One might think that in a two week interim I would have written something to post as soon as I had internet access...or, at least, that I would have had several ideas.

One might think.

I have planted our little garden and done much yard work. We had a frost last night. Probably the latest frost I have seen in the thirty years I have lived in these mountains. Won't know what we lost until this afternoon when I get home. I have large, five gallon buckets over the most vulnerable plants, and since I leave for work before the sun cracks open the horizon, knowing will have to wait.

Anyway, I don't have a post. The last several weeks, even before the internet loss episode, I have struggled to have something to say here. I have been thinking about much, but there is nothing to make public from this period of reflection.

Tech Trials Update

Just laugh:

We have

• replaced a faulty phone jack
• replaced bad phone wiring
• replaced the entire box on the outside of the house that receives incoming phone wiring
• spent hours on the phone either on hold or receiving tech instructions from the old internet provider (good-bye AT&T, nothing personal)
• acquired a new internet provider (took a week before the technician could visit the house)
• moved our computer and all supporting devices to a different room to employ cable service

The result?

Our daughter's lap top works fine including receiving an internet signal. Our computer works but will not connect to the internet.

Our next step will be to buy a new computer. We are not planning on doing that soon, since the state has reduced my pay for the next two months.

There is a reason for this season, also!! Sometimes we identify the time of instruction before we understand the instruction to be gained.

The long story is too long to tell at this point. The short story is it will be another week before internet service at my home is restored. Don't look for a post from me until about May 18 or 19.

Still no internet. sigh

Due to technical difficulties (no internet connection for several days now), I cannot post currently. A technician is scheduled to visit today to correct the problem.

This is another of those evil misuses of school computers!!

The Great I Am

Our Father delivered His name to us through Moses: the Great I Am. Jesus is called the Living Word.

I have always found it fascinating that God reveals Himself as a small, functional being verb and His Son, likewise is associated with abstractions.

God is the generative power of the universe, the central core, the connective sinew...He is all there is. Yet, He did not choose magnificent terms to speak from the burning bush to identify Himself. Instead He revealed He is the Identity of all cognition.

His Son, as the Living Word reveals the nature of human identity, which is our ability to form mental concepts and label the abstract with nouns and verbs. The words Jesus uttered and the understandings those who walked with Him delivered to us about Him are the essence of true humanity, or what we may conceive of as God's intention for His creation.

We are little I am's. We are small identities playing with the abstract reality of the power of thought. Focused on ourselves, we only identify with the death of sin from the Fall. Redeemed by Christ and born of the spirit, (at the very least an abstraction of thought foreign to all earth-bound thinking) our identity becomes tied to the source of life.

Consider self talk. Listen over all thought. What follows the "I am" statements we make or more pointedly we simply think: words of earthly, self-related logic or those in which meanings spring as pure water for life from the Identity at the center of the universe?

Chagrined

When I started the blog, I had no idea how much of my self would end up on display to the public!!

Okay, here's the ugly truth. My computer did not crash, and no, I have not lied to you. I honestly thought that it had!

We took a family vacation over the spring break from school, which is always the week after we Christians celebrate the Risen Lord Jesus. In leaving our home for that length of time, we turn off the hot water heaters, unplug everything pluggable except the freezer (This trip, we even emptied the refrigerator, cleaned it, and left the door open to allow the fridge to air out!) and we're off.

On our return, I replugged everything including both power strips serving the electronic array we have at the computer desk and turned on the computer. After a few minutes use, it shut down inexplicably. I CHECKED ALL THE PLUGS, I shout, as you snicker thinking you have diagnosed my problem already. I found no problem connections. I rebooted the computer, and it whirred alive. The computer is old (seven years); it has done some odd things lately, and I muttered aloud that it might be getting ready to crash.

This second go round, it worked long enough for me to check our e-mail, loading the 32 messages stored from the previous week, then it shut off again. I checked all the plugs again, but this time the computer would not come on. I tried several minutes later, then several hours later--nothing. I concluded it had crashed, and on Monday I posted it was dead. No one sent flowers, so I thought this wasn't a painful passage but a rather routine one as I have read.

Until Tuesday, when out of curiosity, I unplugged and replugged everything. The computer came on, and I knew I had to face the public admitting my distinct technical deficiencies. I have no clue what happened or why, but maybe my wife and I will get another year out this computer.