GMC RV trip to KC 2003

 First trip in our GMC Motorhome.

In May of 2003 we we packing our new (old) GMC Kingsley for a trip across country to Kansas City to transport my mother in comfort to see her twin sister, whom she had not seen in years. When she was younger and in better health, she travelled often by train, (Amtrak), and enjoyed the scenery on the way, especially Colorado.

She loved Colorado, and never forgave me for moving from Colorado to Nevada. The electric generation plant I had worked in there was closing down, and I was forced to find another place to work. I found a new power station being built near Winnemucca, Nevada, and they were searching for mechanics and machinists with experience. They offered pay much higher than the plant in Colorado.

When my mother complained, I just told her, “Mom, I love the scenery, too, but we can’t eat the scenery!”  

I had worked in Nevada for over twenty years now, and my mother was starting to have heart trouble. She couldn’t travel by air anymore, and the train ride was too long to endure. She was 87 years old, and I looked for a way to take her to visit her twin sister in comfort. A road trip in a car would have been cramped and uncomfortable, but the thought occurred to me that a motor home might be just the ticket.

A coworker of mine at the plant happened to be trying to sell his motor home, since it wasn’t exactly what he wanted. He wanted to tow a boat, but being front wheel drive, it would not pull a boat out of the water on the boat ramp. 

It was an old GMC, with Oldsmobile Toronado running gear, and was considered top of the line when it was new in 1977. The price was affordable, and it ran well on a test drive, so I bought it. 

I knew that a vehicle that old would have reliability issues, so when we were packing, I made sure to pack a well stocked tool box. With my years of experience, I figured I could do an engine overhaul beside the road, if I had to.

I never had to, but it was close a couple of times!

On the first day out, we stopped for lunch in Battle Mountain, Nevada, and either my wife or my mother remembered something we forgot and left in Winnemucca. So I suggested that this had been a long day already, let’s just consider this one a shakedown cruise and go back home. They all agreed, and thought this was going to be a fun trip when we got back on the road tomorrow. 

Besides my wife, Carolyn, and my mother Olga, we also had my granddaughter Melissa with us, too. The RV sleeps six, so we had room to spare. I installed seat belts at the dining room table before I left, just in case of hard stops or accident.

The next day we got an earlier start because we were already packed and ready to go. The driving was easy, the ride was smooth due to the air suspension, which is one of the luxury items this coach was noted for.

The 455 CID engine had lots of power on the hills, at least the little ones on the way to Elko. We stopped there for gas, and stopped again at Wendover, Utah, to eat lunch and fill up for the long trek across the Bonneville Salt Flats. 

We had no trouble getting to Salt Lake City, and we filled up just south of there in West Valley. Utah is famous for the long distance between gas stations, so never pass up a chance to fill ‘er up!

We turned east at Spanish Fork and drove over the Wasatch Mountains on Soldier Summit. It was still spring as we went east, but still had wonderful memories of the spectacular blazing colors in the fall, when we had taken road trips through there when we lived in Nucla, Colorado.

 It was getting dark when we rolled into Moab, Utah, and I found a space to park in the first RV campground I came to at the north edge of town. The beauty was overwhelming, as always, but I got busy hooking the RV up for the first time. The electricity was easy, but when I hooked up the water, it started leaking under the coach. I shut the water back off, and advised everyone to use the bathrooms and showers a few spaces away. 

I left the holding tank shut off so some of us could use the toilet, and I would just empty the tank somewhere down the road. I didn’t want to trouble shoot the whole water system while traveling, and I didn’t fix it until several days later. The holding tank was plenty big enough, and we continued on our way the next morning.

Before leaving Moab, we filled up-again, and bought snacks and drinks at the convenience store in town. Our route took us through Nucla, Colorado, to visit old friends, and then across Dallas Divide to Montrose. 

I tried to find a part for the water system, but of course, nobody had anything to fit the old RV. I found a crack in the input connector/pressure reducer, caused by small amount of water freezing during the winter in Nevada. Because of the design, the water won’t drain completely when the drain taps are opened, but must be blown out with compressed air.

That was the first part I made when I got back home later. I designed and made a unit with offset connections that drains completely without any air needed.  

