Saturday, December 21, 2024

Safe?

I came across this piece, this morning, over on one of the grief accounts on Instagram.  It's interesting that this is part of a posting *sort of* talking about religious beliefs: the fact that her (late) husband was an atheist, and left her with the thought that we die, and that's it, and that she didn't have much background, growing up, about religious ideas or concepts, and it's kind of vague.

But, towards the end, she notes that when you met your "person," it might have been "... the first time you felt completely safe."

And, of course, recently I was talking about the word, and idea, of "safe," and the fact that it's actually a lot more complex than we initially think, and sometimes has inherent contradictions.  In security we examine that idea much more than most people ever do, but even without the security aspects it's complicated.  Just try to define "safe."

Gloria was the safest I have ever felt with anyone.  I could tell her *almost* anything.  But there were still things I *didn't* tell her, because I knew she couldn't handle it.

Which is another reason why I find the piece so interesting.  She talks about "completely safe."  In our world, safety is never perfect.  We are not perfect.  Only God is.  Only God knows everything about us, already.  And still loves us.  So we are safe ...

Friday, December 20, 2024

MGG - 6.01 - Gloria - Moving and not moving

 Gloria was an Air Force brat.  Her father moved the family whenever he got re-assigned.  Even after he left the forces, he still moved the family frequently.  Sometimes even within the same town, since he liked to be close enough to work to come home for lunch.

As I have said, Gloria was moved many times, by her father, and then by her first husband.  When she finally got rid of her first husband (very justifiably so), she rented a townhouse on Baird Road.  She stated that now that there was no man in her life to force a move, she wasn't moving again.

Again, as I frequently say, I told people that the only reason Gloria agreed to marry me, was that I moved into her place, and didn't make her move again.  So we didn't.  We stayed in that townhouse for thirty-four and a half years.

When Gloria went into hospital, the girls sat me down and asked what it would take for me to move, with their assistance, while Gloria was in hospital.  I said I needed to be able to walk to the local library, and I needed internet access.  "That's all?" asked Number One Daughter.  "That's all," I replied.

The girls had had their eye on a place in Delta, close to Number Two Daughter.  Stairs had become an issue of difficulty for Gloria in the townhouse, as it was on two levels.  In addition, getting into the bathtub, for a shower, was a difficulty, as it was a problem for Gloria to step into the tub, in order to do so.  The new place that the girls had found was on a single level, with a ground floor entrance, and no stairs.  At least, no necessary stairs.  It also had a rather large shower enclosure, which would have been perfect.  The girls had gone even further, in assessing this venue.  They told me that I was to look at unit 119, and also unit 105.  They had eliminated all the others.  I chose 105 as being most suitable, and desirable, for Gloria.

What we didn't realize, was that Gloria would rather die than move.  (At least, that's what I tell people.)  At any rate, Gloria never did move into the new place.

But we had, already, moved out of the Baird road townhouse.  In fact, we would have had to have moved out of the Baird road townhouse eventually, regardless.  The townhouse was a part of a parcel that had been packaged for redevelopment.  It had in fact been sold to new owners, and we were under threat of renoviction.  The new owners, wanting to get the best rental price for the townhouse, in the short time before redevelopment took place, decided to renovate every townhouse that was vacated before the redevelopment.

The manager, of the townhouse complex, was a fellow that we had known since he was three years old.  His parents had moved into the complex, when he was three years old, to, themselves, take up the position as manager.  His parents had managed the complex for many years.  When they gave up the management of the complex, he stepped into the position.

You will notice, that he was, at this point, over thirty years old himself, and he had, in fact, lived in the complex, for pretty much all of his life that he could remember.  In fact, the townhouse that he, himself, had lived in had changed.  His parents, had moved townhouses, themselves, preferring a different layout.  So, the one location, in all of his life, that had not changed, was our townhouse, which he had been a regular visitor to, including time when we had been babysitting himself and his sister.

He told me, after I had moved out, that being asked to renovate our townhouse, was the last straw, as far as he was concerned.  He gave up the position as manager, bought a property in the interior, and moved there, to follow other pursuits.  I thought this a bit of an odd reaction, until I thought back, and realized that our townhouse, had been the one consistent thing in his entire life, and our move out of it broke that consistency.

I should mention that, as well as having the same address, for all of our married life, we had the same telephone number.  In fact, Gloria had had that telephone number for even longer, as she had had that telephone number, in the place where she lived before the townhouse, and brought it with her when she moved.  When I moved to Delta, Telus allowed me to move that telephone number to Delta as my home phone, so I did, thereby keeping Gloria's telephone number alive.  But when the girls moved me to Port Alberni, Telus would not allow me to move that number as my home phone.  As a matter of fact, despite strenuous attempts, Telus was unable to provide me any services at all.  However, I did, eventually, get a phone from Koodo, and, as a Telus subsidiary, was able to port that number to my cell phone.  So, I still have been able to keep Gloria's phone number alive.

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-6oo-gloria-introduction-and-glorias.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: TBA

Thursday, December 19, 2024

o/' Feelings, nothing more than feelings ... o/'

The Alberni Reach Podcast is taking a bit of a break at the moment.  Apparently, we will be back on January the 14th.  But the last episode got a bit of interesting reaction.

I had been asked to talk about feelings.  Nothing more than feelings.  The person who made the suggestion to me didn't give any other details, other than that we should talk about feelings.  And when I pursued the idea that we should maybe get a little bit more specificity on that, the only additional feedback that I got was that some people seemed to be big on feelings, and other people didn't.  So, because of some related work in regard to emotions (and particularly the work that I have done in developing men's grief support), I figured that I could address that pretty easily.

And so I did, starting with the fact that our society, in general, seems to think that feelings, and emotions in general, are less important than rationality.  Feelings have to be kept under control.  We have to assess our emotions rationally, and then rationally decide on some course of action.  There are, of course, those who disagree, and feel that feelings are important, and should be expressed, and even celebrated.  But those people tend to be in something of a minority, and, in general, are disregarded by the people who run things in our society.  In general, rationality is considered to be superior to emotion.  Feelings are *mere* feelings, and nothing more.  (That wasn't *all* we talked about, but that was where it started, and what's relevant to this piece.)

Which completely ignores the fact that, if we were all computers (or Vulcans) and were completely rational, and not distracted by our feelings, we would never actually *do* anything.  Emotions, and feelings, are our drivers and motivators.  We have just seen an election in the United States that proves this point, and we have seen recent elections in a number of parts of the world that prove this point, and we are facing an election, in Canada, which is undoubtedly going to be run completely on emotional lines.  It's really interesting to live in a society that prides itself on its rationality, and is driving its "rationality" completely on its feelings of the moment.

But that's as may be.  Following the recording of our podcast on feelings, I got, relatively quickly, two extremely interesting reactions.  It is intriguing that, almost immediately, in our society that prides itself on rationality, and from people who obviously, verbally at least, are on the side of rationality, I got two, very similar, reactions that were completely irrational, illogical, and possibly even inherently contradictory.  Having done the podcast, starting right off the top pointing out that we do need our feelings and emotions as motivators for any kind of action, I got one reaction that, while not challenging this point, completely illustrated it.  The person, in commenting about feelings, immediately expressed the opinion that feelings were, in fact, a tool of the devil.  Possibly not in those exact words, but the person was very concerned that our feelings and emotions were, most often, sent to us from God's adversary, in order to distract us from what God wants us to do or think.  This would, of course, mean that feelings are completely untrustworthy, and should be ignored whenever possible.  In other words, feelings bad, rationality good.  Just the position that I had taken to task right at the beginning of the podcast.

And, shortly thereafter, I got another, very similar, reaction.  This one, once again, didn't challenge the idea that we needed both emotion and rationality, but charged right into the idea that feelings were everything (and I mean *everything*) that was wrong with our society.  People feel that they are the wrong gender, and therefore decide that they should switch.  And therefore feelings are the cause of all the problems in our society, and, once again, feelings bad, rationality good.  And I was struck, quite literally, speechless by this assertion.  I couldn't even respond to point out the complete irrationality of this position.  If someone decided to change gender based on mere feelings, nothing more than feelings, how could you ignore the *strength* of those feelings; the pain and the distress that must have driven someone to those feelings?  Changing genders is not easy, even in our somewhat more liberal society.  Changing genders in some societies will get you killed.  But even in our society, you are going to encounter tremendous opposition.  You are going to lose friends, and possibly family.  You may lose your job.  You will undoubtedly lose position and status in society.  Changing genders cannot be easy.  So how is it that you can possibly take the position that the feelings, that you want to change gender, are "mere" feelings; are mere emotionality; in light of the difficulties someone is going to encounter in trying to do it?

It was the irony of this fact; two champions of rationality, making two such similarly, and completely irrational statements; that struck me so forcefully.  They both felt their positions so strongly that they were unable to see the irrationalities, and inherent flaws, in their positions.

Such a position is illogical ...


(Just in case you don't get the subject line ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6vI0uE9iqM)

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Proverbs 10:10

Someone who holds back the truth causes trouble, but one who openly criticizes works for peace.

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Review of "Book Lovers" by Emily Henry

I guess I have to add Emily Henry to my list of authors to keep checking on for new books.

It's a rom-com.  There are two characters who, predictably, hate each other.  In this case, not because they are too different, but too similar.  It's about books.  It's about people who love books.  It's about editing books.  (I, who have lost my editor, had a bit of difficulty with that.)  It's about the tropes of a rom-com.  It's very well written.

