init

Drafts/A few months of shepherding 1.md

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+I am by no means an expert shepherd. I have had six ewes and a ram in my custody for three months. Really, this is the first time I've owned or cared for an animal on a serious basis.
+
+Man, I love these creatures. They're like a mix between a dog and a cow.
+
+They say you can never really understand the bible until you farm, because the whole text is constructed out of agrarian experience. Sheep are one of the main metaphors for us, and it's not hard to see why.
+
+They do clearly have a herd mentality. They want to be together. If one gets out of the paddock, she never runs away, she always stays next to the rest of the flock, just on the other side of the fence. Unless, another one escapes with her. Then, the two are comfortable roaming with one another, apart from the rest.
+
+They take quite some time to acclimate. When I first got the ewes, they were very skittish and quick to run away. Now, I'm able to ease in and handle them, check their eyes, pet them, et cetera. But this took months. It might have taken some corn, too. But seeing as I don't always give them supplemental grain, I think it is more a function of time and exposure. One got out yesterday. I was surprised how docile she was to me - it turned out to be easier to simply pick her up and place her back in the paddock rather than opening up the paddock.
+
+They are playful. If it's a nice day, in the evening, they'll get the "zoomies" and run back and forth for the heck of it. It is marvelous to watch them, really.

Drafts/A few months of shepherding.md

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+I am by no means an expert shepherd. I have had six ewes and a ram in my custody for three months. Really, this is the first time I've owned or cared for an animal on a serious basis.
+
+Man, I love these creatures. They're like a mix between a dog and a cow.
+
+They say you can never really understand the bible until you farm, because the whole text is constructed out of agrarian experience. Sheep are one of the main metaphors for us, and it's not hard to see why.
+
+They do clearly have a herd mentality. They want to be together. If one gets out of the paddock, she never runs away, she always stays next to the rest of the flock, just on the other side of the fence. Unless, another one escapes with her. Then, the two are comfortable roaming with one another, apart from the rest.
+
+They take quite some time to acclimate. When I first got the ewes, they were very skittish and quick to run away. Now, I'm able to ease in and handle them, check their eyes, pet them, et cetera. But this took months. It might have taken some corn, too. But seeing as I don't always give them supplemental grain, I think it is more a function of time and exposure. One got out yesterday. I was surprised how docile she was to me - it turned out to be easier to simply pick her up and place her back in the paddock rather than opening up the paddock.
+
+They are playful. If it's a nice day, in the evening, they'll get the "zoomies" and run back and forth for the heck of it. It is marvelous to watch them, really.

Drafts/Bechamp, or Pasteur.md

@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+"In the 1860s, French chemist Louis Pasteur developed modern germ theory. He proved that food spoiled because of contamination by invisible bacteria, not because of spontaneous generation. Pasteur stipulated that bacteria caused infection and disease. Before Pasteur’s discovery, scientists believed that living matter (like bugs and disease) were born from non-living organisms (like dust or dirt)."
+
+Modern medicine accepted germ theory not by appending it to terrain theory, but by supplanting it. We reached the end of the usefulness of germ theory. We seemed to think that we could eradicate or cure disease - but in reality, we were blinded by a idiosyncracy.
+
+Consider the following:
+1. Upwards of 10 trillion bacteria can be present in a cubic inch.
+2. Cleaning, antibiotic materials are advertised as killing "99.9% of germs". This leaves .1%, or for a block of solid bacteria, or a billion bacteria in a cubic inch.
+3. Bacteria multiply readily.
+
+What this means is that pathogens will always be among us. Add to this also the fact that most disease killing Americans now is not caused by germs. Cancer: 30% of deaths. Heart disease: 30%. Alzheimers: 6%. Stroke: 5%. Diabetes: 4%. Life expectancy is going down. The trick of antibiotics has outlived its usefulness and it is time to admit:
+
+Germ theory does not disprove terrain theory - it only disproves spontaneous generation.
+
+We need new grids to understand health. Health is not the absence of pathogens. Health is the condition of a body such that pathogens cannot thrive, or at least not cause havoc.
+
+I submit that, just like weeds, all pathogenic diseases cannot be eradicated. We claim to have "eradicated" many, but the pathogens still roam the earth, albeit in pockets, or in labs. Any approach to health that depends on eliminating a stressor, rather than making it impossible for the stressor to live, is flawed. It is flawed in large part because it refuses to acknowledge the role of weeds, pests, and pathogens: to clean up the world. We know that insects only eat low-brix (that is, minerally/nutritionally deficient) plants. We don't want to eat nutritionally deficient plants. The pest is only a sign of a deeper problem which must be addressed, not covered up.
+
+I submit that the same logic applies to higher species as well in many cases. I am not advocating for eugenics by any stretch of the imagination - I am advocating for addressing the mineral-nutritional-biological imbalances that allow pathogens, or the human body system itself, to inflict harm upon the body.

