h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am going out in Wilfie for a drive, and I'm going to experiment with the dashcam. I'll go and install it just now. It's going to be a hot and sunny day, and I'm going out with the roof down.

I wrote a swingeing piece on FB about the UK's offence culture, and deleted it. It's ridiculous. People have been systematically infantilised. "I hereby give you total control over the way I feel about myself," that's the upshot. Well twas ever thus but it's been re-defined now. It's the rage of the impotent helpless. The worst offence-takers are paradoxically the worst offenders. You can be as rude as you like about faith, about men, about weevils, about lots of things, but there is a Govt list of people-groups who have been singled out for infantilisation. So ridiculous. We are being played like bloody violins. Believe me, if I wanted to offend you, you'd know all about it. A collective stupor has descended on the UK and people are encouraged to take "offence" at anything which - well, I'm not going to go on about it here, but I can well remember encountering it for the first time at Oxford, and noticing it for the first time on ML, and marvelling.

It's your fault if I'm unhappy with a hard and bitter heart. My insecurities are all your fault.

I need to think about it. Yesterday I was grokking the ironies this situation throws up. Today I appear to be in a different place but it'll all come together.

Yeah I am a different person from time to time. In the morning I can be Richard the Saint, and in the afternoon I can be Richard the Nasty. It all depends on which alter happens to be in charge at the time. I have no control over it. If anyone ever dared to marry me they would have to be very secure in themselves, I mean really sure of who they are, and strong, and versed in the spirituality of the earth as well as that of the Kingdom. (Of course they're all versed in the earth even if they don't like admitting it.)

Anyway here's a movie I've just made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khRDs2SKS0k

I come to my ideas by intuition. I see them, suddenly. I don't argue from premisses to a conclusion, although I can do this. What happens is that I get an idea and I work backwards from the conclusion to wherever I need to start from. There is an infinite number of different ways from the end to the beginning, it all depends on where you want to start from. For me the beginning is the end; the end is the beginning. Because the end is secure; beginnings are messy, and can be anywhere, according to the person.

But anyway, I need to write a short essay, On Propositions.

At least, a short booklet. Because I need to include The Essay as a first chapter, and then comment on it and expand on it. I must do this: it will provide posterity with everything it needs to know about my theology. Everything else depends on this one insight.

I have also the writing on the loving of the mind to think about. That is quite difficult. It is suggestive; I do not explain everything, but give an outline of a basic aspect of worship and expect the matter to be revealed by the Spirit of God.

So there is "On Propositions" and "With All Your Mind". I may get on with one or other of these this afternoon. My book is said to shall be printed and ready and finished in a limited edition of 1,000 copies, by the weekend, so I am told.

Vic's brother came and knocked me up wanting a copy of Words in English (they had it in Afrikaans and I did pop an English copy in Vic's pigeon hole but he must have trashed it at the time when he appeared to dislike me). I must rescue the rest of the books from Khayelitsha. It's funny that he should be wanting Words now, because after the weekend the larney books should be ready. I've got a list of about 27 people to whom I want to give complimentary copies. That's quite a number of people I realise I know! Most of them are overseas. I will give Mrs Mot a copy for Christmas. When Helga was my friend she was over the top gushing about getting a copy, when she decided I was a bad man she was subdued about it. The stronghold of evangelicalism was strong in her and I hope the Spirit will knock it down because it has to be exposed and recognised and done away with. It's pretty personal with me; this stronghold has hated me all my life and I have suffered much at its hands, the most recent infliction of this hatred being when I was sacked from my radio job. When she realises the enormity of what she did, Helga will be shattered. May that day come soon! I've had a gutful of this particular principality and I hope the Father has given me the pleasure of seeing its complete exposure and downfall from the church. It's a wicked, wicked spirit of disbelief masquerading as faith, of spiritual filth masquerading as holiness. Under its filthy skirts hide a multitude of evils. I'm absolutely sick of it.

