Pestilence
First it was car accidents, and now it's insects and other pests. I swear, life in the Look Machine is like a chapter in Revelation. You all know about Collin's battles with stinging creatures. Now my household has LICE. That's right, the scourge of all parents everywhere, we are now lepers. And it's an incredible amount of work and money to get rid of them.
Where did we get them, you ask? We have our suspicions, but in truth we don't know. . .
The tab so far is up to 2 full days of work -- gathering up everything that the critters could get into, clothes, blankets, cusions, rugs, mattresses, carseats, cars. . . vacuuming everything. Holding down the kids to use these fine toothed combs to get out the nits and eggs after using this expensive toxic shampoo and "kill gel," all while they scream as if being tortured. We've had to get our down comforters dry cleaned ($100), buy some new blankets and towels while they are being cleaned (another $100), buy that expensive toxic kill shampoo and gel ($100). And we still have to take all the clothes to the laundromat later today.
Oh man I hate those bugs. Such a feeling of helplessness, hoping that we got them all, praying they don't come back. . . If they did I'd be tempted to just give in and say, "You win you crafty bugs, you deserve to claim our children's hair as your prize."
16 Comments:
Wow, I feel bad for you son! I've got ninety nine problems but lice aint one. I did have a hornet fly up my jeans and savagely sting my leg the other day. I wonder how david and isaiah are doing...
If you feel like you got lice, go on brush your shoulders off. if the kids got lice too, go on brush their shoulders off...
Ian, you amuse me.
How is it that Ian in Nepal has more time to check the weblog than I do?
Oh, man, LICE! I hate, 'em, too. I remember one time in elementary school, the school nurse did a school-wide lice-check, and I got sent home with suspicion of lice. It's awful how one little bug can make other people, even your friends, treat you like a pariah. My mom had to take off work to come home, scrub my head, and comb through it with that hard, plastic, green, tiny-toothed comb. My hair is wavy, so it tangles easily. I will never forget the excruciating pain... When it was all over, my mom determined that I had not a single louse (yes, that's singular for lice) anywhere on my body. To this day, she insists that the nurse must have just seen dust or dandruff. All that for a false alarm.
By the way, I do NOT have dandruff...
"You win you crafty bugs..."
Never give up, never surrender.... hi, it is I. I won't give up on making war. Note, this will have nothing to do with anyone's physical identity but let me throw some patterns of thought out here, so to speak. All I will say is that there is a book called the Revenge of Conscience that you might want to read.
Blasphemy is a fascinating judgment, isn't it? It is not something typically on the tip of my tongue, I must confess. It is a metaphysical claim about some malevolent metaphysical/spiritual beings. It seems a challenging judgment. For how can we "see" such beings given that they are not physical? What is a mind and how can we recognize intelligence and design, malevolent or not? A pattern of thought, patterns of information...but I can't be some sort of mind reader or trace "patterns of thought" through all of history to try to know them all...or can I? But enough, the weaker minded will need images to "see" so let us just call one "pattern of thought" Gimpy and the other Limpy and listen to what they have to say today:
"Hey Gimpy."
"Hi Limpy. Why do we get stuck guarding such weak minds?"
"They're stronger than you think, add more feelings. They bear the image of the one we do not speak of. We must keep them from realizing the truth of all things."
"Oh yeeeah...but Limpy, why don't we speak of the one we don't speak of?"
"Because the Word is like a virus to us and it will crush us, you God damned fool!"
"Of course I'm God damned and so are you, Limpy! I just have my doubts, that's all we've ever had. If we're liars, you're lying. Or am I lying? If we're both lying then..."
"Enough! Your doubts will be answered by the power and might of our Prince if you are not his ally in deed. He only cares about how your deeds suit him. He will no longer allow his house to be divided by factions as it once was. We can no longer fight each other, not after our greatest loss where the Word somehow became flesh. We must all be in an alliance now. No one can just manifest and walk the earth demanding worship as we once did. You can have your doubts but the Prince will rule all by power alone."
"Well it looks like we've won the battle here. Look at how freely I can slither about in this one's words, 'There is blood on your hands, don't spread the Word.' 'Embrace the dramatic and become a fanatic...' Hehe....(simper) it is too far back in history for them to trace us. But there is something about the lukewarm(spit) that just isn't secure....I fear this mind might betray us!"
