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randomclam24 · 1 year ago

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*continued from last post, all the way at the bottom*

I feel like I've struck *something*. I don't know what. I already made a model like what I'm suggesting with Minecraft in perfecting an optimal strategy to prepare for a voyage through the Nether with more to spare back at base for the Gibdos maze in Majora's Mask. It took more than just charting out what each one wanted and where the items were: it then took an overview process *of* this charting-out in order to determine the best routes. So I've heard since that time that trannies are known for liking speedruns, but insofar as that's the case, it sounds like it's about anal deliberation for its own sake. I don't think this would be accomplished by that. (And then I think that has to do with the mentality of the model of teaching where the computer in programming is to be considered like teaching a gorilla, whereas the actual computer is high-precision unlike living creatures let alone a gorilla who's just going to be acting based on primal urges)

Something like, even evolution is based around the idea of the elites' Order Through Chaos, where it's just assumed order will be achieved by means of this mentality of anal deliberation where the ends are indistinct from the means all by itself (when it's high-agency white people who accomplish this (basically (any host nation that will accomplish these ends for them in their place) *basically*) because they're cold-turkey not going to do it)

It's not really Biblical, but there is the concept that all things are possible through the Lord. In current times, it's more like excuses not to just let automation handle basic things are running out. Essentially any case scenario of "whatever white men can do, xyz can do it better" - and this is precedented with inventions from the cotton era - then why can't automation solve those?

Update I'm just a ranting asshole. Take with a grain of salt, just like I'm saying this on a certain amount of alcohol

The way I'm feeling right now, has anyone ever seriously made a Doom gameplay mod for Minecraft or vice versa, a Minecraft mechanics mod for Doom? Okay

Update When I did my first semester in college, that was before I thought the world went to shit de facto. I still had in the back of my mind the mentality that developed that got me through Philmont in the Boy Scouts. In fact I mentioned that story in that semester's English course, and that teacher happened to favor me a lot because of the impression I made. There's no way I've shown that kind of stamina since, but saying it and leaving it at that also leaves unaddressed the fact that I legitimately think the world's gone to shit and doesn't *warrant* that kind or level of stamina anymore.

One thing that scared me about Philmont was that our backpacks were stuffed with our sleeping equipment so tight, I thought one of these days I won't have it in me to quite stuff it in there anymore. That didn't happen, but it felt like that during the process each day.

I opted out of the showering that was only available at the midpoint after the first week.

Also, I devised a "strategy" of collecting peanut butter packets in my pockets so I would have that for energy anywhere, while no one else in my troop thought it tasted good by itself. I thought that was kind of fun.

Update Club Penguin was a concept remotely like Cyberia from Serial Experiments Lain, and that was shut down in - 2018

7/15 I have the method down for the most part with establishing yourself in Minecraft, with a portal to the Nether, basic farming / ranching and an enchantment table. For the sake of time, I only made the iron chestplate before running off to collect seeds. You can already have a bed made to put wherever you're standing if night falls. But by the time I find the diamonds to make the enchantment table, it's still so early in that you can only get the ranching started with a few animals. But I also found out in the recent two runs that this whole method doesn't guarantee you Lapis Lazuli, because I'm only really digging at the bottom of the map. There's really no surplus of iron yet, so that should be a quest: getting Lapis Lazuli, iron ore, and digging through gravel for flint for arrows. Meanwhile, generations of chickens and cattle still have to grow up on the surface.

Update I got into the Nether with the basic supplies. I don't know if I should wait until I have more or what, because it looks overly precarious getting anywhere that's an actual landmark. Otherwise, I think I'm just giving up on my life. If you shut unshut lying mouths, they win, or something.

Update That's because that would invoke violence, and that would give them the victim narrative they desire.

Use clamps

Update I'm at a point in my life where I can't even conceive of something viable to do to communicate to others

But here, have this, which is easily worth making into a copypasta

Z3j2Q95.png (1200×1620) (imgur.com)

Update I got two Blaze Rods, and so after researching it, the greatest deficiency left is going to be fighting Endermen in order to get random drops of Ender Pearls.

7/16 I haven't played Super Mario Bros. 2, the American release, on NES until now. The level boss theme in its NES original version sounds ominous in a way that stands out if the context doesn't feel as cinematic a moment as what was probably intended. This is the closest effect to what I've found in the Majora's Mask opening chase theme, where it was used again for the giant skeleton chase in Ikana.

Update (Something about it being the end of having any meaning in the universe)

I don't see how I've never seen it said before - I don't know exactly how to express it, but, how are you meant to break it to people that it's not their base behavior itself but their moral sense of right and wrong itself that makes them, especially as a collective, a monster? The evil comes from the executive level.