From Montrose we went east over Monarch Pass. Near the top we were in low range on the transmission, and I had some worries whether we would make it over. The elevation is 13,312 ft. and the carbureted engine was getting too much gas and not enough air. To add to the difficulties, the engine was getting hotter, and I watched the roadside for pull out spaces to stop and cool off. Near the top, the engine started to stumble just as I found a place to pull over. It was steep enough that I did not trust the parking brake and Park position on the shifter, but found a couple of big rocks to put under the tires.

It felt like vapor lock, but it could’t be, as black smoke was billowing out the exhaust in back. I lifted the engine cover, and I could hear the gas boiling in the carburetor! This engine was drowning in gas, and all I could do was scratch my head and study the owner’s maintenance manual, to no avail. I had a lot to learn about this GMC RV.

After most of an hour just waiting for the engine to cool down, the engine started and ran much better, so I took off the parking brake, put it in Low range and drove over the top of the pass. We were just a few hundred yards from the top.

Coming down the east side of Monarch Pass is a test of brakes. Years before a school bus lost its brakes and crashed through a gas station in Salida and killed most of the football team, as I remember.

The brakes on the GMC RV met the challenge, with disc brakes in front, and of course, I used the Low range on the transmission to good advantage, also.

We averaged about 5 miles per gallon climbing up the mountain, and got 11 miles per gallon coming down. 

As we got out on the flat prairie in Kansas, I felt like our troubles were over and we were nearing our destination. But as I pulled into Goodland, Kansas for fuel, I felt the brake pedal drop down a notch as I held the brake pedal down. I was pretty sure the master cylinder was only half working, so I went out and lifted the lid. Sure enough, the front reservoir was nearly empty and the back one was nearly overflowing. 

I suppose I could just transfer a little fluid from the back to the front to get me where I’m going, but I don’t like to mess around with brakes, so I found a NAPA parts store and pulled in. I asked for a master cylinder for my RV, but he didn’t have any information on that. So I asked for a master cylinder for an Oldsmobile Toronado. He went back and brought out two Olds brake cylinders. We went out and looked and one of them was a match!

I bought it for about $50, as I remember, and a can of brake fluid, and it only took me about an hour to remove the old one and install and bleed the new one. The brake pedal stopped higher and harder now, so I felt much relieved, and we went on to Independence, Missouri, where Mom’s twin sister Aunt Ora lived in a retirement home there. 

They were overjoyed to see each other at my cousin Jim’s house, and his brother Glenn was also there. They all wanted a tour of the RV, so even though we didn’t get to straighten it up, they all went inside and checked it out. They were impressed, as are most people.

One of the hazards of driving a GMC RV is visitors every time you stop somewhere. It seems like everybody’s Dad or Uncle had one when they were kids, and the nostalgia just blows them away. So you have to be ready for interior tours any where at any time.

We left my mother with her sister, promising to come back in a week and pick her up, and after one night in an RV park, we headed south for Durant, Oklahoma, my wife’s home town, and near the town where Melissa’s grandparents lived.

We got family reunion’s all over!

(To be continued.)

  

Some Thoughts on Racism

 Some Thoughts on Racism

First we need to define some terms. Let’s start with racist. You would think it’s about human races, wouldn’t you? Well, there’s a problem.

All modern humans are the same race, Homo sapiens. White people and Black people can donate blood to each other. White people and Black people can donate organs to each other. White people and Black people can get together and have children, and those children can have children, too.

That can’t happen between different races. Horses and donkeys can have offspring, but they are sterile, and are called mules.

Maybe we should use the term Melaninist? I’m not sure that’s a word.

Unfortunately, many people choose to use the term race to foster hate toward others who don’t meet their criterion of similarity. In the 1940’s, German Nazis killed Jews by the millions. It wasn’t about skin color. I’m sure some of the Jews were whiter than some of the Nazis. I look at pictures of Albert Einstein, and he looks to me to be whiter than Hitler.

Einstein had to flee Germany to save his life, anyway.

Some people are criticized as anti-semitic for objecting to the way Jews in Israel treat the Palestinians. Both groups are Semitic, as they trace their roots to the second son of Noah, Shem. It’s more of a family feud. It can’t be racism.

However, it has become “woke” to declare that everybody is racist, and it’s arrogant to believe you are not racist. On one level, it’s true, but it doesn’t solve the problem. The problem is people who hate other people, and other people who don’t. To put them all in the same bucket does nothing to improve the lives of all those people who are just trying to get along.

