any form of sorrow for the recipient. More like: Take the time to understand the needs, fears, and desires of one another. Then make the effort to help them achieve their goals.

Naturally, my mind spins off into various gyrations of this statement. Are we to fulfill one another’s fantasies or whims? What about conflicting goals of different people? What about people who want another person to suffer? It seems even my simple statement generates its own issues and lack of clarity.

Now I know why this is taking so long to sort out. I will have to mull on this more.

Omnipresent

2011-12-13T12:09:00.000-08:00

I enjoy mental gymnastics and conundrums. George Carlin onceasked: If God is all-powerful, can he make a rock so large that even he cannotlift it? Questions like this spur me tothinking. I know many people who simplyscoff at such absurdities. Not me. I use them as springboards to furtherinquiry.

God and the three omni

We are taught God is omnipotent, omniscient, andomnipresent. Take the last one. If God is omnipotent, can he cast a person sofar away that he person is out of his presence? Better yet, if God is omnipresent, is God in hell?

If we accept the above attributes of God, then we mustre-evaluate other normally assumed beliefs held by us. If God is compassionate, does his compassionfor us end when we die in a state less than the grace we believe we need? Is this life the only chance we have ofmaking a good impression on God? The godof the bible appears to be both compassionate and willing to negotiate. Why, then, are we told that if we die asinner, we must rot in hell for eternity?

I am reminded of an old zen story about a young monk askinga great zen master where he would go when he dies. The zen master looked at the young monk andreplied: “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to hell.” The young monk stood there dumbfounded andasked how that could be so. The master,patient as always, told him someone had to go there to help all those peopleand their suffering.

For some reason, the master’s story rings true to me. God has such compassion. God seeks out the lost lamb and welcomes homethe wayward son. Why wouldn’t God be inhell, helping the lost and wayward creations. We are never cast so far from God’s grace that we are outside God’ssphere of forgiveness.

50th Anniversary

2011-11-14T17:39:00.001-08:00

I drove an hour to attend church last Sunday. Driving an hour each way to attend a service,while not uncommon for me, is not the norm.

It all started fifty years ago when my father gathered tohimself a small congregation of believers into his house and offered themfellowship, service, and a sense of purpose. My father routinely invited people into our house. We had people come to our house to meetprivately with my father. We had noteworthy and memorable guests fordinner. We even had the occasional houseguest stay with us for extended periods. Our house’s guests ranged from new-born babies to old, from ordinaryblind people to extraordinary dignitaries, and any number of people sufferingor otherwise needing help. So, agathering of people wanting to form a church was nothing unusual for myhousehold.

My father was up to the task. Amongst his many skills and professions, myfather was an ordained minister. Withthe help of his house guests, my father started a church. My father took no income from the church andinstead insisted the money raised be divided in half between missionary workboth in the community and around the world and the other half for bills and otherexpenses. Expenses like a mortgage on a carriagehouse and stables. The church wasgrowing and needed more room than our home’s living room.

Fifty years later, the church celebrated the anniversary ofits founding. I drove there to meet mymother and siblings, and to see how the church was getting on. I felt the gentle tug of sadness over theloss of the original buildings to the accidental fire years before. There was the joy of seeing the resilience ofthe congregation to indebt themselves in another mortgage, rebuilding thebuilding into another beautiful building. I loved seeing the simplicity retained over the years and was overjoyedto discover the church still values missionary outreach as strong as it didwhen it began.

Fifty years has passed. The church is strong. The corevalues remain. What a blessing to see asmall seed blossom into such a great, living tree. The congregation looks for people in need andlook to fulfill them. Boys and Girlsclubs, school systems, and victims of crimes (including the innocent childrenof convicted felons): all are causes the church has given time, knowledge andmoney to support and improve.

I drove an hour to attend church last Sunday. What was the sermon about? How grace is more than simply a one-on-onerelationship with God. It extends toboth sides as we emulate the same relationship with have with God to our fellowman. “Love God with all your heart and with all your soul. The second rule isto love your neighbor in a like manner.”

