A Song the LORD Gave Me?

I Wonder What It Really Means
Music by Yanni (In the Last Moment)
Lyrics by Renah, 2001

This song is a running musical conversation with the LORD to the tune of Yanni’s In the Last Moment (In My Time). Nothing was making sense at the time (2001) and I was dealing with sleepless nights and many questions. The skies were so strange in those days, with contrails often...and odd cloud formations that looked like Hebrew writing in the sky.

These days the skies have been normal....brilliantly blue on many days, normal cloud cover on other days. Something was going on back then. There were many theories, ranging from experiments in dealing with global warming to defense experiments. I saw the streaks in my travels many times in many different locations. Here at home, sometimes multiple jets would make the grids, which spread out to a milky haze. Often I would not feel well. I was convinced this was not normal jet contrails; more likely, chemtrails....for what purpose I do not know. I do not know why they stopped either, but I have not noticed this phenomenon in quite some time. [See sidebar for research website on chemtrails and other strange phenomena.]

I am currently reading Yanni’s autobiography. He is self-taught on the keyboard and cannot read music. He hears songs in his head, and he has developed his own musical shorthand to compose. He only hears music; he does not write lyrics or sing. Meanwhile, as I listen to his music, I hear lyrics in my head and sing his songs ....with a profound sense of the Presence of the LORD.

This song will sound really “out there” to most, but I wanted to preserve it here on my online journal. It was written in June 2001, just before Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, was hastily put to death......or was he? Another mystery......along with the whole Oklahoma City bombing. I remember the first reports suggested Middle Eastern involvement. Then that story was changed (or covered up). This was in 1995.

In June 2001, I was meditating near my garden on a beautiful sunny day when this “conversation with the LORD” took place. The music is at my sidebar on Youtube (Until the Last Moment). This live version is slightly different than the version on my CD (In My Time) but is pretty close in matching up with the lyrics.

My reference to Tandi (the horse) pertains to the thought of meeting the LORD in the air and returning to Earth on horseback with Him (Revelation 19). Perhaps my Appaloosa friend will have turned pure white in his celestial body. Who is to say that our beloved pets do not receive celestial bodies and graze or laze in green pastures in “heaven” awaiting reunion (1 Cor. 15). What a delight that will be! I can only imagine. Yet we cannot even imagine what delights the LORD has in store for the faithful who endure to the end (or return from their folly). It may sound like wishful thinking to imagine the delight of reuniting with a beloved pet or child or parent....but what harm is there in hope? If I die and there is nothing more, I will not know that I am missing anything or hoped in vain. But if an infidel or unbeliever dies.....and there IS more....you catch my drift. Meanwhile, in the here-and-now, believing the Bible and living according to its precepts, walking in the Spirit rather than the flesh, is most satisfying. There is love, joy, peace, comfort, purpose, gratitude....everything good (Galatians 5).

[Bracketed words are explanatory or provide Scripture references]

This song is dedicated to all who struggle in life with heartaches, disappointments, and questions. The LORD would say, “Child, you’ll know in time.......meanwhile....”


I Wonder What It Really Means

I wonder what it really means when everything is topsy-turvy all the time
I wonder what it really means when I can find no peace, no sleep, no reasoned rhyme
I wonder what it means when contrails streak and form a grid and leave a milky sky
I wonder what it means when no one gives a reason, no one gives a reason why
I wonder what it really means when they can’t wait to execute a Tim McVeigh
I wonder if we’ll ever find out what happened on that fateful day [OKC bombing]

The clouds are words in wispy cirrus forms, the Hebrew letters climb across the sky
And then they dissipate and puffy little clouds go floating, go a-floating by
I wonder, will I ever know “Why?”

[The LORD breaks into my thoughts...]

Child, you’ll know in time
Meanwhile, meanwhile.....

On your way
To the Shabbat day [Millennial Kingdom]
There’s a path [Psalm 16:11]
That will lead
To the heavenly steed you will ride [Revelation 19]
That you will ride
If you still abide [John 15]
With the LORD
In His Word
When the trumpet sound [1 Cor. 15:52]

LORD, will it be Tandi? [beloved favorite horse]
My long, lost Tandi?
My special friend
I see again
Ride again
Hallelujah

The LORD will reign
On Earth, proclaim [Micah 4]
His ways will be
From sea to sea [Zech. 9:10]
I know from the shadow [Col. 2:17]
Shadows teaching me [Hebrews 8:5]

