Ruminant Covenant - Adaptability

For life, natural disasters, Y2K and beyond

27 October 1999

Where are those Pentecostal altar calls when you need them. I sure could have responded to one of them last Friday night. I would have felt so much better immediately. For those of you unfamiliar with this type of altar call. First of all it must be set up by the right emotional preparation. Some loud music, with a real good beat should precede the sermon. The sermon should be heavy into law keeping and topical, something from the Old Testament, like from Joshua Chapter 7. A good verse to select would be 19, "Now Joshua said to Achan, 'My son I beg you give glory to the LORD God of Israel, and make confession to Him, and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.'"

Man, at the altar call I could have run up to the front weeping and sobbing and got this whole thing off my chest. It would have been such a relief. Of course I would have had to do it again and again, but it is really all so much easier than this faith doctrinal stuff. Man I can't see that cross two thousand years ago, and I sure can't feel justified when I feel like such a louse. You know, "if you feel far from God guess who moved." Sometimes that feels so good. I mean there is really little relief is saying, "Nobody moved, your emotions just changed." What a drag that is. We feel bad, because we feel like it. It is part and parcel of this human condition on this earth. We could also blame the devil. "Satan you old serpent, I demand that you release me from these thoughts in the name of Jesus! Amen and Hallelujah! That would have felt good too. But no I am stuck with this Biblical, statement, "The LORD rebuke you Satan." That sure doesn't make me feel that I've done my part, how do you feel?

Just imagine or visualize trying to go to sleep knowing that there was really nothing that you could work up to make you feel better, just trust in Christ alone for your salvation and your sanctification and believe that he walks with you through all circumstances. Sure not very reassuring. Pray, read the Word of God and try to go to sleep. Seems like a rather foolish way to run a religion from my perspective.

Awaking from a deep but not very long night of sleep, I was struck with the thought, that what if my thoughts of the night before really weren't my thoughts at all, but the thoughts of someone else, who had not been down this long narrow road before. How could I encourage them without letting them experience anything more religious than just the love of Jesus. In a tenderized heart, tenderized by the work of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, personal emotions and sin will be enough to allow the peace of God to flow, without us working up some religious fever. Perhaps we need to communicate it better, that Jesus Christ knows your thoughts and is truly the only one who feels your pain. For you (we) are his bride, individually and collectively and we are all loved as such.

Perhaps my thought of brides was because of the wedding I had the opportunity to attend Saturday afternoon. Victoria and Galen. Galen, I had been introduced to before, but Victoria and I have the same close mutual friend and I have seen her grow from a emotionally distraught, demonically oppressed shell of a person, into a young, vibrant woman of God. She is now willing to step forward in faith to what lies ahead, learning from where she has been and vowing to try to help others understand the love of God that she has personally experienced. The wedding itself was sort of a covenantal thing, part Jewish and part Christian, and probably the least pretentious wedding I have ever been to. An informal but traditional ceremony, a potluck feast or wedding supper and with a time of worship and Jewish dance afterwards. I was deeply touched by how we really can be a different people from what the world expects us to be. I also got to talk to Kim from the singles group from my old church. She had been commissioned as photographer. "I really don't have anyone to hold me accountable to go to church anymore, like we had in the singles group, and I am so tired of those (pentecostal) sermons."

"Well we don't preach we just teach the Word of God, part of that is because so many of us have had that same type of experience and been burned out, and we have seen the lack of growth in ourselves and in others, that this type of legalism produces. Services are at 9, 11 and 7 and there all the same, except the 7 o'clock is just a lot more hang loose. And yes, I will now hold you accountable, to get you going back to some type of church service."

Sunday I got convicted again, this time in more uplifting circumstances. I have seen the Lord do some amazing things over these last few weeks. Now after seeing all, I am ready to take over control of my own life again. Thanks Lord for the help, for the miraculous, but I am personally able to take control of the situation from here on out. I have learned so much from you, all these years in the wilderness, let me take these idols from Jericho and bury them in my tent. How foolish we, God's people are. We never learn, but as the teacher of Ecclesiastes says in Chapter 12 verse 13 and following: Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man's all. For God will bring every work into judgement, Including every secret thing, Whether good or evil.

What a great understanding it is that Jesus Christ, has kept those commandments for me, and that I have been adopted into His family by His sacrifice of His precious blood on the cross of Calvary those two thousand years ago. Through His resurrection I have become His bride as an individual and in the community of believers throughout all time. I shall live forever. In this life I begin to see its first fruits as I become crucified in my evil flesh, understanding only in the smallest way, at this time, the work that God has prepared for me, and for you also.

