Ade Ileke 27: Linhas na Amazônia

linhas na Amazônia...

gravuras dos deuses antigos?

Do Rio Bravo à Boca do Acra

há enchentes e ameaças de dilúvios.

os deuses estão voltando para casa.

 --

Lines in the Amazon lands...

etchings of the ancient gods?

From Rio Bravo to Boca do Acra

there are floods and threats of deluge.

The gods are coming home.



pix: Google Earth

Does Mind Matter?

Do a thought experiment and imagine a Universe where there is no Intelligence: nothing to perceive the physical processes, nothing to record them, no narrative of the passage of time, no histories, no sciences; there is merely the "stuff" of Science if Intelligence were ever to exist.



Is such a Universe possible? Would Matter exist in that way without Mind or Intelligence?



The answer is actually No, it does not nor would not exist in such a way.



The Thought Experiment of a Material Universe without Mind is itself an element of the Universe that has Mind. The Universe without Intelligence is part now - since we have just made the thought experiment! - of our history of Intelligence. And Universe without Narrative is obviously part of the Universe of Narration.



In other words, the "Material Universe Without Mind" is a concept that cannot be conceptualized, else it disappears.

--

Gold

Olaf Stapledon somewhere writes about a primate society of the future which exhausts itself in the frenzied pursuit of essentially useless bright and shiny metals, and they melt back into the undifferentiated mass of primates from which they sprang.



He also wrote in the same book about the frenzied use of fossil fuels by mankind, mostly in aeroplanes and ritual flying, but he was spot on about the eventual depletion of fuels and the baleful effects this would have on the present and the future.



Getting back to the apes and their pursuit of Gold and Shiny Metals: as much as we have inveighed against Wall Street working at phantom financial instruments that add nothing to the "real" economy, we do not seem to mind that Gold adds nothing to the economy, either.

We are so used to phoniness that real investment eludes the majority of us. Gold is a bright, shiny, and essentially worthless metal, unless you need its malleability or the fact that it does not tarnish.



This business of phony investment seems to be so ingrained that only a catastrophe may change it. When a society values economically worthless things over items that have real value and contribute to the betterment of society.... well. draw your own conclusions.

--

The Other Side of Fear...

Wisdom is on the reverse side of Fear... it is the side B, the side rarely played.



This side is the side of Miracle.



I really cannot explain it beyond this.

--

Pure Ideology is the Death of Democracy

The Club for Growth sez:



http://www.frumforum.com/lets-primary-this-rino-reagan



... America would be better off served by somebody like Michele Bachmann. She is ideologically pure. 





To be ideologically pure is to remain "chaste" in the face of differing opinions; it is to refuse to compromise and negotiate.



Any politics that does not listen, negotiate, and compromise, must by its very nature cycle between eras of violence and discontent, for the only way that parties "out of power" can make themselves heard is by acts of violence or separation and withdrawal.



Consider the Fascists, the Bolsheviks, the Nazis... all insisted on ideological purity and they all realized they were enemies of Democracy, and they made it plain that they were above and better than feeble Democracy that cannot accomplish anything because it was always locked in confrontation. Back after World War I, the democracy in Italy could not agree on things, so it needed Mussolini to effect even such mundane things as "making the trains run on time".



We are not viewing dysfunction in Washington, D.C.; we are viewing an alien ideology and philosophy which seeks to actively subvert a Democratic process. It seeks to destroy the Government by refusing to allow revenue increases in a sane long-term proposal to reduce deficits; the aim of this alien ideology is the death of the country as we know it and the introduction of some new version that is "cleansed" of the bad elements of a "promiscuous" Democracy.

--

Reverse Darwinism

I has been pointed out that Tea Partiers are not Evolution deniers; they are proponents of "Reverse Evolution"; i.e., survival of the goofiest.



I'll be darned.

--

Am I "Frum" Canada?

Someone asked me why I read FrumForum. And why, in the name of all that is holy, do I have a link to it? Why do I not have a link to a liberal outlet, for example, and balance things out?



Well, Frum is a conservative from Canada...



I was at University in Canada, and I spent 6 of my most formative years living in Canada for 9 months of the 12, and spending the remaining 3 visiting my Canadian girlfriends. All of my friends from that time (who still speak to me!) are Canadian, and my wife's family on the maternal side comes from Quebec. My brother-in-law Bill, God rest his soul, has a place on Lac Achegan, near St. Hippolyte, Quebec, that his boys still own - even though they now neglect to send me invites.



There is a Canadian way of looking at things that is extremely different from the American way, and is also quite different from the British way.



Everyone that has been touched by Canada experiences things differently, and they never lose their sense of Kaskeyihtamowin... their "nostalgia", their painful longing (and that is what 'nostalgia' means in Homer) for their home, for Canada.

Love America as I do, Canada is my Godfather and Godmother.



--

note:   kaskeyihtamowin is a Cree language word.

-

Ah! In My Youth... #2

Who'd of thought:



we would ever see an Anti-Science wing of politics become influential in the Republican Party, starting back in the days when George W. Bush, clueless in Gaza, used to allow faith-based administrators into Science programs; it is a far cry from the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, when Science was an important part of public policy.

Other countries continue the quest into Space. We shall be there, acting as their faith-based janitors.



