Egypt #4: New Age Loons

We ran into the loons in Egypt. Not the birds that walked among the reeds of the Nile but the kind that have something wrong in their head. Our first experience was while we were waiting in line to get tickets for the Great Pyramid of Giza. These tickets would allow us entry INSIDE the pyramid and only a few hundred in the morning and another few hundred in the afternoon were allowed. While we were waiting to be among that few hundred we were told by our guide that a group, primarily Americans, paid over $15,000 to open the pyramid early so that just 10 of them to get into the pyramid by themselves for an hour to “meditate”. They believed in the power of the pyramid and believed they would gain special “knowledge” or “blessing” from that meditation. The pyramid was cool to be in but certainly didn’t give me any special powers when I was there. But maybe there were too many of us and I didn’t meditate right.

Our second encounter with the loons of Egypt was in Abydos. Abydos is the holy site of ancient Egypt. After the epic battle between Osiris and Set led to the dismemberment of Osiris he was again reassembled in Abydos and later buried there after reviving enough to have a child with his wife Isis. Osiris was worshipped for thousands of years as the god who ushered you into the afterlife and so his burial place was important. You can find the oldest temple, rivaling that of the great pyramids in Abydos. Within one of the temples at Abydos you will find sculptures up high in the supports of the roof with unusual Egyptian characters. One looks a LOT like a helicopter, one like a submarine and another like a blimp. How did the ancients know these items? How did they sculpt them into their stone 4000 years ago? Many of these New Age Loons will tell you it was because of aliens or at least a “special” knowledge grasped by the ancients and so we found many lugging their “prayer” rugs around Abydos so they could meditate and pray in this sacred alien place.

Now I love ancient Egypt and am developing relationships with some modern Egyptians as well but I don’t worship the ancients or the aliens who may have influenced them. I look at the monoliths and I see nothing more than human ingenuity. Enough people and enough time and you can move a mountain or build a mountain. The work done by the ancients was hard work but it wasn’t hard-to-understand work. We are amazed simply because we build buildings in a matter of a few years where they would plan for decades. We are amazed because they would coordinate tens of thousands of people to work together and we have trouble with more than three trying to get together. We are amazed because they maintained a culture for five thousand years and we are worrying about whether we will last through our third century.

Don’t worship men who worshipped gods that were poor substitutes for the true God. Don’t meditate on wonders of human ingenuity when you have the same image of God within yourself. Don’t stand amazed at the past; do appreciate it, do learn from it, and most of all DO follow the truth into the future.

Akhenaten

Akhenaten ruled only 17 years as Pharaoh of Egypt but his influence was astounding. Imagine a new president coming to the US and this president deciding to change the center of power from Washington DC to the middle of the desert in central Nevada. They would have to start building new buildings from the foundation up, then work on the infrastructure of roads, airports, power lines, etc. Then they would have to move all the governmental support with the people, copy machines, computers, office furniture. They would then have to fill in with the Walmarts, Home Depots, Pharmacies, and Bars. You get the idea.

That is what Akhenaten did. He moved EVERYTHING from the capital near Cairo to a new capital 350 miles away in the middle of the desert called Amarna. He moved the whole government, people and all, to this new site. But what he did that REALLY changed everything was to outlaw the gods of Egypt. He “starved out” the temples to all gods but one: the Egyptian god Aten, the sun god. He changed his name from Amenhotep (Amun is happy) to Akhenaten (Spirit of Aten). This was heretical to the people, but what can you do when your king, the ultimate ruler, said “jump”?

It took a LOT of money to do this. It took a lot of confidence in Aten to do this. That is why many biblical historians believe that Akhenaten was the Pharaoh of Joseph. Joseph influenced Amenhotep with the dream interpretation of HUGE prosperity followed by TERRIBLE famine. Joseph influence Amenhotep towards ONE God, the God who shines on all people, not just the Egyptians. Joseph influenced Amenhotep to become Akhenaten, the Spirit of the One God. Because of the prosperity Egypt was awash in gold, because of the famine and being the ONLY one with food Egypt was FLOODED with gold, people looking for work, and people who couldn’t ply their trade anywhere else. Just what is needed to build a new city in the middle of the desert.

It is interesting that built into the four corners of this new city were steles (tombstone like granite plaques) which were inscribed with the rules for behavior and commands for living in this new city. Here are some of the commands: “There is no God but Aten, you shall worship the Aten and the Aten alone.” And “You shall make no images of the Aten out of wood or stone.” (which, again, was radical because ALL the other gods had images made of them) The Aten was represented only in beams of light coming from the sun which gave light, warmed, and even was shown with little hands on the end of the beams indicating that all we have is from the Aten.