Drafts/Bio-Mimickry or Bio-Mockery 1.md

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Is biomimicry actually a good idea? Or are we just making a mockery of biology?

Drafts/Bio-Mimickry or Bio-Mockery 2.md

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Is biomimicry actually a good idea? Or are we just making a mockery of biology?

Drafts/Bio-Mimickry or Bio-Mockery.md

@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+So, should we look to nature as inspiration for how we should build? Not quite.
+
+There is a trend in engineering called "bio-mimickry". But this is a far cry from nature-conscious design. Bio-mimickry only considers one facet of something. An engineer notices that a grasshopper has a certain linkage in their leg, studies the benefits of this linkage, and applies it. Perhaps he studies why this linkage is beneficial to the grasshopper - muscles do not have an instantaneous response, say. But the engineer does not consider for what end the grasshopper exists. He is not interested in the grasshopper as such.
+
+He is interested in extracting one aspect of the creature - he wants to appropriate a tiny slice of God's intelligence for his own ends. He takes a fundamentally colonizing attitude towards the creature. To such an engineer, it is of no real importance whether the grasshopper exists in the world - he is only interested in the inspiration it provides. It may as well be just another manmade contrivance, even though the engineer may engender some affection towards it.
+
+So how do we take a nature-conscious approach to design?
+
+Mere observation and study is not enough. Husbandry is required.
+
+I started a small flock of sheep this year. I acquired six ewes and a ram. I've had them on pasture now for three months. Prior to this, for a few months I read many books, articles, listened to talks, and visited a few farms. Reading is one thing. Seeing is another.
+
+But owning - husbanding - is a completely different level of knowledge.
+
+This is made most obvious in that they reveal themselves to you differently when you are consistently with them. In the same way that it takes a while for a friend to reveal certain sides of themselves to you - it is so with sheep as well. Originally, they wanted nothing to do with me, and were hesitant to even take grain from my outstretched hand. Now, they run up to greet me, and are fairly calm if I pick them up and handle them. I can begin to see things that were not written - and which cannot be written of well.
+
+Such a role as shepherd is less about producing sheep than it is guiding them. As Elizabeth Theokritoff puts it, "...we are not spiritual alchemists, charged with 'improving' the world so that it can serve as God's instrument; we are something closer to 'gardeners,' charged with 'working and keeping' a world which is already his instrument."
+
+It seems that all too often we are keen to outdo God, to try and improve upon what has already been written. No, truly, our objective in whatever role we find ourselves in - farmer, rancher, craftsman, plumber, teacher, president, mother, father, mechanic, or engineer - is to bring out what has already been written, to make known what already is.

Drafts/Divine Light Fading.md

@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+# Divine Light Fading
+(To the tune of https://annaandelizabeth.bandcamp.com/track/black-eyed-susan)
+
+As Judas' Poison Kiss didst press,
+The savior's cheek at midnight's turn
+Fair Hecate the omen blessed,
+By frenzied spite and flaming urn
+Thirty silver pieces line his hands
+That dear betrayer
+That dear betrayer kissed Him where He stand
+
+The horn-shaped moon betokened death:
+Harbringer in the hellish sky;
+And sparing not a moment's breath,
+The host didst seize the Adonai.
+How is it that this cosmic crime could be?
+The carpenter taken
+The carpenter taken to-wards Calvary
+
+A fell sensation cursed the air;
+The Maenads manic laughter sang;
+In ecstasy the hadean mares,
+Didst shriek and stomp 'till tart'rus rang
+The dionysian spirits beam with glee
+And darkness creepeth
+And darkness creepeth towards eternity
+
+In tumult Cepha drew his blade:
+The cloven ear asunder fell,
+Which by the savior's hand was made,
+To reaffix in painless spell.
+Why doth He not put up the slightest fight?
+Divine light fading,
+Divine light fading into this dreadful night
+
+Before the people he was led
+The truth professed, to no avail
+Judah screamed, Rome acquiesced
+Mammon cherished his travail
+The God-man spread out on the dogwood tree
+For pharisees
+For pharisees and pagans all to see
+
+Gethsemane began to weep
+Despoilers raved in delight
+The bitter cup He chose to keep
+Our Lord they chose to crucify
+The final gaspings of the God made Son
+Brought joy to Hades
+Brought joy to Hades as the crime was done