It's about love.  It's about grief.  It's about loss and fear.  It's about home, and losing home.  (And I have lost my home.)

I should hate it, and I don't.  So it's probably very good.

Monday, December 16, 2024

MGG - 6.00 - Gloria - Introduction and Gloria's parentage

At the time I began writing this I was dieting.  I had been stuck, for a couple of months, at about 180 pounds. Every time I even think of that number, I hear Gloria's voice repeating a story from her family history. 

At one point, when Gloria was young, her family lived in the Toronto area.  At that time, her grandparents also lived in the same area.  On one occasion the whole family, including Gloria's grandparents, visited Niagara Falls.  They took the elevator down to the base of the falls.  On the long, long ride down, Gloria's Grama Campbell brightly observed oh, I wonder how far down this is.  The elevator operator replied, as he had undoubtedly done thousands and thousands of times in his career, "180 feet."  When Gloria told this story she always said the "hundred and eighty feet" in an absolutely bored, dead, flat, voice.

Gloria was a better storyteller than I am.

(We'll come back to that.)

Gloria is the daughter of Stu and Sulla Furneaux.

Stu was born in Saskatchewan, and, in common with many of those born in that province, was fiercely proud of the fact.  He was very proud of Saskatchewan, and, despite the fact that he fell in love with BC, and the Vancouver area, always held that Saskatchewan was the most marvelous place in Canada.

Stu was, in many ways, a product of his time and place.  As a bit of a farm boy, he was extremely conservative, both politically and socially.  This extended to the place and position of male and female genders.  Men and boys were superior; women and girls were to be subordinate and supportive.  There were things that men were supposed to do, and pursuits that women were supposed to do.  That was the way it was, and always had been, and the way that it should continue into the future.

Stu was quite interested in genealogy.  He had traced his family line back, supposedly in a direct and unbroken line, to about the 1600s.  He had additional genealogical material and sections, going back to when Roger de Furneaux, who came with the Norman invasion of England, was given a grant of land following the invasion.  The Furneaux name, through the centuries, developed a bewildering variety of forms such as Fernelle, Ferness, Forness, Fornow, and a number of other variants.

You will notice that this fact, of having an ancestor who came across in the Norman invasion, means that his family background originally descended from the French.  Stu very conveniently disregarded this fact.  He was very proud of being a British subject, and was an ardent monarchist.  Any mention of the fact that the Normans lived in what is now France, before they crossed the channel and invaded, was met with strong objections.

Sulla was actually Ursula.  Ursula was a family name, in her matriarchal ancestry, which was the side of the family that Sulla, and her daughter Gloria, knew the most about.  This means that the descent is through Robertson, Hardcastle, and Campbell, thus making the nominal line of descent somewhat more complex.  However, the Hardcastle women paid more attention, and, as women, who hold the family society together, they knew the stories, and the relationships, on the matriarchal side of the family.  The men, who supposedly held the official status, didn't pay as much attention to their own family stories, and so, while a few of them still existed when I married into the clan, they were far fewer, and much less well documented, in terms of the oral traditions.  Gloria had two daughters.  Gloria's brother had no children.  One of Gloria's daughters has a daughter, and that daughter has now produced another daughter.  Great women raise great women who raise great women.

One of the things that Gloria left behind was a scrap of cardboard, the back of an old notepad, with a number of sayings that I recognize as coming from her family, and probably particularly from her mother, Sulla.  Some of these sayings are, in fact, fairly common, such as "bless your pointed little head," which I doubt that either Sulla or Gloria realized referred to microcephaly.  Or "Lord love a duck," which is fairly commonly used.  Or " a lick and a promise," or "if looks could kill," or even "from stem to dungeon," which may not be used terribly commonly anymore but was by no means something that only the family invented and used as a reference.

Lord love a duck

Ship doo crick

Happy any old day

He who is without expectations is never disappointed

Soda in the milk

A man running for his life would never see it

A lick and a promise

We're still breathing in and out

Bless your little pointed head

Love you lots

God bless Safeway and their barbecue chicken

(Clean from) stem to gudgeon

If looks could kill

Some of the phrases, however, did originate solely with the family, and generally had a story attached such as "ship do crick," which was a phrase, possibly originating with Sulla, or even with Larry, and was all that the speaker could manage in trying to reproduce the phrase "shipwrecked crew."  This was used as a reference, within the family, when the person, or more likely the whole family, had been through an ordeal and was feeling tired and wrung out.

Another reference was the phrase "soda in the milk."  This was a reference to a family event and story, when one person's birthday present or party was under discussion, and those who were discussing and planning it, wanted to keep it confidential.  This discussion was going on in the kitchen, among the women of the family, when the person whose present or party was under discussion came into the room, and wanted to know what was being discussed.  Someone thought quickly, and replied that they were discussing how much soda to put into a pan of milk, when you were boiling it, in order to prevent the milk from burning in the pan.  Therefore, from then on, the phrase "soda in the milk" became a family code for "mind your own business--we are discussing you and don't want to tell you about it."

Stu was from Saskatchewan, and Sulla was from Manitoba.  During the Second World War, Stu enlisted, and was sent to military training at a camp near Portage la Prairie.  Sulla was involved with the entertainment of the servicemen who were in training, and dated some of them, including Stu.  Stu, at one point, asked Sulla to marry him.  She said no.  Fortunately for my story, and my life, a week later she wrote back to him and asked to change her answer to yes.  They were married in Portage la Prairie.  In a bit of a tearing hurry, because, before the wedding took place, Pearl Harbor was bombed, and all leaves were canceled.  The wedding was moved up, significantly, and they were married, and immediately headed off, on the train, to Stu's posting in Nova Scotia.  Gloria was conceived in Dartmouth.  Although she was born in Sydney.

As an Air force brat, Gloria was moved from pillar to post, as her dad's postings were moved.  She grew up in various camps.  Even when Stu left the service, he still continued to move the family, frequently.  In fact, he did return to the Air force for a time, and then left it for good, but still kept moving the family.  Gloria attended thirteen schools, in eleven years of schooling.

Yes, that is eleven years.  In those days, there was no kindergarten, and, at one point, Gloria skipped a grade, and so graduated a year early.

Gloria's first husband also moved the family quite a lot.

Part of the results of all this moving was that Gloria got very good at packing.  But another aspect of it was that Gloria really, *really* hated to move.  When we got married, I took to telling people that the only reason that Gloria did agree to marry me was that I agreed to move into her place (by now in North Vancouver), and didn't make her move again.

(See also reference to moving in the last part of https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2021/12/details-on-glorias-last-weeks-in.html, in the Saturday, December 18th entry)

Saturday, December 14, 2024

Romans 16:25-27

Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that is from faith—-to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ!  Amen.

Friday, December 13, 2024

Review of "The Wild Robot"

Like in "WALL-E" and "Short Circuit" the accidentally developed intelligence is benign, and even friendly.  (There is even a theory about why it develops this way, although that theory seems to be clearer in the filmmakers' minds than in the script.)  Unlike "Subservience" and "Ex Machina" it does not immediately try to kill us all.  Like in "Her" the intelligence leaves (for a reason), but like "The Iron Giant" there is a promise of a return.

There are a whole bunch of unanswered questions.  There has obviously (from one scene) been significant sea rise.  Was the island formerly part of the mainland?  Is that why human live in a dome?  Are there any other domes?  How do the humans live?  How do the version of the Three Laws of Robotics result in the killer robots and Vontra?  And why doesn't Vontra get what's coming to her?

But, overall, it's really sweet.

(And probably your only chance to see Mark Hamill playing a bear.)

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

MGG - 5.51 - HWYD - Community Policing

I am now at the stage in life where I *should* be retiring.  (No, I'm probably not going to get any more quiet.)  I never figured that I *would* get to retire.  And, indeed, I don't seem to be.  I've tried to retire.  Twice.  Neither time did it take.  (The second time this thing called "the pandemic" came along, and I was asked to write another book, and then to write another course, and ...)  I'm not getting paid any more, but I still seem to be contributing to, and therefore seeming to need to research in, the security field.

I *am* doing other volunteer work.  Most of my volunteer work is Community Policing, which is mostly about keeping people alive; and Emergency Support Services, which is mostly about keeping people alive; the hospice society, which, in my case, is mostly about comforting people who are grieving because their people have *not* been kept alive; so it's nice to go out with the trail maintenance crew (currently removing sword fern and salmonberry) or Broom Busters, and, legitimately, *kill* something.

(Then there is the fact that I volunteer with the hospice society, where we deal with people who are facing the worst situation in their lives, and also with Emergency Support Services, where we deal with people who are facing the worst situation in their lives.  Are we beginning to see a pattern in my choice of volunteer work?)

The girls are *vastly* amused that the first shift that I had with Community Policing, after having finished training, was me, as an old man (even though I do try to be hygienic), hanging around the school, handing out candy to students.  And the police were *okay* with that!  Actually I do this fairly regularly now.  Although most of the time I'm the one handing out the apples, rather than the candy. 