--

Reprise: Night People

I am repeating this post from 2009 as it fits in well with my post "Image of Obsession: Old People in Exile"

http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2011/08/image-of-obsession-older-people-in.html

on August 20, 2011.

The old people come out at night. The have become feral and feline, sleeping during the day. Night is not a metaphor for the darkness of the soul anymore, not the evil of pitch black, but the silhouettes of night have become the archetypes of all things.

We, the old, stalk the shadows of the city on our quest for the Virgin Mary's bicycle parts.

The things of the earth lose their detail, the thorns of life that prick us, bleed us; the day people want to help - so they say; they want to minister to us, to provide medicals. We call them "leeches", like in old times; they want to leech us to whatever icon they have of old people should-being. They task us. They harry us like dogs chase the fox. Their old-age homes are dungeons run by their Ministry of Love.

They leech and suck our blood with their taxes, and their wars, and their guns and violence.

They speak in a cenobite tongue of the most profound profanity. We hear their blasphemous language, which they find comical, and it tears at us. All words are used: every vulgar profanity, every curse gets a laugh.

Discourse is invective.

The old word for conversation was "intercourse". Intercourse of days is now vile: it is either violent, or it is a graffitti on the walls for everyone to gaze at, hard colors on concrete drawing tears from the tender eyes of the day people...eyes used to Death and Cable.

We drive at night and see the blackwork buildings sentinel on silent streets. We watch the Sunset Channel with its documentaries of nightime streets, where you can actually see the streets and sidewalks; they are not obscured by the opprobrious burden of multitudes of people, walking like a living carpet of many-coloured knots, woven at random seeming along the night-time weft we inhabit. At night, the weft is empty...Penelope-like, the ragged carpet of care is unwoven every night, and we wait for the Master Weaver to come...

The day is the time of massacre of the two-year old boys, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and busy with their toys.

Christmas was at night, our loves, our joys...

Night is the holy time, when we mend broken hearts with bicycle parts, straighten spokes, adjust the brakes, pump up the tires; night time, priapic with meaning and engorged with arts!

pics 1,3,4: arnold pouteau

pic 2: broken hearts & bicycle parts

Ah! In My Youth...

Who'd of thought of:



a major political party having the majority of its presidential candidates not believing in the Theory of Evolution?

--

My Goddaughter

Goddaughter Throws Frisbee At Pontiff

Elsewhere I have mentioned my travelling goddaughter and her uncanny propensity for tossing frisbees at people. She is a member of an Ultimate Frisbee team (Manchester United Tossers, or Ann Arbor Chuckers or something like that) and to them it is equivalent to a "G'day, mates!"

The photo below was from when she was on the Amazon River causing wonderment among the locals:

Recently she was in Rome:

If Benedict calls, I'm not here!

American Sign Language and "A Stedman Caters Of Crows"

This post was to be about using Sign Language in employing Venery (definition #2 below!) terms, but I'm not sure it ever came fully together. That is a sad fact, but I'm sure it will be taken care of by some other brainy, signing type.



Venery comprises two arts: (1) the art of love, and (2) the art of giving names to teams and squads of animals. I am talking of the second. If I were to be involved with the first, I would indeed be "just talking" and/or "blowing smoke" as I did so.



An example of a term of venery would be a "pride" of lions. There very often is a conscious effort to do synecdoche in the venery term: a part standing for a whole, as in our example, the lion's proud bearing is extended and changed to mean a group of lions.

Of course, there is a lot of the joker and trickster in all this, and good venery terms should bring a smile to the face, a good example being a "rash" of dermatologists.

For other example, we see that The Periodic Englishman has a post titled Like A Murder Of Crows - That's All  http://cricketpage.blogspot.com/2008/11/like-murder-of-crows-thats-all.html 



The word "murder" in the title is a venery term for a team or herd or whatever of crows. Since "murder" is a bit too "zero at the bone" for a whole bunch of us, I tried my hand at it, but the best I could do was the latter part of the post title above.

A "stedman caters" is a type of English bell change ringing, and I have heard it used in memorials, so there you have it. The crow is a somber and sullen bird, even when dipping the old beak into a festive road-kill gazpacho.

Well, I never was one for the brisk, light, and breezy. I prefer my attempt over "murder", since "stedman caters" sounds a good deal like "Scatman Crothers", an actor, whom I enjoyed, and a "scatman crothers" of crows is not too bad, either.



There are other possibilities. Arabic has a phrase: slower than Noah's crow which suggests other routes. I think of Noah's crow as a guy taking advantage of the situation: there Noah is, water all around, no place to go, totally castaway and isolated... except for the winged breeds. They can just fly away.

Of course, crows, being crows, would milk this opportunity for everything it's worth, neglecting the fact that sooner or later, the flood would recede, and the slow, cud-chewing bovines would again rule the world of Hamburgers and Light.



This post actually was to deal with signing among the deaf. There is the possible "venery" term : a hush of deafs, or a hush of hearing impaireds. Personally, I think "hush" is becoming over-used, being as it is already used in the well known "a hush of ushers", which usage seems to be the definitive usage, according to H.W.Fowler, who spoke of the officious blighters who "ushed" the chapel in his youth, and went about with their index fingers held to their thin, pale, manta-ray-like lips shushing all the lads.