I object to being put in the same bucket as Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, or Derek Chauvin. I don’t believe I am being arrogant to insist I am not as racist as they are.

I was born and raised in California, and went to school with lots of kids of color. Not just Black, but Mexican, Portuguese, Philippino, and Armenian. Shades of every kind of skin. Nobody was allowed to think they were better than anybody else.

On second thought, there was a ranking among Latinas that was curious. They even had labels for the depth of brown color: The lightest were from España, a little bit darker and you were Mestizo, and the darkest of all were Indios. I had a couple of girl friends, and they ranked themselves - nobody told them. And they couldn’t be talked out of it.

I use the word Latinas on purpose. All Spanish nouns have a gender affiliation. Trying to force a neutral Latinx on a language that doesn’t accept such artifice is tilting at windmills and reflects an ivory tower elitism that invites the ridicule of the world.

If I ever meet a person who wants to be referred to as Latinx, I’ll do it for them on a personal basis, though.

I have tried all my life to make friends with anybody who will share a friendship.

One of my most memorable occasions was getting royally drunk with a bunch of Black soldiers in the Kentucky Club on BC street in the city of Koza, Okinawa.

We were all celebrating the charges being dropped against Sp4 Jim McQueen that day. At the suggestion of Sgt. Stroman, I had filed a counter charge against an officer who had set Jim up for a court martial on charges of inefficiency. It was a bullshit charge because Jim was the only Black soldier in the shop, and the officer wanted his shop to be lily white.

After I submitted my papers, which contended that Jim was no more inefficient than the rest of us, the only difference was him being Black, the officer, a white Georgian, threatened to court martial me, too, reminding me he had kicked my foot and woke me up the week before when he caught me dozing one afternoon. I told him he was making my point, and if he was charging Jim, he should charge me and the rest of us in the shop, also.

He dismissed me back to my test machine, and when I got off work, I was greeted by a bunch of Black soldiers who informed me that the charges against Jim had been pulled. That’s how I got into a bar on the Black side of BC street with a bunch of Black soldiers and got drunk without having to buy even one drink.

Luckily, nobody was driving that night. There were always “sukoshi” cabs to take us back to the barracks safely.

These are just my observations and opinions. You are welcome to your own. Just hold back on telling me how racist I am. It’s an unnecessary offense, and will not improve the situation.

College Degrees

College Degrees

I’ll start with some generalizations on the damage that higher education has done in America. 

Education used to be for everybody. Now it seems to have devolved into two classes: those with college degrees and those without.

In fact, a college education now is the route you take if you have enough money to do it, and you don’t want to touch anything solid, as concrete, steel, lumber, or copper wire. 

If you can’t make it through college to get that degree, you must deign to get your hands dirty handling real substances, other than paper. And you will be deemed a lesser being, with no chance of improving your lot in life until you get that degree.

So society has been bifurcated into two classes: one who is qualified to rule from upper management positions with a top salary and good benefits, but is incapable of constructing a house, repairing their car, or fixing a leaky faucet in the shower. 

But when something constructive is required, they have to call on one of the non college educated but handy people who know how to do the actual work. Civilization depends on these folk, but they are now having trouble feeding the family because college educated elites have busted their unions, driven their wages down, destroyed good retirement plans with defined benefits, and made medical care so difficult and pricey that only the rich and well insured can afford it.

I lost a girlfriend once years ago, because she insisted I finish college and get my degree. I would have liked to, but my father left my mom when I was eleven, and I had to work to help us survive. I already had automotive mechanic skills I had learned in his shop before he left. I was busy working on vehicles and making money to survive.

She went on to get her degree, and found a nice job working at the courthouse helping with the paper work for the lawyers and judges.

But when her car broke down, she still called me to come and fix it.

I am actually pretty lucky. I took an apprenticeship with a union company in Southern California, and learned the machinist trade on top of the mechanical skills I already possessed. 

After a couple of years working for small machine shops, learning how to make anything the customer needed, my wife and I decided we wanted out of California. So we quit work, bought some food and a pup tent with two sleeping bags that sewed together into one big one, and we went homeless for nearly a month. We drove across Nevada, Utah, and part way through Colorado, staying in campgrounds and National parks, before I stumbled on an ad in the Grand Junction newspaper. The local electric generating company was looking for a machinist!