Drafts/Nature-al design.md

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+What is meant by "natural"?
+
+We almost seem to mean a Rousseauean "state of nature" - how something existed prior to human intervention. But this is a profoundly stupid, or at least worthless, definition. It presumes that man is somehow at odds with reality. And while yes, the fall of man did produce a rift, enmity, between the rest of the world and us, it was not so in the beginning - man was in harmony with the rest of the cosmos.
+
+When many people use the term "natural" in a positive light, they are pointing at something, although they can usually not articulate it because they are constrained by materialism. Yes, in the beginning, "It was good". The "natural" state of affairs was good. However, we must bear in mind the fall: the fall was not only man being deprived of the garden, but the garden was deprived of man.
+
+Environmentalists cry out at the death of any species. And yet, it seems, too many are willing that the most key of all species, the most unique one, the most powerful and potent one, should die. Man is a hyper-keystone species. Without man, the world is lost - completely aimless. All the world is made for the service of man, all is placed under his dominion.
+
+What makes man so special? Among a multitude of things, it is that he can recognize the real natures of things.
+
+When man is in touch with reality, when he understands how what is in front of him works, and even more importantly, for what purpose it was made, he can be a force for good. When he is habituated in sin, he can no longer perceive that most important facet of reality: the ends things were made for. The vicious, gluttonous man can only see that a tree is good for fruit; he cannot envision that it is a source of wood, a home for animals, a photosynthetic engine for microbiota, a cycler of carbon and other nutrients.
+
+Such a state of virtue is a love of given-ness. The virtuous man does not despise that sheep must be shorn or that pigs will root and wallow. He sees these aspects of their nature - and orchestrates the world around these realities.

Drafts/Reply to Kingsnorth 1.md

@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+Paul Kingsnorth recently gave the 2024 Erasmus Lecture, "Against Christian Civilization"
+
+Kingsnorth, as always, is quite persuasive.
+
+He argues that there is something quite mistaken about creating "civilization". Immediately after the fall, this desire to create civilization appears. 
+
+There is something wrong with using religion as a tool to build culture, Kingsnorth argues. This desire is rampant today: many on the "religious right" fall into this trap either implicitly or explicitly; we need "to act as if God exists" in order to "save Western Civilization". It confuses a means with an end.
+
+I'm not certain that Kingsnorth is entirely right that we should eschew civilization altogether. But we do have to get our ends and means straightened out.
+
+The end is union with God. Theosis. The Beautific Vision. The New Jerusalem. The images and terms for this mystical end beyond our comprehension abound. But let us make no mistake - this is the end. It is not a 'motivator', like a treat given to a dog that behaved. It is the goal, it is the thing we are striving after. It is the thing we are supposed to fix our minds upon.
+
+Civilization can be a tool to achieve this end. Guardrails. And perhaps even the dog-treat that we get occasionally to reassure us that we are on the right track. But the moment we raid the cookie jar instead of watching our master obediently, we fall into idolatry. We confuse the means for the end and we overdose on consolation.
+
+As God showed the Israelites over and over and over and over, what He desires is not civilization. He desires love.
+
+"Had you desired sacrifices I would have offered them, but You are not satisfied with whole-burnt offerings. / Sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit, a crushed and humbled heart God will not spurn." writes the psalmist.
+
+It is only after this change of heart, this realignment with him, this recognition of true ends, that "then will You be delighted with sacrifices and whole-burnt offerings."
+
+If we find that civilization is beneficial to this end, wonderful. If we find it detracting, so be it. We fix our eyes on the end of all things, and work towards it, and whatever blossoms forth from this - may it be blessed.