Does it Matter?

2011-10-07T08:34:00.000-07:00

I am easily distracted by all the tangent ideas in this world. Give me a topic and I will find all the other perspectives and issues associated with it, leading to a complete stagnation of reasoning. Sometimes I combat my own thinking.

The bible tells us that Jesus was asked to identify the greatest law. In other words, what matters more than anything else? I could interpret this passage numerous ways, as have many people before me. Instead, it got me thinking of what was left behind.

I have been put into an intellectual corner on several occasions, sometimes by me. For example, I have been weighing in on the topic of God. Who is God? What is God like? I felt I needed to know the answers in order to better know how to conduct myself. What does God expect of me?

For starters, God "exists". And by "exists", I don't mean to some state whose opposite is "non-existence". There is a god (or more) and I don't question it. I cannot prove it, but I understand there are things that exist which cannot be proven with words. Study zen, and ask someone to describe satori in words. It cannot be understood with words. God is. I know it.

But, is there one god or many gods? Is God so all-powerful and all-present that God cares and interacts with each and every thought and action of every being? Is there a different god for different people/creatures? If there are multiple universes, as some people are considering, is it the same God in all of them?

Then, it struck me: does it matter? What do I need to know? I know there is a god. There may be more, but the others don't matter to me. Whether God commands other universes has no impact on me. It doesn't matter. I cannot convince someone of God's existence or non-existence with any logical argument. It doesn't matter. What does matter?

What matters is I understand my relationship to God. What matters is what impact my understanding has on my behavior and other beliefs. What matters is between God and me.

There was a point in my exploration of God where I postulated that God simply created everything as a plaything which he set into motion and is watching the cause and effects of his initial work, perhaps with some nudging here and there. Under that reasoning, it "explained" why undesirable things to people.

I also considered God as a personal father figure: guiding me with advice and rules. This explained why my situation would gradually get worse until I learned a lesson. ("God keeps escalating things until you figure it out and change.")

How many ways has God been portrayed? I have considered them all and rejected them all. None of them tell the complete story of what I have experienced. In the end, I ask myself, does it matter? I also looked at all of them and asked if there was a common thread running through each and everyone of them.

Does it matter? Not really. I don't need to pigeon-hole God into some finite construct or symbol whereby I limit God to a single idea. I don't have to be God's toy or child.

What I know is there is a God. There may be other gods, but it doesn't matter to me. God may be all-present and all-powerful, but it doesn't matter to me. I owe my existence to God and for that, I am humbly grateful.

Turmoil in a Teapot

2010-07-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

Wow . . . I am not in control of my thoughts. I spent yesterday dealing with ignorance and egos resulting in me spending many hours trying, unsuccessfully, to help enlighten and triple checking things I already new to be true. In the end, it was a case of ignorance and egos making a mountain out of a mole hill. What I learned from the experience is that while education can cure ignorance, egos can cloud the learning process.

We are all human, susceptible to the human conditions. Denying that is to reject a vast part of our life on this earth. If we are to live life to its fullest, denial constrains our goals. I am okay with my feelings: stress from unsuccessful educational attempts, sadness of the "me first" perspective of those around me, entertained by the human dynamics people use in their attempt to manipulate the actions of others, and regretful to see people, however ignorant, pained by imagined ghosts.

What bothers me most is the lack of conclusion. Without resolving this, it enables the issue to be brought up in the future without the clarity of currency. Partial ignorance is a mighty weapon against the love of our fellow person. Each person arms themselves with the personal perspective and conclusions they drew from the experience. This in turn becomes the ammunition for animosity and division.

In the end, I can only chat today's mantra: "I cannot make them live my life. They must live their own."

Thoughts to ponder

2010-07-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

Why save for a rainy day when the sunny days are belittled to the task of looking to the possible future failures? Why give up good memories just to have the chance of a memory at some future date?

Not that I think we should blow all our gains when we get them. I wonder what percentage is a good percentage savings for a future failure?

2009-12-14T14:52:00.000-08:00

Change changes . . .