I drove to the office address and applied for the position. They sent me for a perfunctory medical examination, and then gave me two tests, one one mechanical and mathematical skills, and one on psychological traits. Because of my experience and a year of engineering in college I passed with flying colors. The psych test was pretty easy to figure out. Since the power plant was way out in the woods away from cities, a question like: Would you rather: 1. Speak to large crowds, 2. Shop in a large mall, or 3. Go fishing? was pretty easy to figure out.  Never hooked a fish in my life, but not too old to learn, if that’s what it takes.

I worked for nine years at the little Nucla Power Generating Station in Colorado. The crew at the plant were leery of my abilities at first, since there was no back up. Either you could do the job or not. It didn’t take long to show them I could make any part and fix any machine on the site.

There was no division between the workers and the one guy with a college degree, the Plant Manager. We all appreciated our separate skills, and cooperation and camaraderie was the rule. 

After four or five years the maintenance supervisor retired and we got a new one, who had been an operator before. All of us on the maintenance crew were apprehensive about working for an operator who was not familiar with our skills. We shouldn’t have worried - he was a genius. He was probable the best boss I ever had.

The first day he called us all together in the coffee break room, and we discussed what was needed. Up front he told us, “I am not a welder, I am not a machinist, and I’m not an electrician. My job is to provide the time, tools and material for you to keep this plant running.”

He made it plain that we didn’t need to ask if we saw something that needed fixing. Just go ahead and fix it. If we could design and build a better machine, just do it. If we needed anything, he would try to get it.

Of course, we all knew where the high maintenance items were, and we got them replaced or repaired. That old reciprocating air compressor that kept one mechanic busy full time got replaced with a quiet rotary air compressor that never broke down. 

When the pump intake got filled with mud in the spring, we designed and built a pump out of an old heat exchanger body that could suck up mud, sticks and even fish to clear the intake again.

When it looked like they were going to shut the old plant down in 1981, I started scouting out another power plant to continue my career. I found a brand new power plant being built near Valmy, Nevada. I found the address and sent a resumé. 

Very quickly, within a couple of days, they called my home. My wife answered, and they said they had a mechanic position available, but the machinist slot was filled. She said she didn’t think I would want that, but when I got home and she told me, I asked, “Did you ask about the pay?”

No, she hadn’t.

So the next day I called back and talked to the people in the office who were trying to staff this new plant. I told them I might be interested if the pay was right, although I really wanted the machinist job. They told me the pay scale and the mechanic job paid $0.80 cents an hour more than my machinist job in Colorado. They were a union shop, with full retirement, full medical coverage, and other benefits like vacation days and sick leave.

They were so desperate for experienced men that after I aced their tests and got hired, they offered to buy my house in Colorado so I could get moved to Nevada faster.

I told them I had just bought a new mobile home. Could they just move it?

Sure, they said, and they gave us a week in a motel to find some property to buy to put the mobile home on. We found thirty acres for twenty five thousand bucks, with power, septic, and water well in place.  In time, that became our home - The Jackrabbit Ranch.

All of the new crew were excited to be working in this brand new plant, as the company had treated us like kings in the hire in process. The company had bought several homes in other states to let them move quickly and allowed them time to find new homes in Winnemucca or Battle Mountain, Nevada.

The first disappointment came when the first unit was started and was out of balance beyond limits, probably due to the move across country by rail. Since we both had experience with multiplane balancing, the machinist and I both went up to the turbine deck to see what we needed. We were chased off the deck and told to go back below, as they had professionals 

with degrees from headquarters in Reno coming to balance it. We were pissed, and they didn’t get much work from us the rest of that day.

A year later, during the first inspection, the data from the seismic probes on the bearing indicated the turbine needed alignment. Sure enough, we were told they had professionals coming from Reno to do the job.

We hung around to watch as one man in a suit and tie started to set up a precision transit to observe scales with .010” markings mounted on each part of the machine. After he screwed the head on the tripod, he tried to level it. It soon became apparent that he had never done that before, and had no concept of how the screws on opposing sides needed to be adjusted together to make those little bubbles stay between the lines.

After watching for probably half an hour as he flopped the transit head back and forth, the whistle blew for lunch. The professional, who we found out taught engineering in the University of Nevada, Reno, split out of the room for lunch. 