Signing has always been a very sensual experience in my part of the world.  I mean, the utter joy of the flow of words from a good speaker - or signer - added to the fluid gestures... and if she plays the acoustic guitar afterwards, so much the better. I do not mean to imply anything here. I just happened to have delved into the joys of hearing-impaired intimacies in my youth.

I was, indeed, magna cum gallaudet for a brace of years.

--

The Central Bank and The "New" Wall Street Journal

Read it there:

http://www.frumforum.com/nice-central-bank-you-have-here#more-102030



and



http://www.frumforum.com/time-to-downgrade-the-journals-editorial-colum#more-101814

--

To The Climate Deniers

Bertolt Brecht

Truly, I live in dark times!

The guileless word is folly. A smooth forehead

Suggests insensitivity. The man who laughs

Has simply not yet had

The terrible news.

What kind of times are they, when

A talk about trees is almost a crime

Because it suggests silence about so many horrors?

Bertolt Brecht, To Those Born Later



--

The Future Is Not Fixed

An important thing to learn is that it is impossible - absolutely impossible! - to talk to God.



Once you learn this fact, you discover that you may talk with God.



This leads you to your first understanding of how Irony - or Reversal - works in the scheme of things.



Similarly, you will soon learn that you can see far into the future, but the future is infinitely flexible and can be changed at a moment's notice, for the future is filled with potential Reversals, and all it takes to change it is a change in the hearts of mankind!



That's why the future seems so determinate and unchanging, not because it is a rolling rock whose momentum will cause it to overwhelm us, but because our hearts are so dull and sluggish and refuse to make even a little change.



Wisdom is not discovering Hardship and Fear and believing it to be forever. Wisdom is finding the other side of Fear...



--

La Grande Illusion

I saw La Grande Illusion on Turner Classic Movies the other night, and I recorded it, and so far have watched it twice. It was made in 1934 (or thereabouts) by Jean Renoir. Jean Gabin was a lead in it. It seems to have been Jean Gabin day at TMC. Pretty good stuff.

It is a very good film about war, and if you watch it, you will readily pick out scenes which were bodily lifted into other films, like Casablanca and The Bridge Over the River Kwai.



What caught my interest was the fact that Captain Boeldieu, a member of the aristocracy, was pessimistic about the place of his class in the future. He apprehended that after this bloodletting, things would change, and the privileged class would sort of waste away.

The film was set in World War I, and was a creation of the mentality of those who lived through that time.



I mentioned that I had been reading Mary Roberts Rinehart's murder mystery, The Yellow Room, which was published in 1945, and was a World War II creation. Similarly, the rich and privileged were sensed to be passing away after the present bloodletting. Carol Spencer, the main character, muses on how different things will be after the war, when the privileges her dowager mother is used to will continue their erosion, which had been started by the rationing and shortages of war.



Now once again we face a privileged class: the 5% of the population wherein most of the wealth is concentrated. Shall we once again face some cataclysm and general bloodletting? Will it be war, civil war, or oppression?

I do not know, but it seems that our Capitalistic way of life is cycling through similar scenarios every generation, and there are plenty of warnings, but I guess the overall message is that we are too stupid to see them, for it may well be that concentration of Wealth and Power in the hands of the Few may not merely be injustice and rapacity, but instead may be a symptom of a cancerous disease rampant through the fabric of the Body Social!



The dynamics of history are not Capitalism nor Socialism. The driving force is nothing we have been able to put our finger on. But the stories are there in front of us: Pride goes before the Fall. And all the violence and bloodletting is just the murderous implements that are used by a people who know no other way to conduct themselves when their lives are out of joint.



Over and over, the bitter ironies play out, because we cannot grasp the need to avoid being put in the position where a sudden reversal will wreck our lives.

--

Blue Heron

The Blue Heron is my totem animal. Most of the time I see him, he has nothing much to say. He is searching for food.



So I go on and leave him to his hunt. You cannot force meaning. But you should not ignore meaning, either. We have those two problems: we force meaning where there is none, and where there is something, we are too busy to attend to it.



Those powers are not like roses that you can stop and smell. The power in the universe - if you mean to pay attention - demands a chunk of your life.



--

Veritable Cinema

If you read this blog, you are used to my heavy-handed use of films for just about anything: I use them as my logic, my inspiration, my references, and my whipping boy. I use films like slate: throw them down as stepping stones on the wet ground to get from Point A to Point B. I disregard them like Schopenhauer's Causality Tram... once I get to Point B, I dismiss the means of my transport, and send them packing back to the archives.



Now, if you wish top read an account of film done finely and insightfully, try this review and discussion of Ozu's films:

 

http://oliverlunn.blogspot.com/2011/02/great-paradox-of-ozus-masterpiece.html



--

Image of Obsession: Older People in Exile

 Fahrenheit 451 Monorail Scene

An Image of Future

I have been obsessed by Images and complexes of Images all my life. Their vividness has interfered with my ability to function at some times. For most of my life, they were just nonsense Images, similar to OCD behavior maybe, not quite as strong, not quite as compelling... maybe. Since the turn of the century, however, these Images have taken on more reality and seem to have been forerunners of the images we see in the daily news.

One of the Images that have beset me throughout the last 40 years has been that of old people gathered into their own communities of exile, living out their days apart from a society which does not want them. Over time it became a mimicry of the final scene in Fahrenheit 451 : Oskar Werner reciting and memorizing a forbidden book, walking with Julie Christie, surrounded by the other old people who recited the forbidden books they had memorized; as the camera pulled back, snow began to fall.