I tend to do some of the the odder shifts.  For example, I have had one shift in support of a security presentation at a bank.  I do, as noted, semi-regular shifts at the high school.  This is in support of the breakfast club program at the high school.  But I will be doing another shift, staffing the speed watch van, out in front of the school, in support of the fact that the grade 11s and 12s are going to be getting a road safety presentation.  I don't know whether we, doing speed watch, are simply going to be an object lesson, or whether the students will have time to come up and look over the gear.  Speaking of the gear, another oddball shift that I'll have this weekend[1] is on Sunday morning.  There is a women's hockey tournament, and we are to be using our radar gun (a very *old* radar gun, which we aren't entirely sure still works, but is the only one that actually uses radar and is therefore likely to be able to measure the speed of a small object), to measure the speed of pucks when the skills part of the tournament practices slap shots.  On Saturday, I will be staffing a table at the Newcomers Welcome, put on by the Neighborhood Welcome company, where most of the tables will be occupied by businesses, shilling for business, but we will be trying to point out some of the volunteer organizations and opportunities in town.  A few days later, is McHappy day, and we will be helping out at one of the McDonald's restaurants in town, although I strongly suspect that we won't be terribly much help.  It'll be a visible presence for us, and a bit of a an attraction, or at least a point of interest, for the customers at McDonald's.

Okay, that was a really ... interesting ... second shift[1].  Starting with wondering, as the shift got nearer, whether it was going to happen at all.  But, eventually it did, and we drove around town looking for, well, anything suspicious.  I checked 166 cars, and none of them were stolen.

And then, pretty much at the end of the shift, the driver, heading down a back alley which did not, in fact, go through to another roadway, decided that he did not want to back up half a block down a narrow laneway.  So he decided to turn around.  And dropped the back wheels over quite a steep slope, which lifted the front wheels off the ground.  Even though the car is a four-wheel drive, when none of the wheels actually have much weight on them, it's difficult to move.

Eventually he called a tow truck, and the guy came and pulled us out in a couple of minutes.  But only after the other three guys on the crew decided to throw their combined 500 pound weight against 4,000 pounds of uncooperative car.  All happening in the pouring rain.

OK, at the moment[1] I am the newest member of the Community Policing team (and, as it happens, have currently[1] done the most volunteer hours of *any* member of the crew for this year).  I have done so many shifts that other work has started to suffer.  So, I figured I should pull back a bit.

But, on Friday, the boss sent out a call for the Saturday late shift, which was understaffed to the point that we couldn't send out *anyone* if we didn't get a couple more.  I said that I wasn't keep on a late shift, as I had a pretty busy day on Sunday.  He said that the shift ended earlier than usual: at eleven PM instead of midnight.  I didn't think that was a *huge* difference, but I signed up.

And then, late on Saturday, I realized that it was time change weekend, and, effectively (in terms of sleeping time) it *DID* end at midnight ...

I was supposed to cover the hockey tournament skills event for Community Policing.  (We had been asked to use the radar gun to measure the puck speed for slapshots).  And as I was driving around this morning, I realised that broke two rules.  Number one, I was not supposed to be on a shift by myself.  We *never* do shifts alone, and I'm the newest guy on the team, and I'm not even off probation yet.  Number two, we never do shifts on Sunday.

Oh, well.

Anyway, having gotten to the venue on time, according to the schedule that I had been given, I waited around for half an hour before anybody showed up.  At which point I was informed that the skills event had been cancelled.  A bit of a shock, that.  But, of course, I was already out.  Already had the van out, packed up yesterday[1] after the Newcomers Welcome event in preparation for the hockey tournament event.  So I had to take everything back to the office and unpack the van, so that everybody knew where everything was for the high school event on Monday.  And then take the van back to the RCMP detachment.  So that wasn't great.


[1] - as of that writing ...

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Sermon 49 - The Advent Candle of Peace

Sermon 49 - The Advent Candle of Peace

Luke 24:36

While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."

John 20:19

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!"


Uuk klah ma, Rob.  Wikaatla chachimhiy.

We'll come back to that.

Oh good, you are thinking. He can't possibly work grief into a sermon about the Advent candle of peace. 

Oh, can't I?

These days I really hate jokes about marriage, but I have to use one to start this sermon off.

An unmarried man is not complete.  Once he is married, then he is *finished*!

The reason to start off with that joke is the point out that without marriage we are incomplete.  We use this concept in many ways in sermons.  We say that the entire book of the Song of Solomon, in the Bible, is only *in* the Bible in order to illustrate that as a man is incomplete without a wife, so we, as human beings, are incomplete without God.  And when you have been married, and your spouse is taken away, you realize just how *real* this incompleteness is.  The bereaved often talk about the absence of the loved one like the absence of a limb from your body.  You are constantly moving and expecting to put your weight on a leg that is no longer there.  That means you fall over a lot.  In the book "The Grieving Brain," Mary Frances O'Connor makes a distinction between grief and grieving.  Grief is the syndrome of emotions that you feel.  But grieving is a process, the very *painful* process, of learning that everything you depended on when you were married is no longer there, and you have to *relearn* the new reality of a universe where your spouse is no longer there.

And what does this have to do with the candle of peace?  Well, the Hebrew word for peace is Shalom.  Now, when we speak of peace in English, we tend to think of peace as an absence.  Peace is the absence of war.  Peace is the absence of fighting.  Peace is the absence of conflict.  Peace is the absence of disturbance.  In English, peace, however much we want it, is not so much a thing, as an absence.

The Hebrew word, shalom, is very much a thing.  It is a *complete* thing.  It is, in fact, the definition of completeness.  We do have a phrase in English which does capture something of this idea.  It's the legal phrase, "to be made whole."  When we are talking about being made whole, in legal terms, we are talking about restitution of whatever it is that has been taken from us.  And not only the restitution of whatever has been taken, but, additionally, restitution of whatever we have lost from having temporarily had something taken away from us.  To be made whole.  To be made complete.  To regain, or to gain, whatever it is that we need, and lack.  That is Shalom.

But it's even larger than that.  Shalom is used as the greeting at the Friday night dinner, in Jewish homes, that begins the Sabbath.  It is not just peace, but also wellness.  To be made whole, and to be well. To be made well.  To have everything that you need for wellness.  To be complete.  To be whole.  To be well.

But the word Shalom is not the only word for peace in the Bible.  Shalom comes from the Old Testament.  The New Testament was originally written in Greek.  The word for peace in the New Testament, the word used in referring to Jesus coming to the disciples, following His crucifixion, and His rising again, uses the Greek word from which we get irenic.  The Greek word for peace is interesting because it's strongest component meaning is that of rest.

And it is easy to see the need for peace there, as well.  You cannot rest if you are not at peace.  If you try to rest, and your surroundings are not peaceful, you will be constantly distracted and aroused by whatever is disturbing your peace.  Well, I suppose there are exceptions.  When completely exhausted, we can sometimes fall asleep even in chaos.  Number One Daughter, who is the very illustration of the phrase "I'll sleep when I'm dead," has famously been known to fall asleep behind the wheel of the car simply because she is at a red light.

When you go for grief support, following the death of a spouse, the counselors always talk about "self care."  What are you doing to take care of yourself.  And, in particular, they ask about what you are doing to get rest.  It is very important to rest, and allow yourself time to recover.  After one such session, in a group situation, the counselor gave us a homework assignment to think about what we were going to do to give ourselves rest.  We were to think about that, and practice it, in the week between sessions.  One night that week, I was lying in bed.  In the dark.  There was nothing to disturb me.  It was, one would think, the perfect time to rest.  And in the dark, and the quiet, and the lack of disturbance, I thought about the homework, to think about how to pursue rest.  And I realized that I *couldn't* rest, because there was, quite literally, no one to watch over me as I did.  This works out in some interesting ways when you are newly single after having been married.  The normal nicks and scratches and irregularities on your skin, and all the other things that you could ask a spouse to look at for you, when they are on your back, or under your feet, or in embarrassing places, you no longer have everyone anyone to look at, and put a Band-Aid on, or to tell you that it's nothing.  It's okay.  You never know whether you're okay, or not.

That phrase, to watch over, is very interesting.  And the Bible uses it a lot.  I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.  You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.  He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.  The Bible says that God watches over us, and sometimes that is said even in battle situations, that we would normally think of as the very *opposite* of peace.  But this gives us peace.  This gives us rest.  At least, in theological terms.  It still doesn't do you much good if you have cut yourself or scratched yourself, in an embarrassing place, and you have no idea how to deal with it.

In terms of concepts from other languages, it is interesting to note that the Nuu-chah-nulth word chachimhiy is very similar to the word shalom, as well as irenic.  Chachimhiy means "well," or possibly "okay," but it also means safe.  It is there in the official name of the reconciliaction meetings, a reference to a "safe space."  It has these combined meanings of safety, wholeness, and wellness.

I am a security professional, and so the word "safe," and the concept of safety, is very interesting to me.  We, in the field, know that perfection in security is impossible, and so perfection in safety is impossible.  We always know that there are always failures and vulnerabilities, and we also have a concept of layered defence, or defence in depth, which holds that the imperfections of one layer of protection can be improved by adding another layer, in order to make a situation safer or more secure, but we know that we can never get to "perfectly" secure.  This has implications for our understanding of sin, but, in addition, one of the layers is that we also plan for what happens when a protection fails.  We have two modes for these plans: fail safe, and fail secure.  Fail secure means that the system and situation is protected, fail safe means that system functions will continue as best they can, even if in an insecure manner.  What this means, in practice, is that, in some situations, fail secure will protect the system from attack or loss, but it will definitely be inconvenient, and sometimes even dangerous, for people.  The idea of safety, then (and we might be coming back to grief, here) carries the idea that, even if you suffer some kind of loss, you, yourself, are protected from danger.  It is an interesting, if somewhat paradoxical, addition to the idea of peace in chachimhiy.  Are we willing to accept peace, even if it means we lose something?

