Hectic-boring

Life, as you know, is hectic and hectic-boring. What can I say. I am at Uchee Pines at the moment. We had the Uchee Pines board meeting this morning. I left my wife last night at a Ramada Inn in Denver, at the Mid-America ASI convention. The speakers were great. As a matter of fact, it was a great party all around, but I had to leave right after Sabbath to fly to Alabama. I arrived at my motel room at 1:30 AM. (Mostly because the Motel shuttle didn't come for more than one hour to pick me up.) I was up by 5:30 AM. Wilbur Atwood from Wildwood picked me up and we had a great conversation on our way. The board was easy as well.

In the middle of my four-hour night, I rec'd two phone calls from EVI telling me of a fire on the mountain just north of us. The winds blew from 40 to 60 miles per hour, northward. In a very short time the fire took out seven houses (unconfirmed by me) in Masonville. The Lord spared EVI for the second time in relation to fire. The first time was in the year 2000. This time, the rain and snow came. So from my poor vantage point I think all is well at the moment at EVI.

Garwin McNeilus has nothing but praises for my son. And guess what? The big Mid-America booth backdrop has a picture of Jason and I front and center. Like, it makes no sense whatsoever, but we are the main attraction in Mic-America, for sure. Well, at least Jason is. I just happen to be in the picture.

My wife has EVI pretty well organized for Maranatha. We are extremely grateful for the work she's done for us at EVI. I intend to take a three-day vacation with her at Glenwood Springs, CO, on the 12-14 of this month. She must work on sending her container now. The container is not re-certified yet. We are waiting to see if they will certify it. I had given a certain overly trusted individual permission to use the container to store Brent's furniture. They dragged it with my permission promising to be careful. They were not careful enough. There is some damage, and we await the verdict. It may cost me $2,500. My fault.

Christina and Caleb, our two adventurers have their tickets. They are raring to go. We all hope they will not be too homesick,

I took Ramon Chow, David Fournier's uncle by marriage, to see EVI. He says David is in the market to buy a house, but not in the market for a wife yet.

I'm asked to do a seminar at the OCI Retreat on Leadership Concerns. I know nothing about the subject. You can all pray for me. Today, we start a new Lifestyle session. We have seventeen guests. That is one more than we can house and we praise God for the good problem.

Last week, we worked on the farm mulching our raspberries and getting our eyes full of hay dust. Everybody was walking around with what appeared to be red eye. I guess we are all okay by now. We also spent parts of two days re-shingling the Village.

At the Mid-America ASI chapter meetings, one of our speakers (I can't remember which,) after quoting Jesus who said, "Love your neighbor as yourself," reiterated an interpretation I do not agree with. Over and over again I hear preachers point to this scripture as proof positive that we ought to love ourselves.

I disagree!

The text does not say we ought to love ourselves. Jesus is simply stating a fact--we do love ourselves and in our relation with others we ought to at least love them as much as we love ourselves. Now, let's look at this in a practical setting. Supposing you want to sell your car. It looks good, cosmetically, but you know, and only you know that the engine is shot. When a prospective buyer comes to purchase the car self-love says don't discourage the person by revealing all that is wrong with it. But, if you love your neighbor as much as you love yourself, what will you do? You'll tell him/her the truth of the matter.

Question: What does that do to self? Why, self in this instance is denied, which is really what Christ would have us do with self--deny it. "If any man would come after Me," Jesus commanded, "let him deny himself and pick up his cross and follow me." That is the only proper thing to do with self.

Self love is the sin problem. "It is the love of self that destroys our peace." MB 16 or 18. The carnal nature is always looking for a reason to justify self-love and the verse "love your neighbor as you love yourself seems to afford the best argument. Don't buy it. It is not true.

Love your neighbor; deny self, period.

So says the Preacher to his Tribe.