It's so common throughout the world, and such a part of its victims' conception of the Biblical Faith, that only a miracle of God will be able to set his children free from its deadful clutches. I don't think I've ever detected it in L, though. I think, and hope that she has been spared this particular miasma. It's a blindness that enables people like Mister Empty to come in amongst God's people and tear through them, causing huge damage to the Body, totally undiscerned. Mocking them because they have been made so stupid by this evil, evil principality. It's vicious and hateful and -- oh, I can't find words printable to describe the filthy thing, or how I feel about it, having been its victim for so, so long. Especially in the first 25 years or so of my life, this thing made my life a misery.

So I can hear its downfall now, approaching from a distant horizon; and I hope soon I shall see it manifest, and hear the sounds of weeping, the weeping of that Godly sorrow. Because it has made devils out of some of the choicest of God's people. What you see in me, is a reflection of yourself. Oh I can't wait for a few people to wake up and then I shall have someone to talk to. Because at the moment I am shunned by those who ought to be my friends - and this, the work of this filthy principality.

I rejoice already; but I am eager to see this thing scorned by those who presently live under its spell.

God have mercy on us all.

We need revival; we need revolution; then, we need reformation.

When the Spirit and the Word are manifest together in time as they are together in eternity. Wigglesworth prophesied in 48 about this.

I could try and get a better picture by raising the camera on its stand and reorientating the picture. I don't really fancy messing around with it too much though. Just prefer to get on with it.

I've got notes for my writing on propositions and it encompasses thinking about the Trinity. Of course it does. My every word implies an addressee. Because I no longer say, I am; because only God is allowed to say, I am. No, I say the opposite of I am - I say, You are. The first word a Jesus man speaks, is You. After he has said You, he says, he; because my first desire is to point you to him who is I am. So I say, You are because he is I am. Or: "You are, because He is "I am". You exist because of him who says I am. Your being is directly contingent on the One who Is.

Or I might say, You are, but he is I am" and this means, "You are, but you are not "I am", because God is.

Notice that in my words there is no explicit reference to myself. "I am nothing," said Paul. In this way when we speak, we conjugate the verb "to be" but we do not self-refer. We joyfully affirm the being of our neighbour, and confirm that he has his being because of the One Author of Being. You are only because of Him who is "I am".

And so on. It is easy to chatter on, but only Jesus knows what these words mean. I do not know what they mean. I just write them, I do not venture to understand them as well. No, I do not understand, because there is He who Understands. I do not know, because there is One who Knows. But I write. God said to his prophet, "Write". At least he can do that. The very little that he can do, after enduring the torments of the Cross, is write. He is too weak to know, and he is too tired to understand. So God does these for him. All God asks of me, is that I write.

And not just God, it seems. Vic's brother, who is here at the moment, has just come round asking me to tell him all about the words Eloi, eloi lama sabachthani. It so happens I have done some reading into these words, but I have forgotten what I read. So now I've got to do the research all over again, and that involves the slugging open of a number of books, and collating the opinions of the scholars and writing it all up. Preferably with some kind of direction.

Well I had better get around to that this weekend I suppose. Or perhaps even tonight, should I get around to it. Because I cannot let him down. He came to me asking about a matter concerning the words of the Bible. This is supposed to be my field of expertise. So I must certainly go ahead and study up and write something down.

He wants Volume 2. He asks, When is it coming out. I have to admit, I cannot yet afford to produce Volume 2. Oh dear.

Well, that's that. Write, says God; write, says Vic's brother.

OK I've just been out and it's put me in a bad mood. I need to chill.

OK, what next. Well I've got that wee bit of research to do, then I've got to think about writing. All I can do at the moment for the piece on propositions is a kind of journal-style personal thing that veers between confession, diarising and formal writing. I may leave it that way and make it a different kind of writing. Coming at the same basic idea from all different angles one after the other. After all, no-one says we have to have a beginning, a middle and an ending. We can have a totally different structure if we want. Why not.