Drafts/Reply to Kingsnorth.md

@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+Paul Kingsnorth recently gave the 2024 Erasmus Lecture, "Against Christian Civilization"
+
+Kingsnorth, as always, is quite persuasive.
+
+He argues that there is something quite mistaken about creating "civilization". Immediately after the fall, this desire to create civilization appears. 
+
+There is something wrong with using religion as a tool to build culture, Kingsnorth argues. This desire is rampant today: many on the "religious right" fall into this trap either implicitly or explicitly; we need "to act as if God exists" in order to "save Western Civilization". It confuses a means with an end.
+
+I'm not certain that Kingsnorth is entirely right that we should eschew civilization altogether. But we do have to get our ends and means straightened out.
+
+The end is union with God. Theosis. The Beautific Vision. The New Jerusalem. The images and terms for this mystical end beyond our comprehension abound. But let us make no mistake - this is the end. It is not a 'motivator', like a treat given to a dog that behaved. It is the goal, it is the thing we are striving after. It is the thing we are supposed to fix our minds upon.
+
+Civilization can be a tool to achieve this end. Guardrails. And perhaps even the dog-treat that we get occasionally to reassure us that we are on the right track. But the moment we raid the cookie jar instead of watching our master obediently, we fall into idolatry. We confuse the means for the end and we overdose on consolation.
+
+As God showed the Israelites over and over and over and over, what He desires is not civilization. He desires love.
+
+"Had you desired sacrifices I would have offered them, but You are not satisfied with whole-burnt offerings. / Sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit, a crushed and humbled heart God will not spurn." writes the psalmist.
+
+It is only after this change of heart, this realignment with him, this recognition of true ends, that "then will You be delighted with sacrifices and whole-burnt offerings."
+
+If we find that civilization is beneficial to this end, wonderful. If we find it detracting, so be it. We fix our eyes on the end of all things, and work towards it, and whatever blossoms forth from this - may it be blessed.

Drafts/Reply to this AI worship nonsense.md

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+![[Pasted image 20250106083004.png]]
+

Drafts/Ruminants Ex Deo 1.md

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+The term "Machinae Ex Deo" was a funny inversion of a "Deus ex Machina"; instead of "God from the Machine," we were interested in "Machines from God". In an engineering context, that manifests in listening to God and studying the world to better design manmade things.
+
+But... having spent a year learning about agriculture, and a few months with sheep... ruminants are truly Machinae Ex Deo. Sheep, cows, goats - they roam the earth, harvesting grasses, forbs, and more - they heal and fix themselves - they reproduce on their own volition. In reality, biological life is the Machinae Ex Deo.

Drafts/Ruminants Ex Deo.md

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+The term "Machinae Ex Deo" was a funny inversion of a "Deus ex Machina"; instead of "God from the Machine," we were interested in "Machines from God". In an engineering context, that manifests in listening to God and studying the world to better design manmade things.
+
+But... having spent a year learning about agriculture, and a few months with sheep... ruminants are truly Machinae Ex Deo. Sheep, cows, goats - they roam the earth, harvesting grasses, forbs, and more - they heal and fix themselves - they reproduce on their own volition. In reality, biological life is the Machinae Ex Deo.

Drafts/the damndest of apples.md

@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+# The Damndest of Apples
+(To the tune of https://annaandelizabeth.bandcamp.com/track/ripest-of-apples)
+
+Come my friends and dear companions
+Come and board our loss with me
+For we have lost our own very birthright
+Clothed in mourning we ought be
+
+When I'm asleep I'm dreaming about Him
+When I'm awake I take no rest
+Must we cross death's dark chasm
+To see the one who loves us best?
+
+That serpent's eyes were beady and black
+Scales as green as the damndest grass
+He tempted us though we did not lack
+The fiery sword we now must pass
+
+When I'm asleep I'm dreaming about Him
+When I'm awake I take no rest
+Must we cross death's dark chasm
+To see the one who loves us best?
+
+I wish that we had never seen him
+Never pointed out that red fruit
+For now he lurks in every man's body
+Prying our hearts and minds from truth
+
+When I'm asleep I'm dreaming about Him
+When I'm awake I take no rest
+Must we cross death's dark chasm
+To see the one who loves us best?
+
+But the second triune doth condescended
+A new Adam, a new shoot
+Unto Him may we be grafted
+For from Him comes truest fruit