Still not a Blog

Still. Distill. Not a blog, no no. I remember the days when I was told blogs were evil. The very next year, the local Priesthood of the Book declared an inter-school blogging competition. So, not evil.

But this is still not a blog, no no. This is a sequential scrapbook. Of random thoughts. Of mice and beets, of cheese and dates; of history, myth, and potato chips; of distant encounters and disasters. Not a blog at all.

The last time I said so, I also said that there would be nothing here by January. Then people scolded me, as if I had said a small island should be sunk into the sea. So I left it floating here. But not, so not, so not a blog.

In other news, the mills of God continue to grind. The time of the Pharaoh's officers draws to an end, as Exodus 15 says.

Shifting Bricks

One of the most peculiar incidents in the Bible occurs in Exodus 5 and 6. In that passage, the Egyptian Pharaoh gets rather irritated at the requests coming from the Israelite side. So he says, "You guys want a break? Lazy, idle, good-for-nothings! Instead, I will give you more work... and make it harder!"

A lot of people question the veracity of the Biblical account of the Israelites in Egypt. They point out that there is no explicit mention of the Israelites in Egyptian records. Well, I think that just as modern Americans don't particularly talk about where in Africa some of them came from, so also the Egyptians didn't particularly care where the slaves came from as long as they did the work.

But what has the ring of truth about it, no matter how displaced in space or time, is the vindictive pressure brought to bear on the Israelites by Pharaoh. He tells them to make as many bricks as they did before, but without the reinforcement of straw. He says that they make noise because they are lazy, and the cure for that is to do more work so that they have no time to make noise. The reasoning is askew, the logic is faulty; these are elements in a grand psychosis.

He is Pharaoh, and he is a God-King. He has no interest in treating them fairly, and takes malicious delight in showing his power over them. It is this very trait, the desire to display power over others, that God uses to set the Israelites free in the end. Pharaoh just cannot let go. Even after he has allowed the Israelites to leave, he will pursue them to the destruction of his own army. And later, he will expunge those records that show his colossal lack of judgement. That is how some people have always done such things.

A Service, With Lessons

Today I sat in a high place, denying myself the kingdoms of the world in faith. And the reading for today was taken from that tumultuous book of the Torah which is called Shemot. In that book are many stirring words, and none more so than these, which I shall take as a remembrance of Charlton Heston as well as guidance for myself:

Then they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.”

And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”

And the LORD said to Moses, “Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. But lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. And I indeed will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them. So I will gain honour over Pharaoh and over all his army, his chariots, and his horsemen. Then the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I have gained honor for Myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen."

And when I came down from that high place of memory, I was left with thought, and then with forgetfulness, but never with regret.

Empire

I remember the day it all went pear-shaped, although I did not want to believe it at that time. I sat before the man who had not recruited me, although he had certainly employed me. He had recently maligned his predecessor in public, and was now accusing me of empire-building. I remember feeling bemused; I had no idea such a thing was going on, or that such a thing was in his vocabulary, or that I was engaged in any way in any activity that could be construed as such.

This was many years ago. At that time, my lawyers and my friends said that I should leave. How could I work for such a person? And my Bible reading, today as it was all those years ago, was from the first chapter of Exodus. That word exodus of course means 'the way out' or 'leaving' in Greek. But I persevered. After all, I have never seen myself as a Moses contending against a Pharaoh. I am no Moses; my then-boss is no Pharaoh.

But how on Earth had I been empire-building? I knew nothing of it then, but I am beginning to suspect certain things as I gaze back upon Egypt with a stranger's eye.

The big ideas are the dangerous ones. They build an empire of the mind, which endures and ingrains itself within the bones of men. If you have a big idea, you are an empire-builder. And those with the smaller ideas will fear you. In the lecture I used to give every year on the nature of the scientific paradigm (how it both leads and misleads), I actually likened ideas to weapons in a war of paradigms. Sometimes, both sides can use an idea; sometimes, an idea only fits into the paradigm for one side.