I don't think liberal jewishness comes from low IQ necessarily. I see it as consciously deliberate.

I think the accusations that I'm going to need to be en-masse arrested come from the very people who know it's in fact that they have it coming to them and will lie out the teeth until death do us part, never admitting it all because they think it's we who have that to admit out of unconscious projection, which all goes uninhibited due to the fact that they've never been confronted before on their beliefs, but only pointless *proxies*. With that said, I don't know why any of us exist. We're all effectively cogs floating in a void without integration as it relates to even a single real topic on the face of the earth, and that's the truth.

I start over again: it's *not* the people who are stupid and act based on low-IQ perspectives. You have to look at bell curve theory and how that expresses that people with 100 IQs tend to have perspectives that coincide with people with 140 and above IQs. That's because the organic use of the scientific method leads to organic conclusions. It's the midwits who have all this chaos coming from them.

*Every* junction a midwit takes with this, "*I* think it's better if we. just" is an unnecessary evil expressed as necessary falsely and doubled down on into gaslighting and conflict. These people shouldn't have authority in any society, especially ours.

Update I've never seen them actually be constructive at any point. It's always them already being completely in over their heads with how I'm fucking up the game game game when I'm *fine* - and then they just keep *ranting*

Update I don't know if it's a special circumstance that things are this way in my case. Like I said, as a general statement, what you see people do that is stupid while drunk I think typically comes from being caught up in the moment, because from my experience in isolation, all this was not the case, and it was as if I would have to be already hallucinating in order to have such a loss of control.

Midwits are the ones having this policy that you can't just do things how you want - you have to stick by a code. I take enough precautions practicing in advance that these situations will not happen except in extreme circumstances, and then I know to stay far away from them when I see it coming.

The best argument against my way of doing things as opposed to just sticking to an arbitrary code for its own sake or whatever the reason is that I'm going to be stuck being "mid", which is pertinently relevant only just recently.

I just don't see it. Where it comes down to extreme circumstances, sticking to a "code" still comes down to a gamble, the same as if you were not.

Update Also consider the position I exist in. You can tackle issues where it's more of a gamble to do so, but other people who are of less agency or just basic awareness of the risks could be encouraged to do the same, anytime. You can't just teach everybody a code.

Update Basically, even Minecraft comes down to that. You can't just take on an Enderman blind cold-turkey and expect to win. There was one time when one was stuck in a cramped spiral staircase I made inside my house to the basement, and I got one that way, but that is never going to be reliable. Now in fact I did establish a sort of code in order to get where I was at. For example, in the Nether, when you have the need to get Blaze Rods from the floating spinning things, they have the ability to move upward or sideways, and I didn't really know if there was splash damage or not, so take the usual strategy of placing a 1x2 pillar between you and a skeleton and modify that to a 2x3 wall to get right behind, with a *very* well-loaded bow. *That* is a code, but I only did it because I thought it was basic enough.

Midwits get the name because they're trying to say sticking to the code yields the results where integrity doesn't.

So I can see how it doesn't make sense if there are people who aren't particularly bright following along with me. I'm trying to say through the alcohol example that I'm assuming a certain level of self-control which may not be *normal* or relatable

But even then, midwits hate those examples of people because of *self*-hatred. They're only looking on the surface to project what they don't like where it's not shown to be there from what they're analyzing. That's all there is to that

Update I think that's what I tried to get at with saying there should be "blueballing" entirely in place of letting midwits especially be allowed to form faux victim complexes. Flush them out the rest of the way with, "get mad, bitch" over the point their story is making - then don't contribute to the frenzy - you don't want to get blamed. Remember "film your professors", because these people are saying exactly what would be wanted of a footsoldier of the state. That's a fact, or has been *so far in my experience.*

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johnhardinsawyer · 2 years ago

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Can these bones live. . . right now?

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

3 / 26 / 23 – Fifth Sunday in Lent

Ezekiel 37:1-14

John 11:1-45

“Can these bones live. . . right now?”

(Lord, You Know)

Even though he was not very tall, Zeke Palnick was a giant of a man when it came to his wisdom, intellect, example, experience, and love. Born in Montreal, trained as a Rabbi, he moved to Little Rock, Arkansas in 1963, in the wake of the Little Rock Nine’s integration of the city schools and just in time for some of the most turbulent years of the civil rights movement. As a leader in the community, Zeke helped integrate the city’s social clubs and welcomed black people into the Jewish synagogue.[1] Zeke attended Ku Klux Klan rallies to write down the license plate numbers of attendees and he blasted white parents who sought to establish “Segregation Academies” – private schools where the student body would stay “lily-white.” Zeke was always speaking up for the oppressed and the outsiders. And the members of Zeke’s congregation understood that all of his actions in the community were based on the example of the biblical prophets.[2] I guess it helped that Zeke’s full name was Elijah Ezekiel Palnick.