And so, for Advent, I wish you Chachimhiy, Shalom, irenic peacefulness, wholeness, wellness, safety, and rest.


https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Monday, December 9, 2024

Saturday, December 7, 2024

MGG - 5.51 - HWYD - patent trolls

I am not a lawyer.  I do not play one on TV.  To the best of my recollection, I have never taken a formal course in law.  So, how did I end up so involved with lawyers in court cases?

I got a start with investigation and legal issues, as various points came up in researching computer viruses.  Computer viruses, when I started studying them, were new, and the legal system was massively unprepared for dealing with them.  As various legal issues came up, those of us who were studying and researching in the field would have to find out more and more about the legal principles that prevented prosecutions for various types of legal issues and malware activities that we considered to be criminal.  I also, again because of the computer virus research, was studying aspects of forensics, as it related to where various computer virus authors tried to hide their works.  In addition, there were aspects of investigation that were raised, as various people tried to track down the origins of specific viruses, and, if possible, their authors.

Eventually, I collected this material and first prepared a course, and then wrote a book, on software forensics.  This occasioned more study in legal principles, in order to ensure that I wasn't making drastic mistakes, in writing the book.

And, of course, in discussing the various topics and domains in the CISSP seminars, I had to address questions of why, and why not, as related to investigations and criminal prosecutions.  I also reviewed a number of legal texts that were directed at technical issues.

I don't know how far this goes in preparing you for an occupation as a lawyer, but it has given me a significant background in the law and legal principles.  This was handy in discussing legal aspects in the CISSP seminars, but it wasn't really what got me into working with lawyers.  Although it was very helpful once I had to *start* working with lawyers.

No, what got me started working with lawyers was the reviews that I did of antiviral software.  I was not one of the researchers who made a big name by becoming a great forensic programmer, or being able to pry out the interesting bits of a specific computer virus.  No, my contribution to the field was generally much more mundane.  So many people started asking about which of the various available antiviral products was the best, that I started reviewing them.  I reviewed everything I could get my hands on.  In order to broaden the spectrum of the antivirus products that I was reviewing, I started to build contact information for the various people, and companies, that were producing antiviral software.  This became a resource for the research community, in terms of finding different approaches, and making contacts, when trying to develop new strategies for antiviral protection.  I was writing to these companies, as often as I could, to obtain copies of their particular software.

And that's what got me involved with the lawyers.  Not right away.  As a matter of fact, in doing the reviews of the antiviral programs, I never made any money out of it, and, while I'm sure it was helpful to some people, I'm not sure how important my reviews were in the overall scheme of things.  But I kept pretty much all the software, and antiviral systems, that I reviewed.  Many years later, this turned out to be very important.

I hate patent trolls.  Patent trolls are people, or companies, who think up a new product, and obtain a patent for that product.  They never actually produce such a product.  They have no intention of producing or selling the product.  They're only intention is to sit on the patent until somebody else actually produces the product, or one that is fairly similar.  At that point, the patent troll, holder of the patent, threatens to sue the person who has actually made the product.  The person who has actually made the product, wanting to recoup their investment in developing it, usually caves in and pays the extortion that the patent troll demands.

At one point this started happening with the antivirus world.  Patent trolls wrote up patent applications for various ideas that they thought might be useful in computer virus protection.  They would then sit on the patents, until some company had produced a product that was similar enough to their patent that they could threaten to sue the company.

This is where I came in.  As the patent trolls started picking on larger companies, with deeper pockets, and more access to lawyers, the large companies started to wonder if they could defend themselves against these demands and threats.  The corporate lawyers would go to intellectual property lawyers, who would start doing searches in regard to people who knew about the field of antiviral software, and would, eventually, come up with me.  The intellectual property lawyers would approach me, and ask my opinions of the patent that had been issued, and whether one could defend against it on the basis of prior art.

Generally speaking, the answer is yes.  The patent trolls don't put an awful lot of thought into writing up their patent applications, and their ideas are not terribly original for the most part.  So, when the intellectual property lawyers came to me with the situation, and the patent, and the product, I generally would be able to provide them with actual evidence that a previous program had, in fact, implemented what the patent holder had outlined in their patent application.  Since the products that I was talking about generally predated the application for the patent, this qualifies as prior art.

One would have thought that the situation was fairly simple at that point.  Unfortunately, with regard to intellectual property, nothing is ever simple.  The patent office is a department of the government.  When you challenge a patent, itself, and state that it should never have been issued in the first place, you are saying that the government has made a mistake, and was wrong.  The government does not like to be wrong.  And so, challenging a patent application itself is very difficult.  The government will defend the issuing of the patent, regardless of the validity of arguments arrayed against them, or the existence of prior art.

So, the outcome of these early approaches, in regard to patent trolls, tended to be that the company the large corporation would go to the patent trolls, who had requested 100 million dollars, and say "We could invalidate your patent but it would be very expensive; here's $100,000, go away."  The patent troll, who really hadn't expected to get 100 million dollars, would be happy to get the $100,000.  The corporation, having saved 100 million dollars, is happy.  Both the corporate lawyers, and the intellectual property lawyers, having made tons of money over this entire debacle, are happy.  And the only one who isn't happy is me.

This was a rather interesting experience, with regard to dealing with lawyers, and the legal system.  As noted, generally the outcome didn't involve a trial, so I was never asked to give evidence.  In addition, I was not generally the person who would be chosen as an expert witness for a trial if someone did choose to take the case to court.  An expert witness generally has a far greater sanding in the community than myself.  No, what I was providing was simply evidence.  In fact, the one time that I was called to give evidence in such a trial, I was not called as an expert witness, but simply as a witness of fact.  The large corporation (several large corporations, in this case) was the plaintiff in the action, and the patent troll was the defendant.  The patent troll demanded that I be called as a witness, even though I had simply provided objective evidence, in the form of the programs that represented the prior art that invalidated their patent.  But this led to a few other interesting stories.

First off, there was the matter of traveling.  This case was taking place in the United States.  As I have noted elsewhere, in order to work in the United States, you need a visa.  So, when the lawyers asked me to come and testify, I noted that they would need to write up a letter specifying that I was needed, and that there was nobody else in the United States who could do the work that I was required for, and therefore I should be given a visa for the purposes of the trial.

Even though they were lawyers, and must have had somebody in immigration law in their various offices, the lawyers were loath to do this.  I don't know why: I never did figure that out.  However, they were paying for my time, and for the airfares, so I figured if I got stopped somewhere on route, it was on their dime, and not mine.

On the particular routing that the law office set up for this itinerary, I was changing planes in Toronto.  Again, as noted elsewhere, when you change planes in Toronto from a domestic carrier, to a flight to the US, you have to change terminals.  There wasn't an undue time pressure in this particular case, but it was annoying.  And, you will remember, I have had all these experiences with the border agents, and the TN-1 visas, and, in this case, didn't have the letter applying for a TN-1 visa.  So I joined the line at the US Customs, and slowly moved up until I got to go to a desk.  The person at the desk started with the standard questions: where was I from, was it business or pleasure, what was I going to be doing in the United States.  I explained that I was going to be testifying in a court case.

At this point the entire tenor of the interrogation changed.  The person behind the desk had recently transferred to Toronto from the Mexican border.  About half of his time, while working on the Mexican border, had been spent testifying in court in various cases of people attempting to cross the border illegally, or bring illegal substances into the country.  As soon as he heard that I was testifying in a court case, he was overwhelmed with sympathy for my plight.  He didn't like testifying in court.  He sympathized with my predicament.  We talked about dealing with lawyers.  He was my new best friend.  Needless to say, I did not get stopped at the border.

Oh, but it wasn't over yet.  As I say in my presentation about testifying in court, lawyers are not just in a different occupation from those of us in information security.  Lawyers are pretty much a different *species*.  When we have an issue, usually there is either an answer, or there is not.  Very often we know whether or not there is an answer.  And if there is an answer, often there might be various ways to approach that answer, but, once you have one, it solves the problem.  And that's the end of things.

Not so with lawyers.  Ask a lawyer a question; any question at all; and the answer is probably, "It depends."  A lawyer can never give you a definitive answer.

But that's only one part of the problem.  Lawyers need to know exactly what you will say on the witness stand.  Lawyers need to know exactly the wording that you will use.  This is very important.  A specific word that you might use in answering a question on the stand may invalidate their whole case.  So they have to make sure that you are not going to use that particular word.  But lawyers cannot tell you what to say.  Having the lawyers provide you with a script is known as coaching the witness, and is improper in our legal system.  So, you spend hours, and hours, and hours, with different lawyers, over a period of days, with them asking you questions, and you answering, and the lawyers asking the same questions again, to get you to word your answer slightly differently, and only occasionally saying that you can't say that particular phrase.  I'm sure it's annoying for the lawyers, and it certainly annoying as a witness.