Selah

Until that Day come be ye holy for I am holy [1 Peter 1:16]
Until the Day come [Judgment Day]
Put away your idols from before My face, abomination [Deut. 7; 12]
Put away your idols, I have given grace to your nation [Joshua 24; 1 Sam. 7]
How dare you
I will scare you [Isaiah 13; Hebrews 10:31]

In that Day when mountains crumble all around you
As you hide yourself from wrath to come [Revelation 6]
When like a scroll the heavens roll away [Isaiah 34:4; Rev. 6:14]
And I reveal your King, My blessed Son
You’ll wish you’d left the pine tree in the fragrant forest
Where a pine tree doth belong [Jeremiah 10:1-4]
You’ll wish you had not brought it to your home
And bent your knee and sang a worship song [O Tannenbaum]
You’ll wish you had not dressed your children up
To celebrate your evil Halloween
You’ll wish you’d kept My seven holy feasts [Lev. 23]
And had not baked your cakes to “Heaven’s Queen” [Jer. 7:18]

The clouds are words in wispy cirrus forms, the Hebrew letters climb across the sky
And then they dissipate and fluffy little clouds go floating, go a-floating by
I wonder....will I ever know why [Hebraic perspective?]

Be ye holy, I am holy [Lev. 20:7]
No friend of the world is Mine [James 4:4]

On your way
To the Shabbat Day
There’s a path
That will lead
To the heavenly steed you will ride
That you will ride
If you still abide
With the LORD
In His Word
When the trumpet sound

A bright blue sky [rare in those days]
I wonder why [3 months later.... 9/11..bright blue sky]
The time draws nigh?
The midnight cry [Matt. 25:6]

HalleluYah

The LORD will reign
On Earth, proclaim
His ways will be
From sea to sea
I know from the shadow
Shadows teaching, shadows teaching me

Amein

Free to be Me

I am rejoicing today because of events of the past couple of days. My husband actually took me to Potato Creek State Park on Friday for a two-hour bike ride. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was a gorgeous day--leaves turning bright yellows and reds, the weather spectacular with skies of blue. Pleasant people conversed with me along the bike path. I was in my element with nature lovers who are on my frequency.....or freakuency as the case may be. I wore my clodhopper Ariats for comfort, with my pedal pusher short pants (jogging attire). I’m sure I looked ridiculous. Ariats are a sturdy, hiking type shoe that I bought for working in the Culver stable....a job that never materialized. If I looked odd on my nerd-mobile, my forest green Trek comfort bike that I have become re-acquainted with since my foot injury, I could not have looked any stranger than the grey-bearded intellectual on cross-country roller blades. I never heard of such a sport before.....roller skates and poles, just like cross-country skiing. He was moving right along on the park road, enjoying the beautiful nature-scape. The lake was shimmering in the sunshine. Aspens were trembling.

This park seems to attract the nicest people. I feel safe there. Maybe I will get brave and go for hikes and bike rides alone, since it is a rare occasion when I can get my husband or other family member to accompany me. Pat was kind to do this for me, since he is generally bored with this activity. He would rather be hunting or fishing with his buddies. He does not like fishing here because he seldom catches anything and cannot use his motorboat. I am happy that they do not allow noisy motorboats, just electric trollers. This park is so very peaceful. It does me a world of good whenever I go....and I should go more often. It is only about 30 miles from home and a pleasant country drive past Koontz Lake, Walkerton, and North Liberty.

I am free to be me..... since I stopped obsessing about my lack of fellowship and lack of a “normal” life. I am rejoicing that I do not have to worry about what to wear to shul or church, since I attend neither, nor obsess about setting a perfect Shabbat table, since I have no guests (and find fault with rabbinic stringencies anyway.) I am breathing easy now....free to be the real me.....somewhat eccentric....appreciative of God’s creation, enjoying the friendship of God, which is the pearl of great price.

I love my bike. I have been riding it in lieu of walking for the past month here in my own woods due to my foot injury (broken toes). It traverses trails easily and I find I can ride it slowly and meditate on my thoughts, enjoying the scenery, just as if I were walking. Speaking of walking, I finally was able to walk on my trails yesterday after more than a month of hobbling around in pain. It seemed like the pain left suddenly the other day and I realized I was walking normally in the house without favoring my left foot. So I tried walking on the quarter mile trail and there was no discomfort. I was ecstatic. I had been concerned that I might not enjoy walking ever again due to this injury. Pat hurt his feet playing church softball too competitively years ago and has had bad feet since, impairing his ability to enjoy going for walks. I was so grateful to God that I could walk again. I had to go around the loop a second time out of sheer bliss, finally able to clear some of the secondary trails of branches that had come down over these past weeks. Mobility is a great gift of God. To walk....what a blessing! I think the bike riding helped restore circulation to my feet, promoting healing. My feet seem stronger than ever.