The machinist and I went over to the transit and quickly leveled the head. We realized that the tripod scooted around on the polished concrete floor, so knowing that it had to remain unmoved during the operation, we chiseled little dimples in the floor with a center punch and resting the tripod legs in the little craters, we leveled the transit again. Takes less than a minute, if you know what you’re doing.

To his credit, when he came back and found the transit level and solid, he didn’t mess with it. He went on like he had done it himself. 

Eventually the company decided that they needed an engineer at the plant full time, so we got a young, newly graduated engineer in the front office. We quickly became friends, since by this time I had moved up to the machinist position, and I knew we would be working together a lot. 

The first time he sent me a blueprint for a part to make, it was immediately obvious he had overlooked some things. So I went to his office and gently got him to make some revisions so the part would work. I also suggested that anytime he needed a part made, just come on down to the shop and talk, and we could get it right the first time before he made the blueprint.

He soon came to realize that those of us in the shop knew how the plant worked and were a vital source of information on any machine or system in the plant. Even though he had the degree, we became an integrated team and we worked together to solve the problems that came up. 

After the first year, the management in Reno chartered a special train to bring the “suits” out to the plant to celebrate their new plant. They had picnic tables with catered food out in front of the plant, and speeches by vice-presidents and such. It was a gorgeous affair.

Those of us who had kept the plant running for a year were not allowed to leave the building and be seen by the big wigs. We sneaked up to the top of the boiler building and peered over the edge at the festivities.

I had never seen such a stark division between the college elites and the people who made the machinery work. I am afraid the gulf has only widened in the following years.

It has about destroyed the Democratic Party, as the college educated elites have taken over the party from the traditional working class, and their heads are so far up (in the clouds) that they can’t understand why working people have abandoned the party in droves. 

The disdain that I see between Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Shumer, and Joe Biden toward Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hurts me. 

I am baffled when I hear people my age, living on Social Security, proudly praising Republicans and decrying “Socialism.” 

I shake my head in wonder at Democrats who are too modern to talk about Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was only the second most popular president in history, right behind Washington. What modern Democrat could win four elections in a row?

I worked at the Valmy Power Plant for twenty five years until I retired. I could write a book on the battles of the elites in the front office against the workers out in the shops.

If the disparity continues to widen between the classes, I see no future except for violent revolution. That seldom works well for anybody.

But people will not stand by and watch their children starve. 

God's Love

 God’s Love.

I used to live in fear of the Last Judgement. God was supposed to be up in heaven, going through the records of every person who lived on the earth, in preparation for the Last Day of Judgement. When all of the sins of our lives would be revealed. What a rotten concept! 

Be afraid! Be very afraid!

But, hey, if you just ask God to forgive your sins, He’ll forgive you. At least until you sin again.

But what if you hadn’t asked for forgiveness in a while, and you are involved in a car crash with no chance for a quick prayer? Too bad for you!

Maybe you just walked past someone begging for a handout in the Walmart parking lot, and a sudden stroke kills you instantly. Is that sin of omission going to send you to the flames? Didn’t Jesus say we should feed the hungry, with no judgment. Inasmuch as you do it to the least of these, you have done it unto Me. 

Maybe that’s what prompted that text about praying constantly. What a wonderful life! Not!

This is the Jewish belief in the Law and sin. It is well described in the New Testament Book of James. Which has not a word about redemption.

 Oh, what a relief it was, when I found out that God actually loves us. He does not wish for any to perish.   2 Peter 3:9

I believe that Jesus gave that description of the Last Judgment as an allegory. If I was being judged on every bad thing I’ve done, it would take years! If every one one earth went through that judgement, it would be eons on eons. 

Jesus was showing the things we should be doing if we have love for God and man. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting prisoners, etc. 

Not a word in his judgement scene about believing a particular doctrine, or being a member of a particular religion. It’s all about love.

Best of all, Paul came up with a new religion. We don’t have to ask for forgiveness, or beg for mercy. 

The wages of sin is death. Jesus paid it.

That is not the same as forgiveness. Forgiveness and mercy are for Jews.

Redemption and grace are what saves Christians, according to Paul.

When I get to that last checkout register, I will not have to plead for someone to forgive my debt. I won’t have any debt.

My salvation is paid for. In full. Don’t owe anything! It is done already. No fear about getting that last prayer for forgiveness in before I die.