It also took the form of an elderly Lord of the Flies, and at times a Swiss Family Robinson combined with Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome... and every day we recite "the Tell", the story of who we once were and where we came from.



There is a sense of having escaped into a refuge; it is a hard life, but better than the one we (yes, "we"!) escaped from, and there is a good life somewhere in the Future!



From Beyond Thunderdome:

Time counts and keeps countin', and we knows now finding the trick of what's been and lost ain't no easy ride. But that's our trek, we gotta' travel it.

And there ain't nobody knows where it's gonna' lead. Still in all, every night we does the Tell, so that we 'member who we was and where we came from...

And we lights the city... for all of them that are still out there. 'Cause we knows there come a night, when they sees the distant light, and they'll be comin' home.

I am beginning to see the Image become Reality in the News.

 

Monorail Trash being used to Shelter the Homeless

--

pix

http://oliverlunn.blogspot.com/2010/12/british-landscape-in-frenchmans-film.html

http://zapatopi.net/blog/?post=200412114840.french_monorail_trash

Old Posts

Over time, Blogger has had some issues which have caused all of my older posts (and I do not know where the dividing point is)to have lost all paragraph separation, so everything is run together in one paragraph.



Sorry. I'll try to fix some.



--

Literary America

"The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer."

D. H. Lawrence





I had this quote on a post about Fight Club, and I never felt entirely comfortable with it... until now, that is.

Having read part of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, I see that it is spot on, at least to our souls. The book deals with  KGB sadistic rapists, bisexual girls with fetishes being raped and brutalized, and evil psychiatrists who - by the way - are pedophiles.



What a glorious Boschean depiction of Hell! And how much we enjoy it, turning the book into a phenomenal best seller! What a thrill it must be to read it!



I thought it juvenile... nasty juvenile... juvenile of the dark side, and I threw it away from me and returned it to the library, for I think it bad luck to leave such items within one's house.



The essential American reader's soul is hard, isolate, and a killer.

We are what we create with consciousness. Please stop creating echoes of evil within yourselves.



--

Evil

Evil does not require the stereotypical expressions of actors portraying villains. It does not require harsh laughter, sneers, icy genius, darkened rooms; evil can be bright and sunny and just as normal as that guy next door who would not hurt a fly.

Evil may be eight kids on a camping trip to the cabin of the uncle of one of them, and there may be no escaped lunatic killers lurking nearby, nor any mutant sharks in the lake. Just a sunny day and friends. Good and evil are aniconic: they have no real depictions. They are real choices of real people and are as ordinary as the morning toast.



--

Sand Dune Therapy

For my birthday, we decided to go to The Pinery Provincial Park located at the southern end of Lake Huron, about 33 miles ENE of Sarnia, Ontario.



It is all about sand dunes, man! Just as there are enormous sand dunes in Michigan on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, there are dunes and sand on the eastern shore of Lake Huron. There are nine beach areas in the park, and the young girl at the entrance did not give me a senior discount, saying it was reserved for Ontario seniors.  However, she did not give me a map of the facility, either, so I think she was merely incompetent. I am going to write to the proper department anyway.

I have to complain a lot to Parks departments. I suppose it is all due to budget cuts. Last year in Maryland there was one that suckered me out of my money at the entrance, leaving it for me to find out after I drove in that nothing was actually available on that day, and, by the way, thanks for the eight bucks!

Using the telephone number on a sign at the entrance, I managed to get hold of the part-time manager while he was eating lunch. He was taking a break from selling real estate, his full time job, and expressed considerable sorrow that I felt short-changed. He gave me an address to write to ask for my eight dollars back.



Getting back to The Pinery, I found that after a day of sand-surfing up and down the dunes, the next day that the ligaments and muscles in my legs felt better than they had in months and possibly years. I had feared re-straining a ligament, but discovered upon waking there was a sense of youthful wholeness I had forgotten ever to have possessed, leg-wise. (I had a full six weeks off from jogging due to the ligament in my right knee, and was now slowly working back into running again.)



I remember runners that used to train for the Olympics by running on beaches and sand. I think they were New Zealanders, or Aussies... it was a memory from a long time ago. People probably still do it. It could have been the swimming, too: the movement of the legs against the slightly resistant medium of the water.

It could have been both things. And it could have also been sun and clean air.



We had ended up on the dog beach. We do not own a dog. There were many well-trained dogs that were a pleasure to see. There was no inconvenience whatsoever to anyone... except for the fact that just before we were going to leave, a golden retriever caught a frisbee in the water and stopped to do his business right there... in the water.

The owner went through the motions: he held the bag up where everyone within eye-shot could see that he did indeed pick up after his dog (or "stoop and scoop" as they say in Toronto). He stood at ground zero and surveyed the scene with intent. But he showed no inclination to step into the water and aggressively deal with the situation. As the waves broke upon the beach, there was enough turbidity that he could not see the object he wished to take care of, and, being a normal bloke, he did not want to go thrashing around blindly and run the risk of stepping on the blasted pile.

Which, or course, was the entire point for the rest of us. Or, I think it was. Perhaps I was alone in this. This was the dog beach, after all, and perhaps the major portion of the clientele was much more blase to what I took to be serious social gaffes.