I can't read ML this evening. It's total insanity bucket. That's because it's a reflection of the world, namely, today's UK, which is completely out to luncheon, and, if what I hear online is to be believed, always has been. Now I understand why I find it so hard to be in the UK and always get ill there. I've always put it down to the vibes. And it seems I was right.

I think by the time the time comes for everything to be known, what they're trying to do is put everyone to sleep so that when everything is confessed, no-one will be awake to hear it.

I saw B on the way in. When I was letting myself into my flat, his wife smeared her filthy fear over my guts and then he accused me of being afraid. That's the Swiss comedy duo, come back to fire extinguisher in the sunshine after a summer of rituals.

I told you I'm working my way home the long way round, darling.

The structure of the Lorca thread was symbolic of the form of my life.

Things are moving on so fast these days, it's incredible. But we've come an awful long way. It's been tremendous. They say L is still scared of me. Well I don't know what to say about that. The Lord must have known this would happen. He seems very eager to allow me the opportunity to pass through every difficulty he is pleased to allow me the opportunity to enjoy. Meanwhile - but no, what can I say. Book printed tomorrow? Andrew says it will be ready on Monday but I don't know, I'll believe in its existence when I see the boxes full.

You see I'm a wee bit disappointed because fear indicates a lack of faith. It indicates having sat still in the same place for a longer time than is required. It indicates a certain amount of stagnation. Brezhnev era stagnation. 70s stagnation. Whereas what we need is detente. Detente on a massive scale, and a big shake-up of the department. God shakes, the enemy sifts. And God has a threshing-tool which he has spent 40 years in the making, which he is going to use in the fulfilment of his purposes on the earth. It seems I'm not the only one to lack faith, but it also seems that if I'm to take any sort of lead then I must be the one to break the deadlock. But she's so scared she might panic. The reason people are in a paralysed state of fear is the principality I was talking about earlier. It's frozen with fear because it knows it's been rumbled. It's practically everywhere, hence the strange silences and curious inaction- remember in that dream, how you were when you faced up to that bloke? Sort of paralysed? Well then.

You can't blame them for it. They were deceived. So now we've got to undeceive them. Shine, Jesus, shine, shine on us all.

It's a strange season and no mistake. I said yesterday that it felt like God had opened the windows of heaven and reality was leaking out onto earth causing the most tremendous truth. Today it feels different. Today it feels like the waters are moving beneath the surface of the earth and the sky is quivering with rising air - something's happening. Something's afoot. The truth has seeped into the ground and is impinging on the waters and the waters are moving and rising and evaporating into the air and the air is trembling with the truth. It's the dark holiness. It trembles and quivers, and there is a hush.

Your problem is, your mind is so narrow, and so closed by reading Joyce Bloody Meyer all the time, that you can't see what's standing in front of your face. The unsaved do a better job of discerning who stands before them, than you do. It's pathetic. No wonder I get frustrated to the point of effing and blinding.

Just sort it all out amongst yourselves now, but don't take too long. I've got a ministry to fulfil.

Horrible old man comes up to me in church in Scotland once and asks, "Do you fish?" meaning, did I play with myself. Without missing a beat the Spirit puts the answer in my mouth, "I make nets".

That was wisdom all right. That's the advantage of having a dodgy brain, it blanks out at the opportune moment and the Spirit can say whatever he likes.

During my attendance at Gilcomston South this horrible old man buggered off and didn't bother us again.

Now we have given Mister Empty loads of rope. He's comprehensively, if unwittingly condemned himself over the past week or so. When I realised it was all over I switched off. No point in listening any more. Cosa finita con eleganza.

Oh of course you wouldn't have known this, not reading anything other than trashy American books, but Martin Luther used a lot of colourful language as well. He used to use scatology. In other words he used to say shit a lot. Well I use sexual language. It's just another bodily function, one that a lot of people need to become a lot more adult about. You don't think God's done all this only to leave this one little detail to chance, do you? Well, do you?

The scale of self-condemnation in Mister Empty's speech a few days ago is entertainingly broad. He piled it on and on and on, not knowing that he was writing up his own judgement.