“…Scripture says, ‘a curse is on all who do not persevere in doing everything that is written in the Book of the Law.’ It is evident that no one is ever justified before God in terms of the Law.

…Christ bought us freedom from the curse of the Law…” 

Galatians 3:10-13 NEB

“…my present bodily life is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. I will not nullify the grace of God; if righteousness comes by law, then Christ died in vain.”

Galatians 2:20,21 NEB

Surely we have to do something, right? 

Paul and Jesus both said we must have Love in our hearts. God is Love.

“He who loves his neighbor has satisfied every claim of the law. For the commandments, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet, and any other commandments there may be, all are summed up in the one rule, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love cannot wrong a neighbor; therefore the whole law is summed up in love.”

Romans 13:8-10 NEB

But that’s too easy, isn’t it? Just love everybody?

Try it sometime. Some people are hard to love! But love we must. The love must be real, from inside us, where God is.

If we have real love for our wife, we will never cheat on her. Don’t need a law to tell us that.

If we have real love in our hearts, we won’t judge others. We will be loving, not judgmental or critical. 

Here is a well known text from Paul, from the New English Bible. It is used in weddings a lot, but it applies everywhere: 

“I may speak in tongues of men or of angels, but if I am without love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. I may have the gift of prophecy, and know every hidden truth; I may have faith strong enough to move mountains; but if I have no love, I am nothing. I may dole out all I possess or even give my body to be burnt, but if I have no love, I am none the better.

Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one. Love is never boastful, not conceited, nor rude; never selfish, not quick to take offense. Love keeps no score of wrongs; does not gloat over other men’s sins, but delights in the truth. There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and its endurance.”

1 Corinthians 13:1-7 NEB

Those who know me may ask, “But don’t you claim to be Buddhist? How can you talk of God if you worship Buddha?”

They demonstrate a profound ignorance of Buddhism. The Buddha was not a God. Those sects of Buddhism that believe in reincarnation may address prayers to Buddha, but not all Buddhists do. 

The Buddha was a teacher. Not how to get to heaven somewhere, but how to live a life that has less pain, and less conflict, here and now. Love is an essential part of Buddhism, too. I find his wisdom of immense value in the day to day events of living a good life.

May we all be filled with God’s love, and may that love reach around the whole world. Peace upon all. 

Insults in the New Testament

 Insults in the New Testament

Today the Rev. Mark Davies gave a wonderful discourse on the various beliefs and different sects in the original Christian apostles and preachers leading up to the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D.

He covered them all, including the Docetists, the Marcionites, the Gnostics, and the Manichaeans. Since the Roman ruler Constantine had formerly been a Manchaean before deciding to make the bishops come to a common agreement on the basic beliefs of the official Roman church, he had a personal stake in the outcome.

Arius’s belief that Christ was created by God and was not made of the same substance as God was ruled heretical, and he was tossed out.

This goes beyond what Mark mentioned in his discourse. 

The statement that resonated with more than one of us was that the disciples had bitter arguments with each other and even called each other names.

Some translations of the New Testament try to downplay or obscure the insults, but I find the books far more interesting to read when you understand that they were written by real human beings, and not by an infallible Divine being. So let’s go look at some of the pokes and jabs.

One of the plainest is in the book of James. He writes this book as a direct response to Pauls writing in the Epistle to the Galatians.

Paul wrote, “…If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain…no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident; for the just shall live by faith.” Galatians, 2:21, 3:11.

James wrote, “…wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” James 2:20, KJV.

Literally from the Greek “O empty man”.

The New English Bible translates this as  “you quibbler”

The New International version says, “You foolish man,”

See how much more fun this is? James is getting personal!

James at this time was the leader of the original apostles at Jerusalem. As near as I can determine, they were Jews in every respect. They believed in circumcision for all converts. Acts 15:1. They believed in the kosher rules of food and eating with Gentiles, Galatians 2:12. They were monotheists, believing in just one God, James 2:19. Jesus was the Messiah, (the “anointed one”) but not the Son of God.

Conversely, Paul believed that Jesus was the Son of God, come to earth to pay the penalty of death for man’s sins, and redeem us from condemnation of the Law.

James believed that we must keep the Law perfectly, and if we couldn’t we must fall on our knees and beg for God’s mercy and forgiveness.

Paul believed that Jesus paid the debt on the cross, and all we have to do to be saved is to accept his sacrifice on our behalf by faith.