When I first met Zeke, in the summer of 2000, I just knew him as my neighbor. We lived in a duplex, side by side, in northern New Mexico. I was a green seminary intern Protestant Chaplain and he was a skilled veteran Jewish Chaplain with years of ministry experience under his belt. In the evenings, we would sit on the front porch together – Zeke, his wife Irene, and I. Zeke would pack his pipe full of tobacco and tell stories from the past – stories of standing up for what was right when it mattered. We would laugh a lot, too, and talk about our work that summer, ministering to all of the participants at Philmont Scout Ranch, no matter what their religious affiliation was.

I remember when Zeke and Irene celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary and I asked them what it was like to be married for forty-five years. “Well,” Zeke said, with a loving glance over at Irene, “it just keeps getting better and better.” And I remember the time that Zeke talked about today’s first reading from the Book of Ezekiel. For the record, if your name is Ezekiel and you’re a Rabbi, then you might just know a few things about the Book of Ezekiel. Anyway, I can remember Zeke looking out at a patch of dried-up prairie grass after a long and hot day, and saying something like, “Hmmmm. . . ‘Dry Bones’. . . That story will preach.”

Both of today’s stories “will preach,” if we pay attention to them. In today’s first story, the Prophet Ezekiel describes a particularly difficult time in the life of the people of Israel. The city of Jerusalem has fallen to the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, and Ezekiel has been taken into captivity, along with some of the people of Judah. Ezekiel and all of the surviving people of Judah have been brought low – experiencing great sadness, deprivation, and oppression. As today’s first reading describes them, God’s chosen people – the whole house of Israel – is no more than bones. . . dried bones lying in a valley. “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely,” (Ezekiel 37:11) the people are saying. God asks Ezekiel, “Mortal, can these bones live?” And Ezekiel responds, “O Lord God, [only] you know.” (37:3)

In today’s second reading, a Rabbi named Jesus has a very similar interaction with a woman named Martha. Martha – along with her sister Mary and brother Lazarus – are beloved friends of Jesus. And when word comes to Jesus that Lazarus is sick, Jesus heads over to the town of Bethany (near Jerusalem) for a visit. But, as the story goes, Jesus comes too late. Lazarus has already died – laid “in the tomb [for] four days” (John 11:17) by the time Jesus arrives. All of the friends and neighbors have gathered together to sit shiva with Mary and Martha – the traditional time of mourning in Jewish households. But when Martha hears that Jesus is near, she gets up and goes out to meet him.

I absolutely love the way Martha greets Jesus – not with a “Hello” or “So glad you could make it,” but with an almost accusatory, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (11:21) This line perfectly encapsulates complete faith in Jesus and complete frustration with him. “Jesus, I love you and believe you can do anything, but you really should have been here when we needed you!” There are times in our own pilgrimage of faith when we might feel the same way about God – wishing, hoping, and praying that God would act in the particular way that we need God to act – but God doesn’t always work in this way. This past week, I heard an old interview with Jimmy Carter, who said,

I think God always answers our prayers. Quite often, God’s answer is “No.” We don’t get what we ask for. And then the obligation, if we have faith, is to find out – within ourselves – why. Are we asking for selfish things or things that are unjustified? Are our prayers in accordance with God’s will?[3]

In today’s story, Martha is trying to figure all of this stuff out – just like we will often do. “Lord, if you had only been here. . . Could these bones have lived – even just a little longer? Can these bones ever live again? O Lord, only you know.”

One of the parts of today’s story that will often get quoted is when Jesus says, “Your brother will rise again.” And then Martha says, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” And then Jesus says the famous line: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” (11:24-26)

It is important to note, here, that when Jesus tells Martha that her brother, Lazarus, will rise again, she takes that to mean that someday – at the end of time as we know it – Lazarus will be resurrected. The concept of bodily resurrection and/or life after death does not come up a lot in the Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament. But several hundred years before the time of Jesus – after the Babylonian exile (and the time of Ezekiel) – this begins to shift, and many – if not most – Jews (like Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus) came to believed in some kind of resurrection that would take place when God comes in glory.[4]

In today’s text, though, instead of pointing to some day in the future, we find Jesus gently and lovingly correcting Martha, placing the resurrection, not in the future tense, but in the present. “I am the resurrection and the life.” Right now. New Testament scholar, Karoline Lewis, writes:

To anticipate and locate the promises of the resurrection only in a future life with God is counterintuitive to the Fourth Gospel [The Gospel of John]. . . This Gospel wants us to know that another way to imagine the resurrection is to make it synonymous with life here and now. Jesus’ revelation that he is the resurrection and the life upends any and all expectations of our future lives as heaven or hell, some sort of get-out-of-jail-free card, or postponed grace. Rather, the consequences of this final sign for the Fourth Gospel are that resurrection lay claim on our lives today. . . there is a palpable restlessness in the Fourth Gospel when it comes to making sure that abundant life with God is experienced now.[5]

In other words, when Jesus tells Martha, “I am the resurrection,” he is telling her that she doesn’t have to wait to experience God’s abundant life. Of course, in today’s story, Martha doesn’t have to wait. Jesus goes to the tomb, calls for Lazarus, and Lazarus comes out – alive. . . resurrected – an early sign of the resurrection that will take place with Jesus in just a short time on the first Easter. But what the author of the Gospel of John is trying to get across to Martha and to us, is that there will be the literal bodily resurrection, someday, but there is also the new life – the resurrection life – that Jesus offers right now. . . not just to Lazarus. . . but to Martha, and to you and me.

“Can these bones live?” God asks Ezekiel in today’s first reading. Remember, God is asking Ezekiel about people who are very much alive. Oh, the people might feel like they are dead. You might remember that they feel like their bones are all dried up, and their hope is lost, and they feel that they have been cut off completely from God. . . not unlike Martha, and her sister Mary, and the people of the Village of Bethany who are all grieving the death of Lazarus. Can these bones live – the bones of those who are all dried up with grief and a sense of great loss? Feelings like this are not unlike feelings that you and I, and all people, share. Can these bones live – the bones of those who are dried up with anxiety and depression, dried up with worry over an aging parent or a sick child? Can these bones live – the bones of those who have lost hope in the face of a radically changing climate, or in the face of never-ending war, or in the face of injustice, or in the face of things never seeming to get better, or in the face of losing trust in the things that used to work but don’t anymore? Can these bones live – the bones of those who feel cut off from God because they wonder and worry about their own worthiness, or they carry too much guilt, or are afraid of the doubts that keep them awake at night.

Can these bones live? Jesus is not just the resurrection and the life for Lazarus and all the saints who have died and have been laid in their graves. But he is the resurrection and the life, right now, for Martha, and Mary, and the grieving people of Bethany, and the victims of violence in Ukraine, and those with terminal illnesses – all who are struggling, all who are having a hard time right now, even you. . . and me.

You might be wondering what the resurrection and the life might look like right now. Well, let us look back to Ezekiel in today’s first reading. It is very interesting to me how God asks Ezekiel to prophesy – to say to the bones [say to my dried up people who have lost hope and feel cut off from me], “I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you. . . and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:4-6)

Hmmmm. . . Dry Bones. . . that’ll preach. The resurrection and the life comes to the people in the form of hope, and encouragement, and the promise of new life, and the gift of faith. The gift of the resurrection comes through the breath of the Holy Spirit – it is a divine thing, a holy thing – but Ezekiel (a mere human being) – is the one who speaks when all seems lost and God causes the bones to live.

Yes. . . Dry Bones. . . That’ll preach. . . if you and I preach. How will God give the gift of resurrection and life through you? How will you speak – how will you prophesy to those whose hope has dried up? How will you preach – perhaps not even using words – to offer the gift of encouragement? How will you seek out ways to offer some other gift of grace, gift of life, gift of God’s presence with and for another person? You might offer a word. You might just offer a smile. You might offer your tears – sitting with someone else and weeping, just as Jesus does – sharing God’s empathetic love.

Yes, we believe in a God who weeps with us – and with all who suffer – just as we believe that this same God, revealed in Jesus Christ, dies for us, rises again for us, and never stops offering resurrection and life in the present moment through the Holy Spirit who is always breathing new life, causing even our dried-up bones to live again, and again. The life and love of God keeps getting better and better.

Can these bones live? Yes. . . Dry Bones. . . Resurrection and Life. . . That’ll preach. May the good news our own resurrection and life – the resurrection and life that our ours, right now, through the gift of Jesus Christ – preach.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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[1] https://www.lensingfuneral.com/obituaries/Rabbi-Elijah-Ezekiel-Zeke-Palnick?obId=43379.

[2] Mark Bauman and Berkley Kalin, ed., The Quiet Voices: Southern Rabbis and Black Civil Rights, 1880’s to 1990’s (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007). 95 ff.

[3] https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2023/03/07/1161622001/fresh-air-for-march-7-2023-jimmy-carter?showDate=2023-03-07. Scroll to 28 minutes and listen from there to find this quote.

[4] Richard N. Longenecker, ed. Life in the Face of Death: The Resurrection Message of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998) 94. “Life, Death, and the Afterlife in Second Temple Judaism,” Richard Bauckham.

[5] Karoline M. Lewis, Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries: John (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014) 152.

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