I do not think that I have never seen a dog do anything like that in my entire life, and perhaps, being a hunting dog, this dog may have been trained to go in the water so as to not interrupt his hunting chores of looking for ducks and charging through the bullrushes to retrieve them. I have seen a lot of dogs romping in the water, too.



Oh, well. We also went to a ghastly restaurant in Grand Bend. I cannot understand why a restaurant that is within 10 miles of a maple syrup producing farm feels that it has to provide one with a container of "pancake syrup" to accompany its grisly pancakes. It is a syndrome associated with vacation areas, I guess. They have a knack for sucking the life from food.

The antique stores were pretty good, and everything was enjoyable. Just "caveat" swimmer on the doggie beach, and always "caveat" eaters in restaurants: beware of the things one knows are fraught with slapstick and enjoy the time.

--

Ade Ileke 26: Famille Féerie

la mère était Brillante, qui en Arcadie a vécu;

le père était Arcas, éloigné et disparu;

les enfants, dix en nombre:

Maia, Gaia, Ciel, Thermidor

Halcyon, Marin, Ambrée

Le Feu, Le Gel, et Victor;

en Arcadie ils ont vécu,

en Arcadie, où oeillets de poète ont poussé.



--

the mother was Shining, who lived in Arcadia

the father was Arcas, far away and disappeared;

the children, ten in number:

Maia, Gaia, Sky,Thermidor

Halcyon, Marin, Ambrée,

Fire, Frost, and Victor;

in Arcadia they lived,

in Arcadia, where the Sweet William grows.

The Fruits of Unreason

Standard & Poor’s director said for the first time Thursday that one reason the United States lost its triple-A credit rating was that several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default — a position put forth by some Republicans.



Without specifically mentioning Republicans, S&P senior director Joydeep Mukherji said the stability and effectiveness of American political institutions were undermined by the fact that “people in the political arena were even talking about a potential default,” Mukherji said.



“That a country even has such voices, albeit a minority, is something notable,” he added. “This kind of rhetoric is not common amongst AAA sovereigns.”

First SSTV Image Received From ARISSat-1

I have been waiting for the new bird ARISSat-1 to pass by and tonight at 21.03 UTC I was in luck. Above is my first ARISSat-1 SSTV image received at my home QTH using a Yaesu FT-847 and Dual Yagi Satellite antenna array. I am looking forward to some closer passes and better reception over the next few days.

Early Start For Short Wave Listening

During the weekends and holidays the family and I have been spending plenty of time up at the old QTH (the shack on the hill) taking in the fresh Moorland air. When we bought our new family home we decided to keep our old Moorland QTH which comprises of a luxury 40ft Static Caravan up at 1000ft asl on the edge of the Pennines here in Yorkshire. Its a great place to hangout with a wonderful view!



The old shack is still working as well as ever with my trusty FT-767, FT-890, FT-2600m and VR5000. The rigs are all connected to my original antennas. The antennas are also holding up exceptionally well. I have still got my home made IO-10EL Sat beam up as well as the 20m Delta loop, Hustler 6BTV, X200 Co-linear and 10m vertical.



Our lovely baby daughter is starting to take an interest in the hobby of amateur radio, She has the makings of becoming a keen SWL.



Hope to work some of you from both of my shacks/QTH during the next couple of weeks as I enjoy my summer holidays. 73 have fun!

NOAA 18 - Image of todays weather (UK & Europe)

Whilst surfing the HF bands on a lazy Sunday afternoon I had my satellite tracking equipment on standby ready to receive and decode NOAA - 18.

Here is the received transmission from NOAA-18 received at 3.15 pm (local) at the QTH of 2E0HTS - Yorkshire, U.K.

If your intrested in recieving signals from NOAA Satellites check out NOAA SAT Status for frequencies and up to date information.

Yesu ni Bwana!

There is so much to be grateful for I hardly know where to start.

Things are going great at home because men and women are rising to the challenge of a shared life, Shammah is doing well, Jerry’s biopsy was clear; see (http://yippee-leukemia.blogspot.com/2011/08/august-10-good-news.html), people are coming to Christ, the Ingathering is almost here, the church in Nakuru is growing both numerically and spiritually.

The pastors we’re meeting with each week are thriving and taking everything back to their people and inviting new pastors to come. We had a great time of fellowship and outreach with the local community during the Kingdom Hikers talent show and all of us in George’s house are doing well and high spirits.

Once again, I find myself so busy living this Life I can’t seem to find the time to write about it. At least the other “sent ones” have been faithful in this respect. You can read their blogs to find out what’s been happening throughout the week. What a great bunch of people.

 If you don’t know where their post is, here’s the list. Just click one and enjoy;

Amma’s….   http://haviylah.blogspot.com/

Tara’s…..      http://tara-livingchristslife.blogspot.com/

Doug’s…      http://rcvdoug.blogspot.com

Brandon’s...  http://thestuffyoumayhavemissedinafrica.blogspot.com

Yahshana… http://yahshana.blogspot.com

                                    

                              The Growing Household of God

It is such a profound truth that the Kingdom of God is like a great dragnet cast into the sea, pulling up both good and bad fish. Then the good fish are placed into clean vessels and the bad ones discarded. 