This may be an oversimplification, but that’s my understanding after 60 years of studying the first 400 years of Christianity.

Paul went to Jerusalem more than once to argue his case to the apostles there, and it seems he lost every time. He even gathered up a collection of money for the church at Jerusalem, and still was rejected.

That explains the sarcasm in 2 Corinthians 11:5. It isn’t very evident in the King James Version. It’s downplayed: “For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.”  

Literal word for word from Greek - “over-exceedingly apostles.”

Here’s the New World translation: “For I consider that I have not in a single thing proved inferior to your superfine apostles.” I can hear the bitterness in there!

From the New International Version: “But I do not think I am in the least inferior to those “super apostles.” 

Finally, the New English Bible: “Have I in any way come short of those superlative apostles? I think not.”

To set the stage for the last fight, Peter has come up to visit Paul’s church at Antioch. Peter’s house was in Capernaum, in Galilee. Archeologists have found the foundations with his name and some fish carved into the stones. So I don’t know for sure what his beliefs were. He seems to me to be trying to go both ways and not take sides.

As he is visiting in Antioch, he eats meals with the Gentiles Paul has converted with no regard for the kosher rules for Jews. But when some of the other apostles come up from Jerusalem, Peter suddenly withdrew and separated himself as a Jew would. To say the least, Paul was offended.

In Galatians 2:11, Paul says he got right up in his face! 

In the King James Version it says “I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed.” 

From Greek, word for word: “down on face to him I stood against.”

The new World Translation says, “I resisted him face to face, because he stood condemned.”

From the New English Bible, “I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong.”

The New International version is similar, “I opposed him to his face, because he was in the wrong.”

In verse 13 Paul calls Peter and the other apostles hypocrites! 

It couldn’t be much plainer that there were serious differences in the personal opinions between the early leaders of the Christian church. 

In the long run, Paul actually won the debate, only because he wrote it down and got the letters he wrote distributed throughout the churches in Asia Minor and Greece.

James and the other apostle’s church down in Judea was destroyed by the Roman general Titus in 70 A.D. The few survivors escaped south to Petra and on to Arabia, where a few hundred years later another religion, Islam, was founded there with beliefs very similar to those of James’s church.

I have always hoped that Peter and Paul made up and became friends before they were both executed in Rome by Nero about the same time circa 67A.D. Nero blamed the Christians for the fires that burned Rome to the ground.

Boring? The Bible? No way! Not when you know the rest of the story!

Donald Rogers 1/9/2022

Time, and Freedom of the Press

 Time Magazine and Freedom

Time magazine has gotten a lot of flack for putting Elon Musk on the cover as Person of the Year. 

I think that was good choice, as he has shown Ford, GM and Chrysler how to design, make and sell electric cars that will outperform any of the old gas guzzlers they make. 

He has also shown how to build reusable rockets to restart space travel by landing the rockets back on earth, ready for the next trip. He has already sent provisions to the International Space Station on contract for NASA. 

Boeing is still over a year away from their first test trials. Their last couple of years has been a constant reminder of David Graeber’s book “Bullshit Jobs.” Most older companies are full of middle managers who serve no creative purpose to a company, but only hinder progress toward the ultimate goal. 

Not to mention the 737 Max, where the managers cut corners to save money and time, and pushed a plane out the door that automatically dived into the ground if one sensor failed. 

So, yeah, Elon’s an asshole, but he is a genius as well. Sometimes I think they might go together. In any case, he has definitely changed the world for the better.

In this same Time magazine is an article that is far more worthy of criticism and shame. On page 24 is an article labeled Truth, written by Karl Vick. In it he castigates various countries around the world for their attempt to deny journalists the freedom to write and publish the truth.

How can anybody write such an article without even mentioning Daniel Ellsberg, Julian Assange, or Edward Snowden? He relates the forced landing of an airplane by Belarus to capture a journalist and escort him off the plane. He failed to mention the US caused the personal plane of the leader of Bolivia to land so they could search it for Edward Snowden, who wasn’t on board that day.

It makes me wonder if Mr Vick is an employee of the CIA, NSA, or FBI. The USA is no slouch when it comes to persecuting writers and journalists. The hypocrisy of Time magazine is appalling, 

They should rename it Pravda.  