Thought: I wonder who atheists thank for their blessings....memes? To have a heart full of thanksgiving and no one to thank.....seems like a missing link there somewhere.

I saw a milkweed plant on one of my bike rides. Reminded me of the book, Milkweed.

Just checked the news online as I write this....a jolt back to reality.....

The week ended as the Dow's worst ever, with the index down an incredible 40.3 percent since its record close almost exactly one year earlier, on Oct. 9. 2007.

Investors suffered a paper loss of $2.4 trillion for the week, as measured by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index, and for the past year the losses have totaled $8.4 trillion.

Maybe I agree with the Islamists who say this is God’s judgment and the end of the American empire. At least some dare to say it. If America is spiritual Babylon, it does indeed look like we are falling, falling (Revelation 14). But the Bible warns not to gloat over the calamities of others, lest judgment fall on the gloater as well (Proverbs).

Back to my reveries.....

I was also able to groom my horses and think about riding again....maybe today. The weather has been breathtakingly beautiful. Edenic. Except for the mosquitoes....another reason the bike is a blessing. Mosquitoes do not bother people on bicycles. What are mosquitoes doing here in mid October anyway? And what is a Manatee doing in the cold Cape Cod waters? Strange.

I saw a mockingbird yesterday, on Sabbath. Pat and I heard all kinds of bird noises that we had not heard before, so we located the chatty bird in a pine tree and looked him up in the bird guide. How appropriate to discover a mocking bird, just when I am enduring mockery for my Bible believing views. I will continue to cheerfully chatter my thoughts and songs, and perhaps add to my repertoire like the mockingbird. See sidebar for interesting information about this wonder of God’s creation. I feel emboldened by this “sign” to post my most “out there” song lyrics tomorrow. I am free to be me....including freedom to be mocked and ridiculed and not worry about it. YESHUA endured the same.

My legs are nicely toned now....from the long bike ride, which included riding on a hiking trail, over a bridge, up hill and down. The gears and tires on my Trek hybrid bike make it possible to enjoy trail riding. This is good exercise. Plus, it is probably safer than walking alone. If I do decide to walk alone on these trails, I could bring one of my dogs. I look forward to going again soon....who knows, this financial meltdown could turn out to be a good thing for gas prices at least. They are tumbling.

My hair is very long now. I am free to be me ....with my out-of-style mane of unmanageable hair. I am encouraged by Sarah Palin and her upswept out-of-style hairdo mocked by many. I heard that Sarah Palin halloween costumes are selling briskly. Whoever hates her, hates me. We share many commonalities.Too bad the fix seems to be in concerning this election cycle. Will Obama be President? Or Biden? Maybe there will be no election. Maybe there will be martial law.

I wonder what will happen in the coming days and weeks. Will October 13 be known as the blackest of Black Mondays? How bleak can it get? Will we be lining up to receive a mark to buy and sell in a NWO economy before long? Count me out....and targeted for the rumored concentration camps for the non-compliant.

Perilous times are upon us.

Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you (James 4:8). Dare to be different. Dare to be free to be....you.

Book Review: The Devil's Delusion

Calling Science's Bluff: A Review of 'The Devil's Delusion' by David Berlinski

By Brian Janeway, Ph.D.

For anyone looking for a well reasoned, intelligent, and witty defense of theistic belief they could do far worse than The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions by David Berlinski (Crown Forum, 2008). Berlinski, a Ph.D. (Princeton) and professor of mathematics and philosophy who has authored many books, seems well equipped to offer an adroit and readable critique of the sum of science’s theories regarding the origin, nature and development of life on earth. For this reason Neo-Darwinists and atheists of all stripes ignore this book at their peril, particularly polemicists such as Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and their ilk who have recently published scathing critiques of religious belief in general and Christian belief in particular.

Berlinski conceives his defense as one uncommitted to any faith tradition. Indeed, he is a self-professed secular Jew whose “religious education did not take.” As one who has spent the better part of his academic life writing about the sciences he makes a most unlikely apologist for belief in God. Yet in his preface he bluntly dismisses as “splendid artifacts of the human imagination” the various and elaborate theories to account for how the universe began, how life originated on earth, how the brain functions, or how the human conscience is impelled to distinguish between right and wrong. On these and many more questions the “great scientific theories have lapsed.” Even more lacking are science’s statements pertaining to eternal questions about life, death, love, and meaning. In Berlinski’s view, science has nothing of value to say on these issues.