(Matthew 13:47, 48)

We are watching the Master fisherman drag His net onto the land and sort out the fish. Sometimes the sorting happens quickly and sometimes it takes a long time. Those who prove themselves worthy are placed in clean vessels. Then he changes them into true sons and daughters of God. Soon they begin maturing and learning how to fish themselves.

 Last night we went to one of those “good fish” houses and saw what her own net had brought up. She had gone to all her neighbors and friends asking them to come to her house that night to hear the message of the Kingdom of God. God began the sorting right away.

At the end of our time together one of those friends left with new Life and two others expressed a desire to be joined to Household of Christ. The good fish’s name is Zipporah or Zippe for short. The next day we met with Zippy's husband who after witnessing our fellowship the night before expressed a desire to be baptized into our Life.            

             

       The Fun filled Outreach of the Kingdom Hikers Talent Show.

 

It took a lot of work and preparation to pull it off, but the Talent Show was a great success. There were snacks to get ready, signs to make and a whole lot of planning.

We had to extend the “tent of meeting” to accommodate all the people that would come. Here is some of the crew that “pulled up the stakes and lengthened the tent”.

Then there was lots of dancing…

Lots of singing…..

And lots and lots of fun!

        The 5 hour Gathering and Fundraiser Extravaganza.

Years ago there was a war movie called … “The Longest Day” …it was given that name because they obviously hadn't sat though last Sunday's Gathering. It had to be five hours long. Although, I must admit it was a lot of fun. It’s a good thing we stretched the tent, because every available space was filled. We need more chairs.

Now on the way to the gathering George mentioned something about a “fund raiser” but we had no idea of what he meant. It was a stimulating experience. The raising of funds was a cross between a Village Auction of desert goodies and a Village wedding fun night.

The cause was good; raising money for a more permanent meeting place than the tent. Amma was delighted because nothing was auctioned but vegetables. For a full description click on Amma’s blog that is listed above..

Here are some of the pictures of the Fundraiser…

Words cannot express what is happening with the pastor’s meeting. All I can really say is our Father is gathering an army of dedicated spiritual leaders hungry to be on the front lines of this spiritual war we're in. I hope to do a separate post introducing each of these wonderful men.

Well there is plenty more going on, none of which would be possible without your prayers and support. Please continue to lift us up as we enter our last month, we want it to be the most productive yet.

Oh, something kind of funny, I sent David D. in California an update of what’s happening here in Nakuru and ended it with what I thought was Swahili for Praise the Lord. He said he looked it up on Google translator and it said I had written ….Rebel lord lima bean!

Soooo…. while I work on my Swahili, I’ll leave you with… Praise the Lord!

Much love … your sent ones.

What's Happening

There have been many good and wonderful things happening here in Kenya. However, most of them are not easily described. I have been too busy experiencing them to write about them. God is working both inside and outside our church touching people’s lives and reviving their hopes. Through many and varied circumstances God is taking us deeper into people's lives. In the midst of tragedy He is bringing joy, in the midst of pain He sending comfort, and in the midst of adversarial attacks …He is bringing victory.

Probably the best approach to communicating everything that is happening would be to take each thing separately and describe what we are seeing. If you don’t already know about Amma’s blog, here’s the link    http://haviylah.blogspot.com/  ; she does a much better job at keeping everyone up to date than I.

                                                  The Church                                                  

                                                  

Much has happened in and surrounding our little church family; even the location of our meeting place has changed as reported in one of Amma’s blogs. Truth was that if God hadn’t stepped in and revealed our new meeting place we would have been “placeless”. But, as always, our good Shepherd had already picked a new and better location before we lost our old one. Moving was easy as we, like the Israelites of old, just pulled up the tent stakes in one place and put them down in the next. Then we celebrated! 

Our new place has opened up a complete new neighborhood and we already have new people coming to visit. In fact the nice lady who owns the property and leased it to us lives in Nairobi and was with us on Sunday.At the gathering she was saying when she is in town she will always come and be with us. She then stood to her feet and told us that she could have gotten more money from other people who wanted to rent the land, but she felt the Lord told her to rent it to us for less. She said after the gathering this morning she now knew why.

                                             Gideon, Robert and Adrian

Among the new people who have come to be with the church are a number of talented and personable young men and women. Three of the young men that particularly stand out are Gideon, Robert and Adrian. All three young men are musically gifted and have added a whole lot of life to our praise and worship. More about them can be found on the latest installment of my blog about the Kingdom Hikers. Here is the link… http://kenyakingdomhikers.blogspot.com/ .

Other people who originally attended our fellowship and left are returning. Two of them some might recognize are nice young man called Dickson and a lady named Alice.

                                      

                 The Kingdom Hikers

Speaking of the Kingdom Hikers; they are working together on a small talent show that will target the teenagers in our area. They already have a couple of dance groups and two bands committed to play. Please keep the talent show in your prayers that the Lord will bless it and encourage their hearts.

By going to the KH blog you can  learn about the band ‘Tamasha’ (celebration). Two of the three previously mentioned young men Gideon and Robert are members of the band. To get a small taste of their delightful music you can go to my web album at https://picasaweb.google.com/abbanoah  where I have placed a small delightful video of them singing a wonderful folk song called ‘Jumbolia.’

                                             Tamasha

 Our Hiker meetings are becoming more organized and are slowly starting to ‘run’ themselves. It is our hope that one young student called Johnny will begin to work the Kingdom Hiker blog.