Or, as a potential witness.  In this particular case, there were a number of other people, whom I had worked with for many years, who were all called as the expert witnesses in the case.  I was the only witness of fact, because I had provided the evidence: the prior art programs.  Expert witnesses, at least in American courts, are allowed to sit in on the case.  Witnesses of fact, are not.  It is felt that the witnesses of fact would have their witness testimony tainted by hearing other witnesses of fact giving *their* testimony.  So all of my friends were allowed to sit in on the court case, but I was not allowed to attend, and they were not allowed to tell me anything that went on in the court.  So, when the day finally came that I was supposed to be called to testify in the case, I was put in a little antechamber, all by myself, for a few hours while they dealt with something else.  Finally one of my friends came into the antechamber.  He was grinning all over his face.  He said, "You're not going to testify.  You're not even going to be called."

Apparently one of the lawyers had made some kind of a mistake during the deposition that I had been subjected to, over a six-hour period, about six months earlier.  The patent troll's lawyers had known about this and yet had insisted on me being called as a witness.  But, at the last minute, had sprung on the court the existence of this error, and the fact that it prevented me from being called as a witness.  Apparently, the judge was absolutely livid at the waste of time occasioned by this legal trick.  It didn't actually make any difference in terms of the case: the case was decided against the patent troll.  The patent troll, in taking this course of action, must have known that it would not lead to a determination in their favor, and only did it to make the process that much more costly, and time consuming, for the corporations involved.

As I say, I really hate patent trolls.


Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-550-hwyd-computer-forensics-gotcha.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-551-hwyd-community-policing.html

Friday, December 6, 2024

What I do isn't rocket science.

It's *LOTS* more complex.


(I've *taught* actual rocket scientists ...)


Thursday, December 5, 2024

Psalm 5:2

Listen to my cry for help, my God, for to you I pray.

Tuesday, December 3, 2024

MGG - 5.50 - HWYD - Computer Forensics "gotcha"

I have a number of prepared presentations that I can deliver to conferences or user group meetings.  One is on presenting technical evidence in court.  I was asked to deliver this at a conference in Illinois one time.  I met a group, obviously of law enforcement types, just before I was to give this presentation.  We chatted, and I told them that I would undoubtedly be calling on one of their number, and so they should choose who was the best in the computer forensics area, which, despite the name, is now generally understood to be limited to the recovery of data from hard disks and other storage devices.

I always ask the same question, when I give this presentation.  I suppose that I will have to change the question, now that I'm telling all of you this, but I always have presented it as a scenario for a situation in court.  (Then again, with the increasing use of solid-state "drives," it may become redundant.)  I am the defending lawyer, and I ask one of the audience to be the expert witness, in terms of computer forensics, for the prosecution.  I ask whether, when they imaged the drive under question, they did a complete bit image copy. They generally reply that they did.  I asked what commercial software they used to make that copy.  They usually answer with one that is well known.  I asked if they ensured that they recovered both the physical and the logical slack space.  They generally answer in the affirmative.

At this point, I have proved that they don't know their stuff.  This is really all you need to do in court.  You do not need to prove that the expert witness is wrong, you just make him look like a fool.  And by saying that they used a commercial product, and that it recovered all the slack space, including both the physical and the logical slack space, they have lied.  There is no commercial product that will recover physical slack space.

I ask this question because even specialists in recovery of data very seldom understand the difference between physical and logical slack space.  There is always logical slack space on any storage disk.  Unused space, and also any space from deleted files which has been made available for storing additional files.  It is fairly random data, and may contain bits and pieces of numerous previously deleted files.  It seldom includes an entire deleted file.  But it's valuable data, nonetheless, and can be used to at least partially recover a number of files that have been deleted.

Physical slack space is very different.  It is the margin of error that disk manufacturers leave themselves.  When they produce a disc, it is much more important that any data that you write to the disc is recoverable, then that the entire space on the disc is utilized.  The physical disc is an analog object.  It is used to store data, but the use to store data relies on the creation of tracks of data, and timing indicating how much data should be put into the sectors of those tracks, while leaving a margin of time, and space, that is unused at the end of the sectors.  Thus, there is an awful lot of space on any disc in the unused space at the end of a sector, or on spaces between, or beyond, where tracks are marked on the disc.  Which, if you are a good programmer, you can access for storage.  This additional storage is completely unknown to the operating system.  And commercial products only understand the tracks and sectors that are known to the operating system.

So, I got to the point in my presentation where I needed to make the point about not having to prove the opposition wrong, you only have to prove that the opposition is an idiot.  I am making this point not for any of the lawyers in the audience who may wish to attack forensic technicians, but to warn forensic technicians that they need to be very careful about what they answer and that they completely understand the question that is being asked.

The crew of law enforcement people that I had identified just before the session were all seated together towards the back of the seminar room.  I asked if they had chosen their champion.  They all pointed at one guy.  So I started asking my questions.  He gave the predictable answers.  I then explained to the seminar why I had just proved that he was a fool.

I saw him after the seminar.  I asked if he was offended at being chosen for that particular demonstration, and he, very graciously, said no.  He gave me his card.  He was, in fact, the Director of the FBI's computer crime lab for the midwestern states.

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/11/mgg-549-hwyd-dc-snow.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-551-hwyd-patent-trolls.html

Monday, December 2, 2024

Hallmark movie script rules

There are certain rules for a Hallmark movie script.

Do not expect anything profound in a Hallmark movie.  Any significant ideas, or even genuinely witty dialogue, must be surgically removed from the script.  Nobody wants anything demanding from these movies.  Otherwise they wouldn't have chosen a Hallmark movie.  (This is enforced so rigorously that I have documented the only two exceptions that I've ever found https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/11/another-one.html.)

Kids are generally to be avoided onscreen, but, if absolutely necessary to the plot, must be cute, and usually precocious.

Nobody.  *EVER*.  Pays for anything.  No cash.  No credit cards.  No cheques.  Just grab the item, thank the cashier, and leave.  Only *once* have I ever seen anyone exchange anything for goods or services.

Like Disney, nobody ever dies in a Hallmark movie.  This may seem odd until you start thinking about it.  Lots of people are referenced as *having* died.  There are lots of widows and widowers, sometimes (sort of) grieving.  But nobody ever dies.  (Well, OK, somebody dies in a Hallmark mystery.  But they have the good taste to do it offscreen, and before we get to know them.)

One or other of the romantic leads (generally not both) generally has a hugely insane schedule, has to work really hard, and doesn't have time for a relationship.  However, nobody ever actually has to do any actual work during the movie, or gets in trouble for taking time off to do (for example) an entire week of Christmas activities.

Hallmark movies frequently emphasize the "opposites attract" idea about romance.  The "button-down" businesswoman falls in love with the "free spirit" guy.  The grinch falls in love with the "Christmas-is-the-most-wonderful-time-of-year" girl.  Et cetera.  A major sub-variant of this theme is the small town/big city version.  Most of the time this is the big city guy/girl having to visit the small town and, while falling in love with the small town girl/guy also discovers the "true meaning" of life/Christmas/family/peace-of-mind and decides to stay in the small town.  (There is also the small town girl/guy striking out to make it in the big city and falling for the big city guy/girl, but this is less often.)

Hallmark movies frequently involve weddings.  Not necessarily between the romantic leads, but one or both (usually both) leads are involved in the wedding party and arranging the wedding.  (This is generally used to force the romantic leads to meet, interact over the wedding plans, and usually *fight* over the wedding plans.)  At some point the bride is going to have a full-on bridezilla meltdown, and sob that she just wants a perfect wedding--is that too much to ask?  (As anyone who knows the laws of thermodynamics, or security, knows, yes, it is too much to ask and you will never achieve perfection, and as anyone who knows weddings knows, if you *did* manage to pull off the perfect wedding, nobody would remember it, since what you remember about a wedding; the stories that are retold on every anniversary; are the disasters.)  Everyone involved in the Hallmark movie wedding assures the bride that, no, it is not too much to ask, and that they are all onside to arrange and hold the perfect wedding.  Immediately after they have promised to pursue the perfect wedding, the perfect wedding venue will have all the pipes in the building burst, simultaneously, ruining the perfect wedding dress, and the 700 perfect pew bows that have been made for the occasion.  Shortly after this the bride realizes that what she *really* wanted all along was a simple outdoor wedding, with her coming into it on a horsie.

The romantic leads in Hallmark movies may kiss, once.  *Only* once.  Other couples in the movie may kiss at need.  Hallmark movie aficionados know that extended make-out scenes are not allowed, and that if the central characters kiss more than once it is because the script writers have come up short, or that the actors have spoken their dialogue too fast, and the director needs another seven seconds for the mandated run-time of the movie.

If visiting a small town, it is mandatory to have an evening around a campfire or propane fire pit.  If Christmas, hot cocoa is served (but not consumed, see below), if not, marshmallows are toasted.  (The marshmallows may or may not be used to make s'mores.)  The "big city" equivalent is a walk along a waterway at night, which must involve a food truck (or trucks) at some point.

Then there is the $1.34 moment.  Hallmark movies are TV movies, and come with definite script moments to pause for blocks of commercials.  Hallmark movies are eighty-four minutes long, which, with added ads, works out to two hours of TV schedule time.  At one hour and thirty-four minutes (inclusive of ads), the romantic leads must discover the situation which, tragically, means that they can never be together.  (The situation is resolved approximately six minutes before the credits roll, although the resolution is often not a resolution at all.)