Donald Rogers

December 26, 2021

Law vs. Love

Law vs. Love 

12/19/21

This will be just random thoughts as they well up in my brain. Edits will come at the end.

Today I watched a film at church on the heroic lives of two Unitarians, the Sharps, who went to Europe as WWII was starting, in order to help people escape from the Nazi horrors of the concentration camps and the mass killings that went with it.

A disturbing thought came to me as I watched the film, tied in with my lifelong study into the debate between Law and Love, in Biblical terms.

Most people believe the bad guys were the Nazis, who were also the law abiding ones. Of course, they wrote the laws they wanted, including the law that made Jews no longer citizens of Germany and worse, making them subject to the “The Final Solution.”

Nevertheless, millions of loyal Germans followed the law, and will forever be known as the “bad” guys.

The “good” guys, a husband and wife team named Sharp, who were Unitarians from the US, made it their business to break any law that would keep them from forging documents and visas to sneak prominent Jews out of Europe before the Nazis could find them and kill them. They found ways to sneak them across the border into Spain and Portugal, bribing border guards with money and cigarettes.

Hundreds of Jewish children were smuggled onto ships bound for the US, many of whom never saw their parents again. All because two faithful people were willing to break the law and risk their own lives to do the right thing.

We are replaying this scenario at our southern border with Mexico today. Just as in the old days, parents are sending their children  ahead alone, hoping they can find a safe place in America before the “death squads” or “drug cartels” kill the whole family in Guatemala or El Salvador. 

Once again we have the “law and order” people out catching the refugees as they cross the border, arresting them, jailing them and deporting them.

Once again there are people who risk arrest by leaving water and food out in the desert to try to assist the refugees. I would call them the “good guys.”

When I joined the Unitarian Universalist Church, I did not know of the long history of activism for justice that this church is known for. They fought against slavery, they marched for civil rights in the South, (some died there) and many are still engaged in active pursuits of justice and charity.

Nobody asked me about my beliefs or about any doctrines I might have held. And it occurs to me now that Jesus never asked those things either, before he fed the people or healed their infirmities. In fact, he criticized scribes, priest, and Pharisees for rigidly following the law but having no love for their fellow humanity.

Actually, that is the moral of the parable of The Good Samaritan, but most people now think it’s about being nice to somebody hurt beside the road.

The whole of the New Testament is a fierce debate about keeping the Law, or having Love and compassion for our brothers and strangers within our gates.

James and the original disciples remained Jews all their lives. They advocated strictly keeping the Law (James 2:10), monotheism (James 2:19), circumcision (Galations 5:2,3), and kosher dietary laws (Galations 2:11,12). I can find no specific texts that they still kept the Jewish seventh day Sabbath, but since James makes it plain that all the Law is to be followed, I am sure they did.

Also note that the book of James makes no mention of Jesus as the Son of God or as the Redeemer on the cross. He was the Lord, the Messiah, Christ, (Anointed One) but not the Son of God.

Paul’s church was a new religion, with Jesus as the Redeemer, sent from God to ransom us from our sins, and take away the condemnation of the Law by paying for our sins on the cross.

Paul’s answer to the problem of sin is to change us - make us new people inside - to have love in our hearts. Faith in God’s mercy and love in our hearts is the only thing Paul believes will save us in the end. I believe it will make us better people, too.

I believe Paul got closer to Jesus’s message (at least as recorded in the Gospels) than the Twelve Apostles did. 

But others think differently. I have a book by David Danizier called “Betrayal of Jesus” which takes Paul to task for changing the original religion of Jesus. He seems to believe that we should all go back to carefully keeping the Law, completely missing the point that if we have God and love in our hearts, the Law will be kept, (or fulfilled), but for the right reasons. 

It is better to have Godly love in our hearts, and break a few laws, than to keep the law perfectly and be a hateful a**hole or Nazi or ICE officer.

If Paul had not founded his new religion, I believe we would never have heard of the Christian religion again. Paul’s church at Antioch was the first church called Christian, for obvious reasons. The church at Jerusalem was a small sect of Judaism, which was driven out of Judea by the Romans in 70 AD.

My mind is drawn to the life my wife and I lived in Nevada, where the speed limit between towns was whatever you wanted it to be, using your adult judgement about what was safe, but that would be way off topic.

Maybe I’ll go there some day later. I still remember what freedom felt like.

Don Rogers