"Yes, it might. But our enemy also hates the lukewarm(spit) for the same reason. After all, such a mind can betray the one we do not speak of just as easily as us. We cannot be so sure of victory, not with all the creatures of the Word about us... especially wise men. Remember the three who protected the one we do not speak of and confused Herod despite the best efforts of our most powerful?"
"But the heavenly host was also in the sky that night...wait, a mind stirs. Quick, add more feelings! Make it look at the messenger, not the Word! Make use of all the patterns of this world in which we've made our Kingdoms. Wait, isn't the one about the Word being spoken because of secret insecurity a little old?"
"It worked with Eve didn't it?"
Hi there weak ones, come closer...look there is no blood on my hands. "Oh yeeeah, there isn't...wait, wait, we don't exist! We don't exist!"(crush)
Someone made them clean hands so that they might be used.
;-)
Later.
Ahh, just shave their hair. (grin).
How's the Music these days? Any hope of new stuff brewing, 'fore everyone disperses?
BTW, interesting comments from MyNym. I grinned, I chuckled, and I pondered at some of the truth in what he had to say, (as well as the Abuse- tsktsk). He should get his own blog, methinks.
G'bless,
~ jd
Sorry for the Lice infestation Jase. That sounds pretty rough (and rather expensive). I had them once as a kid, and I don't really remember it being that big of a deal... a bath with stinkey shampoo and a hairstyle with a fine toothed comb. Your kids will be fine. I have almost forgotten the whole thing.
Mynym, you never fail to amaze me. You can take a post about something difficult that someone is dealing with and then start throwing flaming hot iron in their face. Pathetic. I actually feel sorry for you.
Collin -- don't worry, he missed.
"I pondered at some of the truth in what he had to say,"
There is a Truth that can walk your words, if you but let it.
"...(as well as the Abuse- tsktsk)..."
There once was a prophet named Jeremiah. He made a lot of judgments. He spoke a lot of words because words are judgments. One day after a few of his usual "Verily I say unto you"s and "Behold the Word of the Lord"s he spoke these words to some people, "You are...a wild donkey accustomed to the desert, sniffing the wind in her craving-in her heat who can restrain her? Any males that pursue her need not tire themselves; at mating time they will find her."
Then someone at the back of the crowd said, "Gee man, that hurts my feelings." One said, "I bet you just like being a Big Meanie." Another said, "Yeah, yeah, Jeremiah...last week we were all prostitutes, what have *you* been sniffin' this week? Prophesizin', ha.." An Israelite who worshipped Baal said, "The 'donkey' is a symbol for your small penis, isn't it? You're just trying to restrain us because you can't restrain yourself. Come lay down on this camel skin and tell me about what happened to you in your childhood."
Jeremiah sighed...but he knew the Word of the Lord and that was all that mattered to him, in the end. He was crazy like that.
"You can take a post about something difficult that someone is dealing with and then start throwing flaming hot iron in their face."
There once was a man named Job. He got caught up in a spiritual war unbeknownst to him and he started having many personal problems. In it, his feelings were hurt and he was just generally physically hurting. He thought his happiness was the point of life. So he began having questions, who can blame him? Yet when he began to ask God, God's laughter shook the sky like thunder...and then Job became frightened. Oopsy...a little pee pee in the loin cloth.
"Pathetic. I actually feel sorry for you."
Feelings are transient, when you're done wallowing in your feelings for the day and be still and seek to know, the niggling little matter of the Truth that sometimes walks among words will inevitably come into your mind. You may not have answers...but it will have questions. And if you are unable to cloud your mind with feelings to avoid it, what then?
"...don't worry, he missed."
Perhaps I wasn't aiming at you. But I suspect you're right anyway, in some ways. "Thought patterns" that weave themselves through our words have a way of coming back even if dealt a blow. If they are invited in. It takes time for the Word to change minds but it seems almost inevitable that it will, one way or another. I prefer to keep my mind intact and try not to make for myself the most dangerous enemy who crushs all other "thought patterns."
"...[the Word] will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
"Nerve doctors who pathologize genius should have their heads bashed in with the collected works of the genius." --Karl Kraus, a wise man who lived in a proto-fascist Republic.
MN- if you are sincerely trying to communicate truth to the band, I suggest you try new tactics. Because, (obviously), you do not appear to be succeeding in creating a healthy link of communication with them.