You see that's ironic, that's got 2 meanings - it's his judgement, in the sense that it's a judgement that he has made, and it's his judgement, in the sense that it is the judgement that is passed on him. "You will be judged by your very own words."

Do you see? It's both senses at the same time.

This sort of thing is actually very funny, from a certain point of view. The funnyman is funny even in the revelation of his nature, although at the end, the joke's on him.

But it's a different kind of funny. It's a "The Lord laughs at his enemies" kind of funny. A darker humour.

If it carries on it's bound to get uglier and uglier. I'm not listening any more, my ears, as Rigby used to say, are not garbage cans. But well it'd be nice to have Helga back, or at least, Lynwen with Jonathan. Would that work? Lynwen is plenty grown up, isn't she? I think she's marvellous. But anyway, no I dunno, perhaps there are other dimensions going on. None of my business any more now. I'll miss the jokes.

But knowing where they come from, I wouldn't be able to enjoy it any more, because it's one irony too many, this time. Do you understand? I don't like the spectacle of a religious wolf.

Now a saint dressed as a sinner playing a saint, that's a different game. That's a scenario of Shakespearean opportunities. Try to understand! Depths of language, complexities of reference mirroring the complexities of the human person! Come on, put down your Joyce Bloody Meyer and pick up some real literature! Or perhaps a philosophy book. Or some poetry. Plays. Anything that deals with what it is to be human. We know God, but we're also supposed to know ourselves, because we ask God to know us thoroughly, and that's what self-knowledge is: knowing ourselves known. Knowing ourselves known by God.

It's all there in Genesis 2. Ezer kenegdo. It's what marriage is all about! And I'm the only one of you not bloody married! Well apart from Lynwen obviously. You've got to get the spiritual revelation of these things out of your hearts and into your heads. Otherwise you will miss the point completely and you will also miss me, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life sitting alone in silence because not one of you can be bothered to drag yourself into incarnation. That is, the Word made flesh. You're not in heaven yet, so stop pretending you are. Come down to earth where the ordinary people live. That's what Jesus did, and that's what he expects us to do as well. No, you've been taught wrongly.

And stop being so fearful about words. I know exactly what you're like because I used to be that way myself, before I moved on. I mention philosophy and you freak out. I'm not telling you what to believe, I'm trying to encourage you to broaden your minds. We enter by the narrow gate, but we come out into a spacious (="broad") place. You people think you have to stay in a narrow space. No. The gate is narrow, oh yes, and the way to the gate is narrow. But once you're through the gate, you carry on walking that path until one day you look around only to find that you are walking across a huge meadow, with a stream, and flowers and a lovely blue sky. And we are encouraged to walk on the grass! Play! Run about! Enjoy yourselves! Not only in your hearts, as you do at the moment, but in your souls, in your minds, and in your bodies, too. Our salvation is a complete salvation. At the moment your fellowship and worship are of the heart only. Yes God seeks those who will worship him in spirit and in truth. But not ONLY in spirit! We have emotional souls and rational minds and physical bodies as well. "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength." Render unto Caesar. For the heart, we have spiritual things. For the soul, we have emotional things. For the mind, we have mental things. And for the body, we have physical things. It's so ironic that I should be teaching you about these things. What's in your heart should percolate through into your soul, and into your mind, and into your body. It works from the inside outwards - you must have heard that one before. I don't use cliches but in this case I use your Sunday morning language just to show you that what I'm teaching isn't some new advanced teaching, it's the basic teaching of salvation in the Bible. Whichever way you cut it, it's there. You've been in thrall to something that has prevented you from stretching yourselves emotionally, mentally and physically. You're all spirit, and no soul, no mind, no body. Just like as if you were disembodied spirits. That's what your fellowship is like. Friends was a graphic illustration of this. How much longer is it going to take before the light dawns.