After the adapting of the last couple of weeks we return to preparations to become more adapted to what life in the world may hold. In a way these thoughts and points are somewhat superficial to the work we have before us. But to a certain extent they are part of parcel of the wise teacher of Ecclesiastes prepares us for as the judgements of God. Natural perils are a means, as are other of life's circumstances, to bring us closer to God and an understanding of his love for his people and the consequences of following our own way.

Rule 6. Eat, drink and be merry. Grubstakes, water filters, Vitamin C & Oil. The three B's of the old Sourdough's grubstake. Beans, Bannock and Bacon. A somewhat simple diet , perhaps boring is a better adjective. Beans or thunder berries as my dad used to call them, bannock is trail bread or biscuits cooked in pan or on a stick. Side Bacon (as opposed to back bacon) is surely not kosher, but a store of nearly 3000 calories per pound, keeping you going through many a tough day.

Here is another old ration list from The Outdoorsman's Cookbook published in 1944, this is one of several in the book, but it gives you a good idea of what was considered worthwhile over fifty years ago. It is described for "men who traveled the comfortable way, moving camp but three times and using a light outboard motor for driving the canoe. At stops, they pitched camp for a two or three days's stay and worked the surrounding country during the stay-over period from the camp." This list is perhaps more appropriate to utilize for planning than a lot of the Y2K stuff you see for sale today, stuff you would never eat except in a emergency.

Ration List 2 Men, 10 days: 4 loaves of bread, 2 lb. canned butter, 1/2 lb. cheese, 1 lb. lard or Crisco, 3 lb. bacon, 3 lb. Canadian bacon, 3 dozen eggs, 1 1/2 lb. oatmeal, 1 lb. dried milk, 2 pkg. bisquick, 1 small can sirup, 2 cans corned-beef hash, 2 cans pork and beans, 2 cans tomatoes, 2 cans carrots and peas, 20 candy bars, 1 lb. coffee, 12 lb. potatoes, 3 lb. onions, 1/2 lb. tea, 2 lb. sugar, 1 can pepper, 1/4 lb. salt.

Now there is a stick to your ribs kind of diet, or diet probably is not a correct term, in our cultural perspective. But there is a point to be noted here, except for the cans of pork and beans and carrots and peas, everything is quite flavorful (my personal prejudice), packed with calories, easy to cook and you will live right well. A rough estimate of the weight is about 50 pounds, with out any dehydrated stuff at all or about 2 1/2 pounds, per person, per day. Back packing provisions with some, to a lot of the modern dry stuff, should run about 1 1/2 to 2 lbs. per day.

The thought behind this grubstaking concept is to have a variety of stuff you eat, pantried at home, ten days is not a bad idea, but make it something that you will use eventually, These early provisions are evidenced by the fact that you should take your food with you. The concept of being able to live off the land, was proven in those days, to be a hungry fallacy. How much more true it is today. If you want to live off the land, sort of as we would say, as the Lord provides, it is not that there isn't all kinds of nice herbs to fill your belly, it is just that there is not nutritive value in the food. It has been proven that the nutrition gained from this enterprise is not equal to the energy expended in the gathering. This leads us to the subject of oil and vitamin C. Wild game is quite lean meat, the reason for the amount of bacon in these early ration lists, is when you are out of grease you are out of high energy food. Fat burns at 9 calories per gram, carbohydrate and protein at 4 calories per gram. So when you need a lot of energy and you don't carry your own fat in a tire around your tummy, it needs to be supplemented by outside fats. If you do not like bacon, or sausage or other fat meat you should probably supplement you diet with canola or olive oil. As a side bar, most great flavors we associate with foods are fat soluble organic chemical compounds, too really grasp their complex interactions released when cooking they must first become dissolved in fats or grease. Even more a field, but continuing to make the point, this is the way perfumes are made, with the dissolved fragrances being shifted to an alcohol base.

Scurvy is a disease that is brought about from Vitamin C deficiency . It takes many months to develop but other than rose hips, citrus fruits and fresh veggies, natural vitamin C is not that easy to come by and supplements are really a viable alternative. We are just learning that many other problems may be reduced or eliminated by utilization of this and other antioxidants. Many peoples around the world live a lot closer to this scurvy line than need be in these day when supplements are so readily available and so inexpensive.