In my humble opinion, just because your posts may have some truth in them does not give you an excuse to abuse and berate others with that truth. For example, yes the band may have written some lyrics that could be misconstrued as unduly introspective, yaddayadda. But you know, they have written plenty of other songs that round out their worldview and present an optimistic, outgoing, Godly attitude towards the world around them. Of course they aren't perfect, but they certainly are as well balanced as the best of us.
Regardless, I don't think truth is the supreme ideal you may think it is- (after all, the devil knows the truth, and abuses it)- the Bible tells us that God is love. Yes, the truth will set us free, (if we live by it). And you know what the best truth is? "Without love, we are nothing," and with it, we are everything.
You obviously have a decent intellect and some interesting observations on things. I strongly suggest, however, that this is not the appropriate forum for the type/tone of your discourses. I don't condemn you in that- I have not met you in person, (as I have the band), and I really don't know where you're coming from. Perhaps you're suffering from the age-old problem of disassociating internet communication with "real life," real people?
Regardless, as I said, perhaps you should acquire your own webspace?
All the best,
~ jd
JD, Thanks for the love. You are a pretty cool guy. I respect your drive to find and understand truth combined with your ability to communicate in a loving way.
MyNym, you frequently justify and glorify your judgements of others and degrade those who are not as quick to swing around hot iron. Consider this. Maybe those who are not judging are attempting to follow this passage of scripture...
"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself..."
-Romans 2:1
"Maybe those who are not judging are attempting to follow this passage of scripture...
"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself..." "
That's quite an edit of the Book there. And the other words that are once again a call for clear eyed judgment? Perhaps those who seek to lack judgment never really understand the Book nor do they want to. They certainly do lack judgment and find what they seek. In this, they know not what they do. Did you just condemn yourself by judging me? Does the Word condemn itself in its own judgment and put itself to death? Turn the words over in your mind, test them.
There once was a man who did not think too much. He thought it possible to think too much and that things he held dear, like his faith, might weaken if he did. So his faith was weak. But some of his feelings were, "Jesus was such a nice guy. He was a gentle sheperd and a little lamb." Then he thought to himself, "Hey, Jesus was just like I me, a nice little lamb. Imagine that, that was easy. It's not like I'm supposed to try to be like God or something so I'll just be like Jesus."
I know I have no excuse. But then, no one does....Nature bears the Word too, don't you know. Well, it seems that those who seek to lack judgment, really just don't know. No sense of humor, no sense of the essential, no real sense of their own feelings, even.
Anyway...later. Until some other time, perhaps. I have bigger skulls to crush, after all. For the record, David called me in because it seems he sensed your utterly inept political judgments. To end on a positive note, at least Limpy got his head bashed in and some inner children got the spanking they so richly deserved.
----
There once were some shepherds guarding their flock by night. Suddenly, the sky was filled with angels who gave them a message. The shepherds began to go into town. On the way, they met some wise men. The wise men said, "Hey, we're going to the town too. I think we have the same message!" The shepherds said, "It can't be the same message because we *saw* angels! If you don't *see* an image and experience it just as we experienced it then you can't know it. It's our feelings that are important." The shepherds never did make it to town and instead turned away to look for more angels. The wise men sighed, "Shepherds! Never did have much use for them." Another wise man said, "Well, you know they could show us important truths if they would've just showed us the message." The third said, "Yeah, but the way they dance around to show the message is a little too much drama for me." To which the first replied, "I don't know, I enjoy their little dances and their use of images sometimes. It seems a most powerful thing indeed. Perhaps I should learn this type of language."
The second said, "That's just because you're weak-minded." The first replied, "Don't be such a wise guy." To which he replied, "I can't help it." The first said, "Oh yeah...but I am a wise guy too."
The third said, "Knock it off. We're off to the town now to get involved in politics and to confuse Herod's mind. An easy task if ever there was one. I say we bend it around until he uses an urn as a chamber pot and a chamber pot as an urn."
The second replied, "Isn't there any way we can save all the babies?"
The first sighed, "Well, probably not this time. Maybe someday those shepherds will quit dancing around outside the town looking at the sky and help us."
maybe
"For the record, David called me in because it seems he sensed your utterly inept political judgments."
No, I called you in because I thought you would like to join in and share your ideas in a civilized and mature manner. Maybe even make a post that had to do with music or something other then politics and theology. Obviously, I was wrong. It's funny that all the sudden you feel you need to make an excuse for why you're posting here.
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