I think one way of talking about the nature of the renewed person, is through the metaphor of worship. And worship is an expression of love. You see the whole thing concerns the wholeness of Jesus' salvation. He doesn't just save our spirits; he saves our emotional souls, our rational minds, and our physical bodies as well.

Now you may well be thinking, what is this emotional wreck mental case addict smoking 40 a day doing telling us about wholeness of the soul, mind and body? It's supposed to be funny, on the surface. But probe deeper in the wisdom of God, and there are many lessons to be learnt. Lessons about salvation. Lessons about the Cross. Lessons about healing. God has invested a lot, and worked very hard for over 40 years to get every detail of this right. And I'm fed up with explaining myself. But as long as fiasco after fiasco keeps happening, then I can't settle down and do what I'm supposed to be doing. At the moment it's sorting things out so that I can start to build. I am demolishing the mistakes of the past so that I can build (cf. Jeremiah somewhere). When the King of Persia got a new queen, she spent I think it was a whole year in preparation. I can't remember the details but she spent 6 months under one regime of preparation and 6 months under another, in order to become fit to marry the king, you see. Now that's what's happening in the Body today. We are moving out of one season of preparation into the final stage of preparation prior to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. And for this task he has appointed an overseer. A foreman. A manager. Pay close attention to everything that's going on and you will see people doing their jobs and playing their parts. Not on the surface, but in the Kingdom. Who has God put in charge? Whoever it is, will be waiting for people to start listening to him. He's been talking for several years now, and waiting for everyone else to stop talking and start listening. Because he's got some interesting and highly relevant things to say. But as long as you insist on going your own way and doing your own thing, he cannot be heard. He's not going to impose himself on you. He's not like that. He's just going to endure the blows until they stop falling. When everybody quiets down and stops assaulting him then things will become easier for him.

The sort of insult to the holiness of God that we heard the other morning on the radio was an absolute disgrace. Helga taking the piss was bad enough, but a certified demoniac slandering God's chosen, now that's quite another thing altogether. I think now things are a bit calmer, we can get heaven's perspectives concerning that disgraceful exhibition of diabolical slander and abuse directed at God's chosen. And consider, you happily allow that sort of thing to happen, so what does that say about the state of your churches today? You allow a devil in angel's clothing to pour death and scorn over God's faithful son, from a platform supposedly devoted to God's Word.

See the irony? The cognitive dissonance? The clash? The horrific imbalances in an organisation which can allow such a wholly wrongful thing to take place?

That's why God has sent his teacher to you.

See it all adds up doesn't it.

The way you have treated his teacher proves that you need his teacher.

So stop using him as a punching-bag and start listening to him.

You won't welcome God's chosen face to face, so God has to send him round the back. Spinoza said "nature abhors a vacuum". Because you have left the garden untended to grow wild, wild animals have come in, and you have left them there, because they look OK in a wild jungle of a garden. Just as Stalin called himself The Great Gardener, so God has sent his Great Gardener to sort out your garden for you. (Your garden = the soul and mind of the local Body.) Mister Empty was able to play amongst you pretending to be one of us, because the garden is in such a SHOCKING state that one more vicious wild animal didn't notice. If you had tended your vineyard then you would have been able to see that there was a predator in it. We've got another one as I believe, waiting in the wings to pour out his hatred and venom over God's son. What a bore. But, let it happen quickly and let's get it over with. This is taking far too long. There are some serious lapses in personal discipleship going on, for things to have reached this state. There are some serious weak links, people. Because when there are structural faults held in place by a principality undiscerned by the watchmen, that's a sure fire indication that someone's getting up to no good.

Well we've got a whole night ahead and I'm not going anywhere. Let's see if the Holy One will graciously shed any light on these revelations.

