[+/-] Lukewarm

I'm sorry for not posting in a while. I've been feeling lazy and brain-tired. My scribing project is going slowly. Anyway, here's my most recent interesting thought:

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

-Revelation 3:15-18

We looked at this passage in church last week. It's pretty tough stuff - "scary" is how someone put it - and it got me thinking about all the times in the Bible when God tells someone they suck. The prophets do a lot of that. Jesus spends a whole chapter railing on the Pharisees. There's the "Away from me evildoers" bit, and so on.

Here's what I noticed: I can't think of a time in the Bible when God rebukes people who are already aware of/feeling bad about their failings. I think the Laodiceans' real problem wasn't that they were "wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked"; God has a solution for that. Their problem was that they didn't realize that they were wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. They thought they were pretty good. Honestly, I'm not sure what is meant by "buy from me gold refined in the fire", etc. It seems that "wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked" is not the universal human condition, and that God expects us to transcend it, with his help. But I don't know how that works.

Anyway, it's comforting to think that God isn't angry with me for my wretchedness, and although he wants to see me cleaned up, he doesn't expect me to do it myself.

[+/-] I'm Tired and I Hurt All Over

I took a bit of a tumble on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs today. It was my first day of framing, and it was kind of long and quite grueling. I have a big post in the works, but it's only half-way thought through, and I'm not at all in the right frame of mind for that kind of thing. I fear I may not be my usual perspicacious self over the next couple months.

In other news, I'm finished the first five chapters of Matthew in my copy-the-New-Testament project. I've yet to go a full two pages without a scribal error, giving me new appreciation for those who carefully preserved these texts over the centuries. No profound insights yet, but so far the process has been considerably less tedious than expected. I would rather copy the Bible eleven hours a day than haul wood around, but I don't imagine I would make much money at it.