I don't know if they are the majority (apparently Hallmark has made something like forty or fifty this year), but Hallmark *Christmas* movies are a major sub-category, and have particular rules all their own.

There must be a snowball fight.  Usually in conjunction with snowperson construction.  (Although mandatory, occasionally these scenes are so short that if you sneeze at the wrong time, you'll miss them.)

At some point hot chocolate must be purchased.  (But not paid for: see above.)  Usually the hot chocolate is the "best in the world," and often because of some added component or flavour.  (Occasionally hot apple cider may be substituted, but this is frowned upon.)  The characters may take one, and only one, *very tiny* sip of the hot chocolate.

(This latter requirement is generalized to any food.  A character may take only one, very small, bite or sip of *any* coffee, other drink, burger, cookie, meal, or any other edible.)

A visit to a Christmas market is required.  It may not fit either the locale or the plot, but, somehow, a Christmas market, even if a very *strange* Christmas market (sometimes unrecognizable as such), must be implemented in the movie.

As the romantic leads realize that they are in love, and get their *one* kiss (see above), or as one or both central characters realize the true meaning of Christmas (and therefore realize that they are in love, and get their *one* kiss [see above]), it must start snowing.  As noted, Hallmark shoots a lot of Christmas movies, so most of them must be shot in the summer, when it doesn't snow.  This, and the fact that a lot of Hallmark movies are shot in Vancouver, where it often doesn't snow, is why it so seldom snows in Hallmark movies unless you are actually on a ski slope.  (It is expensive hauling all that gear up a ski slope, so you shoot the scene, whether it is snowing or not.)

A Christmas tree must be decorated, and usually must be bought at a Christmas tree lot or farm.  (But not paid for: see above.)  A recent additional requirement is that, at some point, a tangled ball of Christmas tree lights must be presented to someone to untangle.

The lead couple must go skating.

There must be gingerbread house making, Christmas cookie baking, a toy drive, or present wrapping, frequently as a contest.  Gingerbread house making is pretty much mandatory.

Christmas of Borg

I am Christmas of Borg.

Resistance is futile.

Prepare to be assimilated.

2 Corinthians 7:10

Worldly sorrow brings death.

Saturday, November 30, 2024

Another one?

I *think* this is profound, but I also think it needs some work ...


"You believe in magic, but you don't have faith in it."

     - "Abracadabra and a Christmas Miracle"

       (from Hallmark, of course)

(see also https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/07/profundity-from-hallmark-movie.html )

(see also https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15ZvUAYYHj/ )

I'm tired ...

Life, just normal life (even though our society ensures that life gets more complicated all the time) is really exhausting when there is no point, purpose, or positive reinforcement in it.  I drag through my days, trying to keep going, and, why?  Yeah, yeah, 1 Corinthians 3:17, but that's really not that clear, and this dull, draining slog through pointless days ... well, why?  I'm not doing any good, and there is every chance that I'm doing harm ...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uai7M4RpoLU

MGG - 5.49 - HWYD - DC snow

I facilitated quite a number of seminars in Washington, DC.  The last time was probably the worst, because Washington had one of its infrequent snowfalls.  Americans are not big on public infrastructure anyways, and since Washington DC enjoys a somewhat subtropical climate most of the time, they apparently see no need to prepare for their occasional snowfalls.  But when the snow does fall in Washington, it really dumps.  This particular snowfall dumped about two feet of snow on the city and surrounding area.

My flight itinerary, of course, was completely clobbered.  I kept phoning the airlines, and rebooking my flights, which had been canceled, for later flights.  Which, in turn, were generally canceled.  I was stuck there for three days longer than he travel office had originally intended.  I helped out snow shoveling for a couple of churches that I had attended during the time that I had spent there.

The last of the seminars that I did on this particular trip was a training camp type, with an extra day of review on the Saturday, and the exam held on the Sunday.  I was still there on this Sunday, and so I walked over to the class to did them good luck.  As soon as I walked in, the candidates started asking if I could stay for the exam.  Now there has always been a separation between those proctoring the exams, and those doing the review seminars.  But, at this point, the CISSP certification had, itself, been certified by ISO 17024.  This is the international standard for certification, and one of the things that you need to do to obtain the standard, is to ensure that anyone who deals with the exams, does not have direct dealings with anyone who delivers any kind of training or review.  So, I definitely was not supposed to stick around for the exam.

But another part of the standard notes that you need a certain minimum number of people to proctor exams.  In this case, a number of proctors were supposed to have attended, but only one had been able to make it.  She told me that if I didn't stay, they would not be able to hold the exam.  So I stayed.  This undoubtedly breaks the regulations, but I figured that the candidates deserved to have their exam.  I also, although I was very sorely tempted, did not look at the exam questions themselves.

The one proctor who had been able to make it, had not been able to drive to the exam.  She had not been able to get a taxi.  She had, in fact, contacted a limo service, which had charged her $300 to get her to the exam.  So, I told her that I would, after the exam, drive her back home, to save her another extortionate $300 limo ride.  She did not live all that far from the venue.  It didn't take me that much time to run her home.  Even though, when we got near to her own home, I had to take a detour through a parking lot, in order to avoid a *fire truck* which had managed to get itself stuck in the snow.  Washington DC drivers really do not know how to drive in the snow.

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/11/mgg-548-hwyd-norway.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/12/mgg-550-hwyd-computer-forensics-gotcha.html

Friday, November 29, 2024

Continental Drift

 


Here we can see clear visual evidence of continental drift in action (possibly exacerbated by climate change).  The bus stop has moved approximately 100 metres west of its original location (possibly necessitating population displacement).

Thursday, November 28, 2024

Sermon 42 - The Christian Vaccine

Sermon 42 - The Christian Vaccine

Amos 1:9, 10

This is what the Lord says: For three sins of Tyre, even for four, I will not relent.  Because she sold whole communities of captives to Edom, disregarding a treaty of brotherhood, I will send fire on the walls of Tyre that will consume her fortresses.

Matthew 18:6-7

If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.  Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!


Once again, this sermon was prepared during somebody else's boring sermon.  The person described a friend's transition from atheist to Christian, and noted, at one point, that the person was apparently closer to becoming a Christian, but was possibly further from God than ever before.  And I was immediately reminded of the Christian vaccine.

Now some of you will be upset by me simply mentioning the word vaccine.  Don't worry, we are not talking about an actual vaccine.  Nor do I expect you to get it, since it doesn't exist.  But I suppose that I have to mention something about vaccines, and also about viruses.

There are various kinds of bugs that we can get, that will make us sick.  And possibly even kill us.  There are parasitic insects, there are parasitic worms.  There are bacteria.  And there are viruses.

Bacteria are living organisms.  There's pretty much no doubt about that.  Bacteria have a single cell, as opposed to us, made up of many cells, and a wide variety of cells.  Bacteria, of a given species, all tend to be pretty much the same.  They are large: usually larger than most of the cells in our body.  And they contain the same structures as the cells in our body.  There is a nucleus, containing the DNA.  There are mitochondria, turning whatever the bacteria eats into energy.  There is a membrane outlining the outside of the bacteria.  These are all structures that we have in pretty much every cell in our body.

We don't use vaccines against bacteria, for the most part.  Bacteria are pretty ordinary, as far as living organisms go, and there tend to be other ways that we can kill them.

Viruses are a bit different.  Actually, quite a bit different.  There is, in fact, within the biological community, a lot of debate as to whether viruses are actually any kind of life.  Viruses are much smaller, and much simpler in structure, than bacteria.  They have fewer structures, and what structures they do have tend not to resemble the structures that we have in our own cells.  As I say, a lot of people consider viruses not to be any form of life, but rather extremely large and complex chemicals, which, somehow, using our bodies and cells, are able to make copies of themselves.

We use vaccines to fight viruses.

Don't worry, I am not going to go into a great deal of detail.  Suffice it to say that the idea of vaccination is that you take the virus, or something like the virus, and put it into our bodies, in such a way that it wakes up the immunological defenses within our body, and prepares those defenses to fight a specific type of virus.

Sometimes the virus that we use for a vaccination is not the actual virus we want to deal with, but rather something similar.  This was the case with the first deliberate and recorded vaccination.  Someone found out that when people got cow pox, a disease that didn't make people terribly sick, thereafter they didn't get smallpox, a disease which would often kill people.  Sometimes the virus that we use for a vaccination is the actual virus, but weakened in some way.  I haven't got a really good illustration of that one.  Sometimes what we use for a vaccination is a part of a virus.  Therefore we are not risking people actually getting sick from the virus, but, if that part is important to the virus, we wake up the body's defenses and get it to tear apart the virus at an important point.  There are a number of different ways to make a vaccine, and we are finding more all the time.

But, as I say, I am not going to fight political battles over vaccines here, I just want you to have the idea.  You give somebody a version of something, so that they are better prepared to fight off the real thing.

And that's where the Christian vaccine comes in.

There are many ways to look like a Christian, and even *act* like a Christian, and still not have an actual relationship with God.  We say that Christianity is a religion.  But many of us know that Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship.  The word religion comes from Latin, and is based on the Romans idea of religion.  Their idea was very legalistic.  In fact, it's really hilarious, sometimes, to read Roman religious inscriptions, and then compare them with Roman laws, and to see how much one looks like the other.  Sometimes they even cross over, and go to the other side.