Not surprisingly, Berlinski delivers some of his best blows against the artifice of Darwinism. Many of the most potent critiques of the theory are culled from the mouths of advocates themselves. As Philip Johnson has noted, modern science has eliminated a priori any answers that include design or a divine hand, thereby rigging the game and predetermining the outcome. Johnson calls this bias methodological naturalism. Fortunately there are some naturalists who endeavor to be transparent with regards to their presuppositions. Berlinski quotes C. F. von Weizsacker thusly:

Is there a God who has among other things created the universe? It is not by its conclusions but by its methodological starting point that modern science excludes creation. Our methodology would not be honest if this fact were denied…

Most modern scholarship neglects the contributions of Alfred Wallace to the theory of evolution perhaps because, in contrast to Darwin, he soon after began to have serious doubts about its validity. In an essay published in 1869 Wallace gave voice to his skepticism. In it he detailed several human characteristics that he believed natural selection failed to explain. These include the human brain, the organs of speech, the hand, and the upright posture and bipedal gait of human beings. Wallace was particularly interested in the workings of the human mind and language, which to him appeared as a latent power inherent as much in a modern European as in a tribesman from the Amazon.

But how does natural selection account for latent powers? It holds that useful genes are selected for perpetuation and useless ones fall into oblivion. The apparent fact that these abilities were “frontloaded” into the species long ago runs counter to evolutionary dogma. Indeed, it seems to point to an immutable aspect in human nature. Contrary to what the scientists would have us believe, according to Berlinski, the conflict persists to this day. “It has not been resolved.”

That human beings possess powers and abilities that surpass all other creatures is obvious to most observers. All it takes is a look around. The proposition that we are merely a product of random evolutionary process, Berlinski asserts, “requires a disciplined commitment” to a worldview that owes “astonishingly little to the evidence.” Why then, he asks, does improbable theory become inviolate dogma? The answer is that it “functions as a hedge against religious belief, in particular the belief in man’s uniqueness.”

The enigma of order in the universe poses another intractable dilemma for naturalism. Quantum electrodynamics, according to a famous remark by Feynman, exercises such precision with regard to theory and experiment in the natural world that it can measure the distance between New York and Los Angeles to within the width of a human hair. No scientist can account for this uncanny result or many others in the natural world. “We have no reason to expect such gifts” quips Berlinski.

In the absence of an adequate explanation, evolutionary thought has fallen back on a sort of scientific equivalent to the old theistic “God of the gaps” defense. Whereas the old argument posited that God explained what science could not (hence the “gaps”), the new form of the argument holds that what science is unable to explain today will surely be explained by the science of tomorrow. But contrary to the view that the inexplicable is shrinking, Berlinski counters that for every “gap” filled, science creates new gaps all over again. The process is “inexhaustible.”

Unfortunately, these inconvenient truths do not chasten ideological Darwinists like Dawkins or Dennett. Quite the opposite; their contempt and indignation for those who deign to propose concepts of intelligent design is unbridled. To such as those “who feed like leeches on irrational beliefs,” are “offensive little swarms of insects,” and amount to “intellectual viruses,” the only recourse is to “take care of them by spraying biological knowledge.” This is the view of biologist Emile Zuckerkandl writing in the journal Gene.

To a committed Darwinist like Daniel Dennett, “contemporary biology has demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that natural selection…has the power to generate breathtakingly ingenious designs.” However, most biologists know better. According to Berlinski, “the facts are what they have always been: unforthcoming. And the theory is what it always was: unpersuasive.” A Nobel laureate in biology once remarked to Berlinski, “Darwin? That’s just the party line.”

What Berlinski achieves in The Devil’s Delusion is the distillation of a remarkable array of complex scientific principles in a surprisingly readable and amusing treatise. His genius lies in his ability to communicate in layman’s terms the essence of what science claims to know about the natural world. But in exposing the considerable absence of real knowledge (and answers) pertaining to the great timeless questions Berlinski, in effect, calls science’s bluff and unmasks the visage of atheism.

Footnote:

See also Berlinski’s article “The God of the Gaps” adapted from his book in Commentary 125/4 (April 2008) 34-40.

(See sidebar or title of post for link to Dr. Janeway's website where this review appears. I have edited it slightly.)