After the two or three hour Sunday gathering is over we are having an hour long men’s meeting. This is the first time there are men coming who are genuinely interested in growing spiritually. There are about twelve counting the older teenage young men and they are really starting to ask some great questions. They seem to be sincerely grateful for the teaching and are starting to feel like their lives really matter discovering that Christ has something for them to do.

   

                                                The Pastors                                                 

"The Indian is making an amazing discovery, namely that Christianity and Jesus are not the same - that they may have Jesus without the system that has been built up around Him in the West." 

- E. Stanley Jones

Another encouraging happening is with our meeting some the pastors around the Nakuru area. The first week George invited four of his pastor friends. We met at the Kokeb restaurant and talked for almost 3 hours. Their hearts were precious and quick to acknowledge the disintegrating condition of contemporary Christianity. Among the problems they spoke of was the terrible deficiency of love and spirituality among  members of their respective churches, worldliness and unbelief among members, gossips, rebellion and people not wanting to ever to be corrected. Sound familiar? As they spoke of the despairingly vivid difference between what is seen in the scriptures and what is now being practiced in Christianity, some of these precious men begin to tear up.

George and I began to speak of recovery and what it would take to wake God’s people up; of how only by the power of God could things be stopped from their downward plunge. And if anything was to be done the work had to begin with them. As we spoke you could visibly see the hope returning in their eyes. At the end of our talk, all of them were excited and committed to meeting every week for more discussions.

The next week there were ten pastors present and the meeting was a repeat performance of the first one. All decided to make meeting once a week together a priority and to seek God for meaningful changes. As you might imagine George and I are excited. Please pray that God protect this little band of men who want to find the truth about what it means to lead God’s people in an authentic faith.

                             Saying Goodbye

Lastly; we had to say good bye to Tabach and Chloe. Tabach was not only his usual "rear guard" wonderful self, but became, all over again, one of my best friends. I don't think I would have come through some very unpleasant situations without his compassionate, calming presence being there. Everyone here loves him and wants him to return whenever he can. 

Same with Chloe. She has a way of getting in there with people that's wonderful to watch. My favorite thing was to pray with her. When all of us prayed each morning I witnessed a side of Chloe that I wasn't fully familiar with but grew to really love. I really believe she is beginning to know God. Yet, alas, they have both flown away. Take good care of them both, we already miss them.

Since we have arrived in Nakuru, we have experienced losing our luggage for almost a week, losing the only place we had to meet in, with little or no hope (outside of God) of finding one, the tragic and unexpected death of Mary’s husband, a blown engine in our only means of transportation, and a major attack of the devil to try and divide the church through carnal men here in the church. But there are many more good things happening than bad. I don't think I have ever felt God's anointing stronger.

                              In Conclusion...

We are rejoicing, not complaining, because similar events and much more difficult situations than ours are happening in Mexico, the Village in Tennessee, Kerala India and all over the earth where men and women of faith are committed to establishing the Kingdom of God and not their own kingdoms.

 I know that in all these things we will prevail; that these difficulties and the attacks that accompany them are but signs that we are having a fair measure of success.

Bwana asi fiwi.

Safari

Monday we decided to take a little safari (journey)for two hours or so from our house to Lake Beringa and Lake Bogoria. It was very refreshing. Staying in a dark house in the city can, in the words of John Denver’s song “Fly Away” can … “make you hungry for things that you can’t even see”.  We were hungry for the wonders of nature and the refreshment they always seem to bring us. So after a couple of hours of driving on some of the bumpiest roads on earth, we arrived at Lake Beringa and prepared to embark for another 2 hours in small boat on this beautiful African lake.

Our guide took us around the banks of this beautiful lake while pointing out all the many beautiful birds that live on the lake. Here are just a few.

Shortly after our trip through the water grass we encountered the first of the two families of Hippos we would meet that live on the shores of Lake Biringa. I was amazed at how laid back the laundry lady was in the back of the picture knowing that hippos are the most dangerous animals in Africa. I guess you can get used to anything, I mean after all, we live by Gary’s dogs. More people in Africa are killed by hippos than lions. Another point for Judah.

As the grass began to thin out we came upon some local fishermen. As soon as the saw us they came paddling over to show us their catch and  try their luck with talking us out of a few shillings. This is entirely ok, as most of the local people believe that all Mozungus are walking ATM machines. We gave them 50 shillings to split between the three of them. They smiled and paddled off. The two main eating fish in Lake Beringa are Tilapia and Catfish.

Leaving the grasslands where most of the birds hang out, we then hugged the bolder strewn shoreline. There crouched between the huge rocks and barely visible to the undiscerning eye was a monitor lizard. It was amazing how he blended in with the rocks. Now that attribute serves him well in hunting and comes in real handy when he himself is being hunted by the locals who would love to have him over for dinner.

Soon the small boat turned toward a small but beautiful island which we were told was owned by only one family. We were also informed by our smiling guide that the person who owns the island has five wives and twenty-six children. Wow!  I would imagine that his household keeps him pretty busy. Yet, probably not as busy as a Rose Creek Village mom. Unlike our children there would be little problem finding his children unless they had become excellent swimmers.