For example, there is an inscription in a certain Roman city, which was created on the occasion of a sacrifice to the gods.  The inscription goes into great detail, and says that, if the gods promise, and *fulfill* their promise, that by this time next year, this town will have the same level of prosperity, or to have increased its level of prosperity, then the city promises to sacrifice to the gods so many bulls, and so many goats, and so many sheep, and so many pigeons, and that the city faithfully promises that they will do all of this sacrificing, if the gods have, by this time next year, fulfilled their part of bargain.

Then there is an edict on maximum pricing, which one of the emperors proclaimed, as a law, and the preamble is much longer than the actual law, and reads like nothing so much as a sermon.  The emperor is sorry, but his subjects have behaved very poorly, and some of his subjects have raised their prices so much that the Roman army is having a difficult time taking care of its soldiers, and so it is necessary, even though the emperor is sad and dejected to have to do this, but, since the Roman citizens have misbehaved, and raised prices so much, to the detriment of the general population, that, etc etc etc.

The important part of this comparison is that Roman religion was very legalistic.  That probably didn't feel too strange to the Jews living within the Roman empire.  After all, both the prophets, and Jesus, pointed out that the Jews were pretty legalistic.  They were concerned about being scrupulous about how you would wash out cups, and tithing ten percent from your herb garden, but didn't pay attention to the more important aspects of taking care of widows and orphans, and being kind to your fellow man, and loving God.  And then along comes this guy, who boils down the commandments into two: love God, and love your fellow man.  Somebody else, a bit later shortened it either even further: love God, and do as you please.  That's not very legalistic.  That's a relationship.

But we keep on slipping back into legalism.  We keep on saying that it's important to do this action, or to say precisely these words, and that if you don't, it doesn't matter how much you love God, and how much you are helping out your fellow man, God isn't going to let you into the club if you don't say the right words, or go to a certain building on a certain day, and wear certain clothes when you do.

And, of course, every time we make a list of the things that it's important to do, it's a list of things that *we* find not too arduous, but that other people might have trouble with.

And the thing is, that those things that we think are so important, are generally things that God, somewhere or other, has told us He's really not worried about.  Are you doing good in Jesus name, but you weren't part of the official group?  Oh, no that's not right!  You should stop!  Are you doing sacrifices of the right animals, and in the right way?  Well, if you're not, then regardless of what you're doing, and how much it is helping other people, and how much those people are coming to appreciate God through your help, then, no!  You can't do that!

But God has already said that taking special care over washing a cup is not a big deal, as long as you are helping others in his name.  God has already said that he doesn't care how many animals you sacrificed to him.  If you figure that that's all you need to do, and that, because you sacrifice animals, you don't need to do anything else he is prompting you to do, well, you really haven't got the idea.

And when we decide that certain words, or certain phrases, or certain formulas, or certain actions, or certain ways to dress, or certain days on which to worship, are more important than actually paying attention to what God wants us to do, well, that's the Christian vaccine.

You see, the Christian vaccine is something that is *similar* to Christianity, and the necessity of having a relationship with God, but it lacks the central, and important, part.

Thus, the Christian vaccine inoculates us against having a real relationship with God.  Number one, we are too busy doing the right actions, and saying the right words, and wearing the right clothes, to listen to God, and pay attention to what God is telling us.  Number two, the Christian vaccine makes us feel that we are protected.  Since we are doing the right things, the fairly easy and visible things, we are in.  We don't need to learn, or to listen to, or to do, anything else.

We are inoculated.  We are vaccinated.  Against God.

We start to think that minor, and empty, rituals are the important thing.  We're doing our bit for God.  Except that that isn't what God actually wants.  But what *we* are doing becomes more important than finding out what God wants.  These empty rituals can actually vaccinate us against having a genuine relationship with God.

Saying the right thing, but not doing the right thing is covered in Isaiah 29:13, "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."  But the same idea goes right through to 1 Corinthians 13:3, "If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to be sacrificed so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."

We start to recite hymns, or prayers, or creeds without truly meaning the words, or even thinking about what they say.  We attend church services out of habit or obligation rather than a desire to worship or give thanks.  And we can definitely use Christian jargon or clichés without truly grasping their meaning.  Even the things that we do become part of the vaccine.  Making hampers for the homeless becomes a coffee klatch.  The men's breakfast becomes a competition about who cooks eggs or sausages best.  Even Bible study becomes all about who can find the weirdest trivia about this chapter or passage, rather than what it says to us right here and right now.

Our worship, and even our works, can become another form of sin.  Because sin is *anything* that separates us from God.  If we get too comfortable within our little niches, being vaccinated against God can make us really good at pushing back against any of the nudges he sends us to warn us that things aren't quite right.  Within us.

Now that I have escribed this, you can, of course, think of people, and even churches, that fill the bill.  I'm sure that you even have specific churches in mind, that are obviously infected with the Christian vaccine.  And stressing to them that they need to do what *we* are doing, rather than what *they* are doing.

And you might also wonder why I started with that passage from Amos.  Well, it's in the middle of a couple of interesting chapters.  If you look on a map, you will see that all the nations that God is saying he will punish form a kind of a spiral.  And the threats get bigger as the spiral comes closer to home.  That's pretty understandable.  We tend to reserve our harshest criticism for those who are closest to us.  They are close, but not quite right.  The thing is, the big bombshell comes to the people the prophet, Amos, is speaking to.  His neighbours.  Who probably were congratulating themselves, like the pharisee in the Temple, and thanking God that they were "not like other men."  But we are.  Remember about vaccines being similar to the deadly virus.  The closer they are, the better the vaccine works.

Are *you* innoculated against God?


https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

MGG - 5.48 - HWYD - Norway

Houston wasn't the only time that I babysat for my nephews.  On another time, my baby sister and her husband had moved the family to Norway.  And, shortly thereafter, I was slated to do a seminar in Norway.  As a matter of fact, the city that I flew into was the city where they were living at the time.  It was interesting to see the social structures, and various differences between what was done in Norway, and what would have been common in North America.  Because the Norwegian school system starts students rather late, daycare is widely available, and cheap, and starts very early, for very young children.  My youngest nephew, at the time, was barely crawling, and certainly not toddling, and the facility where he was for daycare was very interesting in terms of the stairs, which were very well designed, extremely wide, with a long and deep run, of each step, and a very slight rise for each step.  Therefore, there was no danger of the children falling down the stairs and hurting themselves, even if they were still at the crawling stage.

My sister and her husband were supposed to go to a company party, but were wondering whether they should, given the price of babysitting.  With the availability of daycare, babysitting is not seen as something that just anybody can do.  And the charges are assessed accordingly.  At that point, it was about $50 per hour per child.  So, I volunteered to stay with my nephews, and they went to the party.  They had a very good time, and were very glad that they went, and we figured out later that I saved them about $750.

Norway sticks in my memory for a few other reasons.  The venue for the seminar was at a resort.  It was a nice enough place, but I noted that the room had only a shower, and not a bathtub.  I am old (and older and more arthritic now that I was then), but standing in front of a seminar for eight hours a day is somewhat trying on the knees and hips.  I tried to work this off, most of the time, by wandering back and forth while presenting material.  But this can only take you so far.  So I tended to rely on a hot bath, at the end of the day, calm my sore and tired legs and hips.

They didn't have one.  Not just there wasn't any room available with a bathtub: the entire resort had no room with a bathtub.  They did have one hydrotherapy bathtub, generally used by the staff for different types of treatments.  But that was the only tub in the entire facility.

I tried some other means.  The resort had a couple of massage chairs, on one of the floors, and I tried those out, concentrating on the massage and vibration for legs.  It helped a bit, but I was still missing my hot baths.  Eventually, I figured that a combination of the steam room, and the sauna, and a few cool plunges in between, made a fairly acceptable substitute.

I still don't know what Norwegians have against bathtubs.

The candidates in the seminar, of course, all spoke Norwegian.  They also all spoke English, which allowed me to deliver the material I needed to deliver.  However, on the basis of some prior knowledge of (mostly theological) German, towards the end of the week I was getting the hang of certain common words, particularly as they related to the fields of technology.  On the last day that I was doing some review, I covered a particular section of the material, and then left the class for some reason, while the students were still working on what they needed to review.  I could hear them talking, in Norwegian, behind me as I left.  I could tell, from the few words that I was able to figure out, the topic that they were having trouble with.  And I knew the point that they had to concentrate on, in order to resolve this difficulty.  So I turned around and walked back into the room, and wrote the term that they needed on the board.  Then I left again.  As I was leaving, the second time, I heard one of the candidates behind me say, "Okay, *now* we're in trouble!"

Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/11/mgg-546-hwyd-24-sussex-drive.html

Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html

Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/11/mgg-549-hwyd-dc-snow.html

Saturday, November 23, 2024

Sermon 41 - Plans, recidivus

Sermon 41 - Plans, recidivus

Proverbs 19:21 - Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

Jeremiah 29:11 - For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.


I wrote my first sermon during a whole bunch of boring sermons that I didn't really listen to over the years.  I've written other, subsequent, sermons during other boring services.  Recently I sat through a really, *really* boring sermon, and thought that it was so bad that I could do a better job, based on any story at all, and still come up with a better sermon.  The first story I thought of was our wedding.  Gloria's and mine.

So I'm going to tell you the story, or stories, of our wedding.  And, don't worry.  There is a point to all of this.