With my work dust settling, I am once again looking for ways to improve web design and development. I have been asked to participate in a project to bring another website up-to-date. As I have not finished making this one clean and fully functional, I question my readiness to take on another's.

Wary or not, helping others is key to success in this life. Working on another site only expands the options available for my own site just like helping others expands the options available to me. We are more driven when external, codified needs are presented than the drifting of the obscure requirements placed upon ourselves by our own needs. Moreover, helping others enriches ourselves, those we help, and the world at large. To us, we gain satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. To those around us, we give them solutions and help for their needs. And the world around us is bestowed with added kindness.

We must not stray from ever finding and fulfilling the needs of others. Time can disguise its behavior and slip by unnoticed. Like sand in an hourglass, time appears to shift slowly in the top vassal, implying the vast expanse of time available; while below, the pounding sand falls rapidly and constantly.

Truly random thoughts today.

Some things don't change

2009-03-12T18:08:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, decades that is, I began to question some of the extraneous teachings of christianity. It seemed to me that the different denominations did not agree on all the more superfluous items. My questioning was even more firmly cemented when I took "religions of the world" and "comparative religion" classes.

My belief in God never wavered, even at my most scientific moments. God is. Nothing I have seen, felt, thought or experienced can dissuade me from such a fundamental statement. That said, I could easily agree with the message of Jesus when he taught us to love God with all our heart and with all our soul. I even felt in sync with his second golden rule to love one another. I don't know if Jesus ever said that in such a clear and succinct manner ascribed to him in the bible. It doesn't matter to me. Those thoughts ring true with me and I recognize them as fundamental truths.

It the rest of the stuff I find everyone making up as they go along. For instance, some believe "salvation" is through faith alone. Others believe it is based on good works. The role of saints and angels seem to have a mixed reaction as well. Even the role of women in the clergy is as varied as icons and sacraments.

About five years ago, I ran across a website that charted out how a number of christian denominations views many of these ideas. I took the time to review all of them and make a spreadsheet of it. To that, I added a column for myself and filled it in. Not too amazingly, I did not match up with any of the listed denominations.

I ran across the spreadsheet about a year ago. At that time, I added a second column. Without looking at my original column, I responded to the items in the chart. While my words changed, the underlying message was unchanged. I found my belief to have solidified.

I was grateful. My constant questioning of my faith lead me to believe that I may not have had a solid foundation. Seeing the commonality of responses over the course of years, pointed out to me that I did have a stable platform.

I found the file again today and repeated the exercise. My responses were even more clear and consistent. I can finally state with clarity that I have, despite my constant questioning and searching, a solid religious belief. I definitely do not fall within any of the traditional denominations, and I am fine with that.

What, then, did I write down? What is the dogma of my faith? Stay tuned to this spot, and I will expound on it further. In the meantime, I suggest reading the Epistles Of Doug.

Resorting to inefficiency

2009-03-06T21:23:00.000-08:00

Sigh. I have been playing with Google Webmaster tools to improve my site's visibility. Since I did not want to use server side includes on my web server, I had to make my pages/coding less efficient in order to improve my google ranking.

I had originally created a javascript to manage my web site's menu. Using javascript, I could edit all my pages' menu by simply editing one document. Unfortunately, google does not read javascript. Consequently, google did not see any links on my pages.

sigh . . .

Fear of Failure

2009-03-05T16:18:00.000-08:00

I tried to make sourdough bread today from a starter I have been nursing for the last couple days. Yeast bread has been tackled and overcome. Bread from a starter... not yet.

Lessons learned:

Needs more flour. The dough needed a bit more flour to tighten it up a bit more. Its a feel thing, and this attempt was not dry/firm enough.
Needs more warmth. In an effort to save on the heating bill, I neglected to provide the yeast with sufficient warmth to get a good rise from it. Saved money from making one's own bread is lost in the heating bill.
Failures are not insurmountable. Nor are successes. There is no need to blame anyone or anything for the bread not turning out as I had hoped.