Lastly this bring us to good drinking water. All municipal public water supplies in the United States are safe for drinking, by federal government regulation. It is as sound as the Dollar. If you think you need bottled water, it shows your trust in your government and lack of knowledge. Bottled water sources are not as highly regulated as are municipal supplies. Many do not contain fluoride that prevents tooth decay, as a segment on last nights TV news pointed out. Now the water in Seattle, south of the ship canal does taste like a swamp at times, but it is still some of the best in the country. Water filters for your home can get quite expensive and in most cases are not worth the investment, tap type filters can fix the taste problem if you think you would like that improvement. Taste aside, we now must consider (it probably always true there just wasn't any technology available to treat the problem) all surface waters and much of the municipal (if that is a proper term) in the rest of the world are contaminated. The easiest way to take care of that is a good portable water filter. Any of those available at REI and similar outlets will do the job adequately, a lot are in most cases overkill, normally they cost $ 50 and up, not on sale. Water is heavy, two pounds per quart, so being able to take a filter to the water is especially a wise idea. Travel on missions trips to Russia and elsewhere, there is no reason to drink pop all the time, filter your own. If bottled water standards are somewhat liquid in this country, what about elsewhere. By buying your own filter and knowing what it will do, you have your own protection with you and can understand what if any risks you are taking.

If you would like to store water for a natural disaster the plastic jugs that juices come in make almost indestructible containers. As a matter of fact the same material (PETE) that stands for something, makes a great storage containers for your grubstake stuffs, I'm in the process of collecting a whole set. Unless of course you want to go to the store and buy a set of these jars at over two bucks a pop they are quite useful and cheap. On that little triangle for recycling there are 3 R's the first being reuse, the last is recycle and the one in the middle I can't remember right now. But how do you get the labels off, so you will look cool and thrifty and not just cheap. Most of my rice and beans are in those square jars that chocolate covered raisins from COSTCO come in. That big ugly label comes off quite easily with gentle heating with a hair dryer. Presto a multipurpose, cool, almost indestructible jar that cost you nothing. Well not exactly nothing, many times the cost of the products we purchase is more in the cost of the packaging, than in the product inside. Bottled water being a prime example. All right to clean up any residue that may remain, just some real rubbing with rubbing alcohol should take it off. To be a really cool dude and reuse those many sized water bottles, juice bottles and the like, with those globs of sticky ugly glue, use Methyl Ethyl Ketone (Mek). You can purchase it in the painting chemicals area of home centers and hardware stores. It does not effect most PETE bottles only the glue, this is also true with milk jugs and similar polyethylene and polyproplyene containers, which are very environmentally safe to reuse, but not much to look at.

There are some other clear plastic containers I will not reuse and those are made of polystyrene. The ones I checked do not have a recycling triangle on them but that really doesn't say much. Normally baked goods come in them. They are effected by Mek so you can use that is a test. The reason I do not reuse polystyrene is that styrene which is polymerized into polystyrene is a known carcinogen. Why take any unnecessary chances. As I was thinking about this I remembered that a lot of stuff now comes in a black plastic bottom, that could be used as a cooking container. I don't buy convenience food so I checked at Fred Meyer and they too are PETE, I don't think I would use it for continued reheating etc. but if you check with the proper channels, you will of course be told that it is perfectly safe in this usage, its just another federal agency that is similar but different than the one that regulates our drinking water.

We will pause for this week since next week I want to spend a little more time on this freedom issue as we look at Rule 7. Travel light. Boats and canoes; Goat walking and packing.

PRAYER PLANTS

As I mentioned other than for the spiritual aspects of these three days, things have been really pretty good. I have been repainting the main floor of the house in colors that I like. The last time I did that was when I got out of the service. I had just finished scraping the paint off the last window when I got a call that moved me from Spokane to Pullman for graduate school. Could this be a sign of the Lord's providence again (or my foolishness). In any respect that part of the house needs to be repainted, it is just that the future resident may not have my same excellent taste.

I guess it is more a guy thing, but how easy it is for us to want to get our hands into every great thing the Lord is doing and try not to mess it up by taking control in our holy and sanctimonious humility and in the process really foul up everything. Money still seems a week late and a comma short. But the Lord has taken care of the needs as he has promised to do. The web site is progressing slowly and I have some things to do in Eastern Washington and I have to decide by the time this is fully distributed whether to go this week and into the weekend. I have jury duty for the first time in my life starting on November 2nd, and $10 a day is not going to pay many bills. I also have a court case now scheduled for Thanksgiving week from a minor traffic accident over three years ago, that the insurance company is fighting with my blessing, so November is shaping up as a month to truly rely on the Lord for financial provision. Please pray for those funds.

"May the LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make his face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you shalom."

"So they shall put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them."
(Numbers 6:24-27)

Amen.