The island was enchantingly awesome. It seemed to be almost a solid rock and the flora growing there provided good examples of showing how “life will find a way” where it seems there is no way to exist. There were Aloevera everywhere and other plants that were amazingly skilled at thriving on a lot of nothing. The prettiest of the smaller trees was called the African Rose Tree. As you can see we liked it a lot. George decided he would try and imitate the tree… but it didn’t work.

We found some little bleached bodies of some sort of crawling insects so I decided to investigate. The first rock I turned over I found these cool little millipedes. I let them crawl on me, much to Chloe’s disgust and then pretended to eat one. Chloe rolled her eyes, made the funniest of little sounds and walked hurriedly away.

Soon we were back in the boat headed back to the other side of the lake. We then came into the shallow part of the lake and met the other hippo family. They stared at us while we stared at them and then they began to get a little excited and started grunting very loudly. We took the hint and continued heading back to the van.

Before we arrived our guide stopped the boat and pulling out some dead fish “called” some crocks to lunch. It was fun watching them eat… something else other than us I mean.

He then tried to “call” some Fish eagles to come and dine on some fish he was waving in the air above his head, but alas too many other tourist boats had already been there and Mr. Fish eagle was full.

When we returned to shore we all loaded up in the Van and headed toward Lake Bogoria. Unlike Beringa Lake Bogoria is completely saline (salty) and perfect for the gazillion flamingos that live there. It is also where the “Hot Springs” are. After a short visit to the springs we headed home or at least we thought that’s what we intended.

No sooner than we pointed the van towards home we discovered we had a flat tire. No problem; this time we have a spare. We fixed it and headed out again in the direction of home. Half way down the road there started this obnoxious noise under my seat. Upon investigation it was discovered that the shock mount had broke from the too numerous to count pot holes we hit. So we looked for someone with a welder and pulled in to have it fixed. While we were there George took his seat out and had it welded too. I think he welded the battery cover as well. We were there for well over an hour with at least 4 different people working on it and all for a shocking 400 shillings ($4.47). Meanwhile we played with the local kids. Soon the van was fixed and we were on our way back to Nakuru. 

When we finally made it home we discovered the electric was off so we got ready for bed by flashlight and candles. That night we went to bed exhausted but happy and refreshed from our safari. Such is life in Africa.

Tragic News

This morning we woke up to some tragic news.

Last night I heard George get up and go out in the middle of the night and not return till 2 am in the morning. I didn’t think much of it because being a shepherd in Nakuru Kenya means being on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week just like it does in the Village.

George came in our room and told us that Mary’s (the one we call the priestess) husband Syrus was killed last night in a terrible hit and run traffic accident. It happened as he was riding his motorcycle home from work late last night. He was hit and run over by a semi tractor trailer. The details are sketchy but it seems the driver of the semi after running over Syrus kept on going. Sirus was pronounced dead on the scene of the accident.

Syrus was a good man. He was a good father, provider and a good brother. He is survived by an incredible wife and some wonderful children and grandchildren. Most of the readers of this blog know who Mary the Priestess is and how she has been an inspiration to all of us here and in the Village since we met 4 years ago.

Syrus’s daughter Janet is one of the sweetest girls in the Kingdom Hikers. She is a 16 year old that can really dance and sing. 

When we went to see them today  I hugged her and she just went limp and sobbed. It helped me under stand a little more why we're here.

Just the day before she left me a note expressing her gratitude for our coming to Kenya and loving them. She is such a sweet girl. Here is the note…

Going to Mary house this afternoon for the “time of grieving” was a bitter sweet experience. The last time we were there was only 8 months ago and she was only half done with her house. We took tea in the unfinished house. She said the next time we drank tea together it would be in the finished house. Yet neither of us could have imagined under what circumstances we would drink that tea.

This afternoon we drove up to the cutest little house with a functioning mini farm. The crops were full, the cow and chickens were in their pens and almost every inch of the land was being put to use. There was even a pit dug that Syrus was planning to make into a Tilapia pond.

When we entered the beautiful little home there was family and friends smiling and praying with Mary. Mary greeted us as we walked in and put on that great smile of hers while hugging us and welcoming us into her home. 

Shortly after we arrived a few Kenyans drove up in a large white expensive car with a white man who spoke fluent Swahili. He was the head man of a large ministry and who Syrus had worked for. He came in, introduced himself, his associates and his body guard. He then began to preach to Mary about sin and “being ready ourselves” for death. Mary’s face indicated she was not enjoying the sermon. He said all the right things you’re supposed to say and yet it felt extremely impersonal.

It was awkward to say the least and I am trying to be discreet. When he was done I felt, at the risk of being rude, that I needed to state that Mary’s testimony was incredible and that we were happy to be considered by her as family. He thanked me and proceeded to leave.

After he left we sat for a time while George talked to Mary about the funeral and how we could help. I got up and went outside and met Syrus’s son Tabu. We talked while he played with his little son. Then he took me over to the little pit that was being dug for the fish and told me it was his father’s wish to do the pond so he would finish it himself.

All in all it was a sweet time with people in whom we have come to love and respect. In our short visit we were allowed to share in both their grief and praise. Please keep Mary’s family in your prayers and hearts. The next week will be difficult for them. Yet we are tonight praising our great God for taking the sting out of this death and giving us the abiding hope of seeing Syrus again.

We have seen in Mary’s face the same unbelievable grace that we read in every email from our beloved Shammah at home. He said He would never be far when we needed Him. Our God…is God.