Herein lies the item worthy of ponder. The bread did not turn out as I had hoped. What am I to do when faced with "failure"? Do I question God as to why he did not answer my needs (give us this day, our daily bread)? Is not getting what I want/need sufficient cause to reject God?

You may ask, why bring God into this? It was bread making and I should take responsibility for my overly wet, under risen dough. Yet, how often have I heard others ask me why God did this or God did that, when the situation is equally mundane. Why did God allow innocent victims to be hurt or why did God have to let my (fill in the blank) die?

God didn't let these things happen any more than God let me make a loaf of bread that didn't meet my expectations. Perhaps, God did let it happen without divine intervention. What's so bad/wrong about that? God is not our step-and-fetch servant. The last time I saw a painting of God, he wasn't wearing a short black french maid's outfit with a lacy white apron.

I suppose paintings can be somewhat deceptive. Nonetheless, I could see my work today as a smashing success, if only I change my point of view as to what I wanted for an outcome. If I wanted to get a workout kneading dough, while having a good time, then what comes out of the oven is not the determination of success/failure, but rather the experience of making bread.

I made sourdough bread today.

What do I ask for when I pray?

2009-02-27T17:57:00.000-08:00

I was asked this question and was dumbfounded. I don't ask for anything when I pray. "Pray for her in her time of need" is another question along the same lines as the first.

It makes me ask: What is the purpose of prayer? Is prayer for the purpose of acquiring something for nothing? Have we indulged our "I want" attitude so much that prayer has become something of a wish list? It's no wonder people get so disheartened when "God does not answer my prayer". Have you found yourself berating God for his inattention?

Perhaps the problem is in the perspective. Fundamentally, we see God as a providing father who listens to everything we ask. We know this to be true because one time, we got what we prayed for. We accept that God has a bigger picture of the situation when God takes his time answering our prayer request.

If we change our perspective and see God as our creator and the creator of all things around us, then our understanding of prayer changes. Our responsibility is to glorify God and gratefully praise him for his creation. The success of our wants is based on probability, not divine intervention.

What, then, is the purpose of prayer? How should we pray? The lord's prayer starts out with "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." The underlying message to this statement is: "Oh great God, I praise you and look up to you." Such a statement is one of a grateful creature to their creator. Is that a valid perspective we are asked to embraced?

If our responsibility to our God is to realize God is supreme and our creator, then it follows that our perspective should be one of a grateful person. I find myself so grateful for what is already around me, I would be recalcitrant to belittle the already by asking for more or different.

I recall, growing up listening to a hymn. It encapsulates this thought:

For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies;
For the love which from our birth,
Over and around us lies;
Lord of all to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

Doug

Making things work

2009-02-27T10:43:00.000-08:00

I have been challenging myself to create websites without relying on programming code other than HTML, CSS (neither of which I consider "real" programming), or JavaScript. I have done away with all the ASP, PHP and other coding languages from the Church Of Doug website.

In so doing, I have been experimenting with clean, separated code, that is easy to understand. I have learned a few things:

CSS does NOT, and I repeat does NOT, eliminate or otherwise clean up the content HTML document. Instead, it simply replaces tags like font, table, UL, and such with DIV and SPAN. This does not make the HTML easier to read. Instead it obscures organization and leaves the content equally cluttered with tags that all look the same.
There is no easy way to live within the HTML, CSS, JavaScript world exclusively and still have a common menu on every page. SSI is not always an option in the real world, so I have been trying to avoid it.
Google's bot does not like JavaScript. I have had to resort to a sitemap.xml file just to make sure Google sees the entire site. So much for simplifying.

It is a good learning experience. The Church Of Doug is a faster, prettier site than before. CSS does force a bit more consistency than I once had. It is both a blessing and a curse.

In the beginning . . .

2009-02-26T21:03:00.000-08:00

. . . was the word. The word was without shape. Along came language and the word was spoken.

Some people would not shut up.

Some learned to twist the word to emphasize their hidden motives.

Finally, there was writing and words became fixed.

NOT!