I had not, actually, given up on being married by the time I did get married.  Mind you, there was no particular reason for me not to have given up on the idea.  I have never had a girlfriend.  I mean, during elementary school not many people do.  But then I had never had a girlfriend in high school.  I had never had a girlfriend in university.  And I spent longer there than most people do.  I had tried at getting girlfriends after I got out of university, and was starting into the workforce, and was always very gently turned down with the idea that we should "just be friends."  So, it would have been quite logical, and reasonable, by the time I was over thirty, to think that there was no possibility of my ever getting a girlfriend, or getting married.

But, for some reason, I still saw my life as fitting into the rather normal game plan.  School, get a degree, get a job, get married, have 2.6 kids.  Oh, and I also believed that, as a family, we would live in a house.  That we owned.  And I lived in *Vancouver*.  Talk about living in a fantasy world!

But, eventually, there was this woman who agreed that it wouldn't be a terrible idea to marry me.  She wasn't quite what I might have had in mind in my fantasies of married life.  But then, by this time, I had realized that I should probably drop certain of the requirements that I might have initially had, and was down to basically would you agree to marry me?  And Gloria did agree to marry me.  So the wedding was on.

I have lots of stories to tell about our courtship.  I have lots of stories to tell about the preparations for our wedding.  I suppose I do have to tell some of the stories about the preparation for the wedding.  Mostly to do with the guest list.

I was older than most grooms.  Gloria was even older than I was.  When you are old, you know more people than when you are young.  So, we had to choose guests from two rather large churches, a college, an island, and an entire denomination.  One of my friends recounted overhearing a conversation where one person asked if the other was going to attend the denominational convention for that year.  No, was the reply, but I'm going to The Wedding!  The friend recounting this story told us that you could actually hear the capitalization of The Wedding, and knew instantly that The Wedding being referred to was ours.

Even when you are going to choose representatives, and not everybody that you know in all of those areas, it still comes to a pretty significant number.  My guess list was no problem.  I don't have an awful lot of friends.  I chose twenty-five people and turned in my list.  (One of our friends has always been very proud of the fact that she was on *my* list, which was a bit more exclusive than the final total of the wedding guests.)  Then Gloria had to pick those people that she couldn't not invite, and *her* mother had a list, and *my* mother had a list.  All together, these lists totaled 350.

Now, I don't know if you've quite picked up yet on the theme of plans, and expectations.  Gloria's father, expecting to pay for the wedding, in the manner of the time when he grew up, was appalled at having to pay for a sit down dinner reception for 350 people.  I told him not to worry about that: there was no possible way that we could have a *reception* for 350 people.   We weren't even going to have a formal receiving line.  Again, that was an expectation that he had for how the wedding and reception would go.  Of course you would have a receiving line!  I pointed out to him that if we were going to have a receiving line, it couldn't be a serial receiving line.  It would have to be a *parallel* receiving line.  (He knew something about computers, and the difference between serial and parallel.)  That is, the guests would have to choose which person in the wedding party, complete with parents of the couple, they were going to greet, and line up for that person.  There was no way we could have a standard serial receiving line.  I pointed out to him that, if we did, each of the guests would have about six seconds speaking to anybody.  I don't think he really believed my math, but he did understand that this wedding was going to be different from his expectations.  He felt a lot better about not having to pay for plated dinners for 350 guests.

The thing was, the guest list continued to grow.  So, at one point, Gloria and *her* Mum went to have a meeting with *my* Mom.  They needed to trim fifteen people off the guest list.  My Mom *added* twenty-five.

Gloria and her Mum became quite worried about such a large wedding.  I wasn't worried.  Mostly, of course, because I didn't really know anything all that much about weddings.  But what I *did* know was that a large number of people were going to come, and, however we planned, things were not going to turn out the way that we planned.  But I knew that First Baptist Church in Vancouver would easily hold that number of guests (and many more), and that the reception would be held in Pinder Hall, which is immediately adjacent to the sanctuary, and would also accommodate a large number of people.

In the end, it didn't really matter.  As I said, Glory was only able to invite representative samples of people from West Vancouver Baptist Church, where she had attended (and done lots of volunteer work), for decades, and also Regent College, which she, essentially, ran while Carl Armerding, the Principal, ran around the world raising money for the new building.  And weddings, being a kind of testimony to the general public, are public events.  You don't need an invitation to go to the wedding.  You may need an invitation to go to the *reception*, but, in our case, the reception was, literally, right next door.  So all kinds of people who haven't been on the official invitation list came, and, when the doors to Pinder Hall were opened, everybody just came in.

There were a lot of people at our wedding.  The minister who officiated (I have to mention that, because there were twenty ministers at our wedding), who knew the church well, told us that there were more than five hundred people there.  Pretty much everybody came to the reception.  There were people at our reception that we didn't know.  As a matter of fact, the first name signed into the guest book was that of somebody that nobody in either family knew.  It was one of the street people from Vancouver, who, obviously well versed in these things, marched in with everybody else in order to grab a few sandwiches.

Not all of the stories of our wedding day were really funny.  One couple who was invited found, when they went out to get the wedding gift that they had brought, that the radio antenna had been broken off their car.  Not only that, but the radio antenna had been bent into a kind of fish hook, and used to unlock their car, and the wedding present was now gone.

I watch *way* too many Hallmark movies. Possibly this is because of loneliness from being a grieving widower.  Possibly it's just poor taste on my part.  I don't know.  The thing is that an awful lot of Hallmark movies involve a wedding.  Oh, not necessarily the wedding of the principal characters in the movie.  Usually the plot line of the story involves a wedding, and possibly one, or other, or even both, of the principal characters in the movie are involved in helping out with the wedding.  And, inevitably, at some point, the bride has a meltdown because of a problem and says that she just wanted to have a perfect wedding and was that too much to ask.  And I, being a physicist, and knowing how hard it is to achieve perfection in the real world, mutter, under my breath, of course it is.  The characters in the movie, of course, all say that yes, they are very much in support of this bride having the absolutely perfectest wedding ever, and, no, it's not too much to ask.

Gloria used to be the wedding hostess at West Van Baptist Church for a number of years.  She had dealt with a number of weddings.  Some of the weddings were pretty high profile people, whose names you would probably recognize even here and now.  She also faced these demands for the perfect wedding.  And she always had the same response for those demands.  If the wedding was perfect, nobody would ever remember it. The stories that would be told, twenty, and thirty, and forty years later, would all be about the disasters.

And yes, I've only told you a few of the stories about our wedding.  I haven't told you about my Dad, who, having agreed to be the photographer, decided, at the last minute, that he wasn't going to be.  I won't tell you about how, trying to fill in for my Dad and do my own weddings formal photography, I somehow, even though it was on the list, failed to get a picture of Gloria and her grandmother.  I won't tell you about whirling, around, and around, and around, as everybody who wanted to talk to Gloria tapped her on her right shoulder and she would turn, and I would have to turn with her, and that is how we made it through the entire reception.  I won't tell you how we didn't get anything to eat at our own reception, and, as we were being driven off to the airport, the only thing that people could find for us to eat was three fragments of finger sandwiches, and two cookies.  But you will notice that all of these stories are about disasters, not perfection.

The point being, we have plans, and expectations.  But it's God who knows what is going to happen.

In life, we often make plans and have expectations, thinking we're in control.  And the Bible tells us to make plans, and make *realistic* plans, and to analyse whether our plans are likely to succeed.  The Bible doesn’t condemn planning, but it puts our planning in perspective.  We are called to be stewards of our time, energy, and resources.  But our plans are subject to God’s will.  It tells us to hold our plans lightly, because we don't know the future.  God does.

Consider how often life has taken unexpected turns.  A job opportunity you didn’t anticipate.  I got fired from teaching, and, specifically *because* I got fired, I later was able to teach on six continents.  A relationship that came out of nowhere.  I didn't expect to marry Gloria.  I didn't see marrying anybody *like* Gloria.  If you had asked me to list qualifications, factors, and characteristics of who I was going to marry, I wouldn't have described anybody like Gloria.  God led me to Gloria.  Gloria got me to start writing books.  She gave me grandchildren, and now great grandchildren.  Gloria allowed me to pursue career paths that got me teaching on six continents.

Now that Gloria has died, I have no plans or purpose that I can see.  Various outcomes of her death have started me writing sermons.  Is that a good thing?  I don't know.  I don't know the future, and, right now, I see no purpose in my life.  I hate it.  But faith demands that I believe that God has a purpose even for this horrible life.  So I do what is put in front of me, not knowing where it will lead, or even if it will lead anywhere.

We may chart our course, but God directs our steps.  Sometimes our plans fail or take an unexpected turn.  That's when we are reminded that we are not in control.  God is.  Rather than resisting or questioning God's sovereignty, we need to learn to surrender and trust.  And that is not always easy.  It's easy to say that we should embrace the beauty of God's unexpected paths and find peace in His perfect plan.  But when our plans, plans that we worked on and have a vested interest in having succeed, suddenly hit a brick wall, we are probably going to be fixated on them, and will have trouble seeing another path forward.

And that is where faith comes in.  *We* have trouble seeing forward.  *We* have trouble seeing other paths.  But that's on us.  God knows the plans that He has for us.  And they are plans for our good.  But we may have to wait.  And be patient. And listen.  And have faith.  Even if it is not a lot of fun right now.


see also Sermon 23 - Plans

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/05/sermon-23-plans.html


https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html