Where I had gone wrong was this. I had neglected the iron discipline of a man under orders. As a lowly foot-soldier (or even a sergeant-at-arms), I should never have forgotten a few rules. To paraphrase Orson Scott Card (in his book, aptly enough entitled Empire), one should be able to stand in the same room as others with lesser ideas and say nothing, show nothing. One should be able to withhold threat or the appearance of threat when one is not intending a threat. In fact, the only thing I seem to have remembered was from Grimwood: "Never show surprise, never show fear, never even pretend to take anything seriously."

Well, now I need the discipline of a ronin, a mercenary soldier who yet adheres to a warrior code. And I am still not an empire-builder, although I must confess that the big ideas and the grand sweep of things are still in my mind. Some day, I would like to see the large ideas worked out in reality, upon the great foundation was established so long ago, to the glory of God the Father.

Pharaoh

And this is the story of the second plague which was sent upon the land of Egypt. And after each of these two plagues, first of blood and then of frogs, Pharaoh hardened his heart because he saw that there was an end to each plague.

There is a difference between determination and obduracy. To determine is to define a terminus, to set boundaries or fix conditions, to find the extent of something in exactitude; to show determination is to be definite about something. However 'obduracy' comes from the Latin root dura- which implies hardness as of solid wood: tough, inflexible and unyielding.

Sometimes, some people can be told that their ways lead to disaster. You can tell them about incremental vs revolutionary progress, you can tell them that attempting to hold the same old ground against the advent of chaos is like whistling in the dark. You can watch them fail, and continue to paper the cracks over; you can watch them suffer from lack of vision and purpose, and pretend to have insight and vitality; you can see them decline from fatigue of the imagination, of the will, of the heart; you can see them age, and replace fallen cohorts and legions with mercenary troops.

'Decline and fall' is an old theme. All kinds of institutions, including the Pax Romana and its greater descendant, the Pax Britannica, fall into ruin once they fail to stem the fissures of chaos, and invite the barbarians into the gates. Sometimes, the barbarians have learnt the lessons well, and might even return as teachers and masters. But the empire will not rise again, and although civilisation is never really lost, the vision of a better age turns into the irritatingly-forgotten dream of a bad night.

There are ten more plagues after the plague of frogs. When does Pharaoh learn? The answer never changes, sadly.

Changing The World

If positive change to the world is at all to be desired, one source of such desire is here. Here is the secular core, the framework of the world in which our spiritual reality is given its temporal and temporary bearings. And it isn't as bad as 'secular' seems to connote where spiritual things are concerned.

Yet I suppose we should remember that good management ideas aren't necessarily good spiritual ideas. I have cringed many times when preachers persist in treating the story of Jethro (Moses' father-in-law) as a paean to the benefits of the delegation of authority. Delegation is a great secular solution, but in this particular case, Jethro was high priest of Midian - and thus the spiritual leader of a tribe of pagan animists.

If you should decide to read Exodus 18, the extent of Jethro's perfidy (deliberate or not) becomes clear. Jethro is clearly impressed with Moses' God. He goes so far as to offer sacrifices and say that this God is greater than all other gods. But he adroitly switches the topic of conversation the next day to how onerous Moses' work must be for God, and how much less strenuous it would be if he farmed it out (Exodus 18:13-23). Moses agrees, in verse 24. And it is this decision which creates a community capable of defying Moses' God later on (see Exodus 32).

God's work is never delegated except through obvious and outstanding representatives. His task to you is His word to you alone. It hardly ever comes through an intermediary, and even if well-meaning (or seemingly well-meaning) people offer you a great-looking secular solution (one which makes life easier for you; or gains you plaudits, gold or glory), it may not be what God had in mind. The cost of Moses following his pagan father-in-law's advice was a disaster for his people. It was a disaster that almost changed the world - in a bad way.

Mosaic

Here is an intriguing character, a choleric and cynical fellow with an uncooperative and violent attitude to life. For Act One of his life, he is brought up as a prince in a polytheistic society. He commits manslaughter and exiles himself for Act Two of his life to a nomadic pantheistic one. And for Act Three, he becomes the unwilling leader of a bunch of stiff-necked monotheists. He has three thousand of them killed on his own initiative in the early years. He dominates them ruthlessly, curses them, accuses them of making his life miserable - and he becomes an icon forever, in the hearts of these same people.

Go figure. And why do some people say I am a bit like him?