Category Archives: Bible

✓ When prayer backfires

One is unlikely to understand this without first reading “From my diary: Learning to pray.”

Bookmarks:
1. Don’t come uninvited.
2. You don’t need an invitation to love people.
3. Name names.
4. Word for word.
5. What you “see” is what you’ll get.
[Conclusion]

I consulted several Wikipedia articles in preparation for this post.  All turned out to have been written by people who are hostile toward reports of anything that might involve a spiritual world.

As much as I try to give credit to all points of view, I cannot adopt the same position. My earliest memories are of the conviction that there is more to the world than we perceive with the five senses.  Since I began practicing silence, I have seen auras.  I have had precognitive visions and telepathic dreams.  I was compelled on one occasion to pray for my worst enemy, only to learn later she’d just been through an event I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.  In the fall of 1990 I was compelled to pray day after day for a woman I’d not met and had never heard of; only to find, when I moved to another state in January ’91 to attend grad school, she was one of my classmates and had an intense interest in healing prayer, as I also did.  To deny these facts, I’d have to lie to myself more than I’m willing to.

There’s still the puzzle of unanswered prayer.
Continue reading ✓ When prayer backfires

Keith and Rodney

(Adapted from a letter to my brothers dated 06/22/13.)

For a while, I’ve wanted to tell you about a couple interesting guys in my world, Keith and Rodney.

Rodney is an older guy.  I’m pretty sure he’s the same fellow who, years ago (~2000-2003) I nicknamed “Stinky,” which needs no explanation.  He often got on the bus that I was taking to work at that time.  If he is the same guy, his life has drastically improved since those days.  He’s clean-shaven now, well-groomed, clean, well-dressed.  He stays at the Baltimore Rescue Mission.  He’s at the library almost every day, hangs out for hours in the Wi-Fi café studying books about topology.  He also typically carries a French-language Bible.

Keith is a big, husky guy.  Works for a temp agency 10 hours a day unloading trucks of foodstuffs and liquors throughout the tri-state area (Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia).  With that work schedule, he only stays at the mission on weekends.  During the week he sleeps outside on the sidewalk — much too dangerous for me to do, but he can handle himself.  He displays no interest in getting his own place, though I should think he could if he wanted.  At the mission, for fun he reads the newspapers’ financial pages — in detail.  Markets, mergers, debentures, all that stuff I don’t understand, but he likes it.

Keith never talks about religion, but he’s got an e-Bible on his phone and spends a lot of time studying that, also.

Stupid psychics, and other briefs

Bookmarks:
“The stimulus debate continues”
“Lean not unto your own understanding”
Russell Simmons on silence and presence
Teresa Giudice update
“Enhanced interrogation” back in the news

Continue reading Stupid psychics, and other briefs

McDonald’s commercials have changed; and other briefs

Bookmarks:
McDonald’s commercials have changed
The crazies and the stupids
Creation vs. the Big Bang?
Julius Henson in the news again

Continue reading McDonald’s commercials have changed; and other briefs

The request of James and John, part 1

Social predation consumed more of Jesus’ energy than any other single issue.  This comes to my attention lest my current ambitions for upward mobility leave me in a position to be tempted to look down on people.

For me, all my life until this writing, the foremost example of Jesus’ stance on this has been his response to the request of James and John.

Continue reading The request of James and John, part 1

A short route to agony

On one occasion sometime between 1983 and 1990 — I can recall where I was living, but not where I was working — I came home from work and became suicidal. I don’t recall the basis of my agony, but it almost certainly pertained to certain foibles of “the flesh” that my “spirit” seemed powerless to overcome.

A former student had left a cassette tape at my door that day, full of music he wanted to share with me, beginning with “Bad” by U2. I had a second floor apartment, and had sometimes heard this from the boom boxes of people who walked by outside; and I knew what effect it would have on me, particularly the opening section, with the bells. Given my state, for that reason I intentionally delayed playing it.

When I couldn’t bear the pain any more, I put it on, and was at once transported from the pit of despair into a place of perfect peace. I count this as a case of divine intervention: by means of that young man and that music, God saved my life.
Continue reading A short route to agony

Two Jews, three opinions

Ethnic differences don’t all need to be A Problem.

A certain woman has struggled for some years with alcoholism.  I have followed her case because she’s close to me and because I am, after all, an alcoholic myself.

Continue reading Two Jews, three opinions

Issues with upcoming posts II

Part I:  Issues with upcoming posts

If I’ve learned anything in the past two years, it’s this:

(1)  The Way of Peace works, and my calling is to walk this way.  But it takes work that I’m not always willing to do.  Call it cross-bearing.
(2) A large portion of the poor will inevitably be poor forever.
(3) No one can prescribe another person’s dreams.
Continue reading Issues with upcoming posts II