Paul said, if one member hurts, the whole body suffers. His healing is intimately connected with the welfare of the Body of which he is a member, you see. You lot, diseased and broken and soiled without even knowing it, insist that he become whole and clean to join you, while you yourselves are just as wounded as he is! He is a picture for you of the state of God's Bride. His healing is bound up with yours. Don't you see? For you to stand there half dead and expect him to measure up to standards you aren't even aware that you're not keeping, is A BIT RICH. As you allow him to minister to you, so you will be able to minister to him, and you will receive healing together. That's how it works. I cannot believe I am having to teach such basic lessons of the spiritual life to a bunch of people who claim to represent the Word of God every single living day on the local radio.

This is fun. Things are livening up again. No-one would be better pleased than I, if Mister Empty turned out to be nothing more than a severely fecked up sheep - look, you get these people who are the earthworkers. Let them not try it on with the saints. If he is destined for heaven, let him know his place there, and keep to it. Gebbie was ignored by the sons of light, back in Aberdeen, and they would be roughly of the same variety of churchgoer.

If he is one of us, then he falls within my catchment area. Now, WHAT was that he was saying about a brother?

“The mouth is the overflow of the heart” (Matt. 12:34)

A good man produces good out of the good storeroom of his heart. An evil man produces evil out of the evil storeroom, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart (Luke 6:45)


For at whatever point you judge the next man, you are condemning yourself, because you who judge do the same things. (Romans 2:1)

“For there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1)

“The accuser of the brethren” (Revelation 12:10)

The New Testament word for Devil means literally, “the Slanderer”. We do not accuse or bad-mouth anyone, not even Satan. Indeed we are specifically told not to slander beings higher than ourselves (Jude 9; X). But to slander a child of God is the devil’s business, as we read in Revelation.

Our speech has a homeward curve, an upward tendency towards the light, leading judgement to victory. It is the characteristic skill unique to Christ’s brothers and sisters, to lead judgement to victory; no-one else does it like we do. Judgement has to do with punishment and fear; we have no part in this, because Christ has taken our judgement for us. We are told:

Do not speak evil against one another, brethren. He that speaks evil against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you that you judge your neighbour? (James 4:11-12)

Right, well that deals with him. Because if he wants to hob nob with the sons of light, and indeed wants to be thought of as such, then he can be tested in the same way as he would test us. Glance through this little florilegium I prepared earlier.

I really don't want to waste any more time with the earthworkers with issues and the dogs when there are children of grace who are in pain and needing help.

I don't know who looks after the earth workers. I think he's got a woman to look after him. I'll be glad if he is destined for salvation but he's got to know his place.

Which isn't pouring his own shit over the people of Cape Town and making out it's someone else's.

That's a game for children.

There's another one too. Same goes for him. If they've got their place then let them keep it.

Well I hope I've got a radio programme to listen to in the morning. I like Mister Empty. He thinks to test us with questions like "how do you pray" to which he isn't in a position even to begin to understand the answer.

Look I'm sorted mate, it's an eternal thing, you wouldn't understand. You? If you want me to believe you're sorted too, then sort yourself out, get a proper testimony. Yes he pissed you off, that's what he does. Oh, I see, he thought he was the only one entitled to behave like that. I think the basic situation is he hasn't come across someone like him before. As he said, he doesn't understand how someone who swears, someone like Luther perhaps, can be in Christ.

As Karl Barth almost says, we hope no-one is in hell tonight.

It's basically earthworkers. Gebbie did you an enormous favour that time you were attacked by the gas fire man. He couldn't resist a go at you either. Basically the Body is a corpus permixtum in all kinds of ways and some people are less easy to deal with than others. Some people like to shit themselves hoping it'll stick to someone else. This in the interests of testing people, I imagine.

Well I don't particularly enjoy being made to take the blame for someone else's shit storms. Let it go.

Anyway, he's trying. Now I usually assume - oh, he's trying to scare me. Oh that pisses me off. That pisses me off royally. Big time. So what's going on, doesn't he ever stop? Grace, dude, is the solution to a knife in the gut, not shitting on other people. Grace is the solvent. Forgiveness and grace and all those cooling words that take the heat out of the hot and the sting out of death, whose victory is where.

Oh, the cool shower of forgiveness, the pools of mercy.