I don’t know if Akhenaten was influenced by Joseph or not. I don’t know if his view of the Aten was really the same God we serve but I do know he changed everything from the government, to the religion, to the art (check out Amarna period Egyptian art). Change came only from HUGE amounts of money and willing workers. But his changes didn’t last long. Akhenaten’s son Tutankhaten (Living image of Aten) became pharaoh at the age of nine due to the untimely death of his father and older brother. He died only 9 years later at 18 and many believe he was murdered because of his father’s heretical ways. (Many priests were unhappy that their patron god was de-funded by Akhenaten). Even though the boy tried to change back under the influence of his “vizier” Ay and changed his name from “Living image of Aten” to “Living image of Amun” or Tutankhamun or as we know him King Tut.

A short 32 years later the 18th dynasty of Egypt came to a close and there came a new dynasty of pharaohs who probably didn’t know Joseph and probably would have made those troublesome Hebrews work a little harder for a LOT less money.

How to be Wealthy

"Every life has a scoreboard and how you choose to keep score is up to you." Roy Williams.

How do you measure how successful you are? How do you keep score of your wealth?

"Wealth is measured in months. How many months can you survive if you no longer got a paycheck and you lived completely on your investments and savings? Once that becomes indefinitely - then you are wealthy." Robert Kyosaki.

Some people measure success by their ability to hurt others. The more they hurt; the more successful they are. I knew a couple of guys who measured a successful cruise by how many women they were able to "bed" in the days of the cruise. We all know people who use crazy measurements for success. Most people tend to measure wealth and success by the amount of THINGS they have and how expensive those THINGS are.

Let me give you a few measures of success that you might now have considered before. (I borrowed much of this from Roy Williams, sorry Roy):

1) How curious are you? The more curious you are - the more successful and wealthy you are. Never lose the wonder of discovery in the universe. Never quit learning, experimenting, and discovering and your coffers will overflow.

2) How LITTLE do I need to be happy? "It is not the man who has little, but he who desires more, that is poor" said Seneca. Contentment is wealth and success, just one dollar more is poor-ness.

3) Have I proven that I care? Everyone who eats a whopper leaves a little more depressed because no one REALLY cooked that meal, but something grilled at home, burnt, and dry, and without your favorite pickle relish but done with a love for you - makes you RICH! Success is a race to prove I care about you.

4) Have I made someone's life better today? The people who focus on making other's lives better are the wealthy ones. The hoarders, racked by selfish ambition are the poor. What have you done today to make the world a better place for the people in it?

The point is that money in the bank is a poor scoreboard of success and wealth. Don't get caught up in the common, ordinary, crowd-following measurements of wealth and success. Don't be a slave to what advertisers tell you is success. I pray I have made your life just a little better with these words simply because I care about you.

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Say what you want about Edgar but he could put words together. His favorite topic was the death of a beautiful woman which was his topic in at least 4 other of his poems. Read this out loud and hear the words. When you read it FEEL how easily and unforced he uses rhyme and repetition. The "emotion" of the poem is dark but love comes through in unusual places; the first four lines of the last stanza particularly stand out. The moon and the stars will keep his love forever in his mind.

In this ever increasingly electronic age we need to stop and smell the proverbial roses but we also need to stop and savor words and phrases constructed NOT for the speed of tweets but for the evoking of emotion.

What do you Remember?

I remember a new Kodak camera for Christmas. Not me, my parents, got the new instant Kodak. It had those huge cartridges that you would put in them and most of all it had a onetime use bulb flash. I used to love looking at the used bulbs that has some crazy white substance around them like some barnacle clinging to the blackened glass. But I most remember being BLINDED by the bulb to the point where the second picture was of all of us cringing with the anticipated solar flare that was about to erupt in our corneas. "Don't blink" mom would say. Right.

But memories are kind of like that flash bulb in our minds. Depending on your age you remember when the flash bulb seared these things into your memory. You remember where you were and what you were doing when Kennedy was killed, when Reagan was shot, when the Challenger blew up and 9/11. Those events are like extreme flash bulbs searing them into your permanent memory.

On a lesser scare, a lesser wattage maybe, we also remember things that surprise us. We remember things that flash past the normal, mundane, and ordinary of life and surprise us with delight, disgust, or simple poetic humor. We remember the funny TV commercials, the daring billboards, and the extreme crimes. The thing about them that makes them funny, daring, or extreme is the light bulb that imprints it in our minds.

Other events are connected with songs to the point where EVERY TIME you hear that song you remember where you were and what you were doing when that flash bulb was lit. Songs will give pleasant memories (a love song playing during your first kiss or dance) or they will give unpleasant memories (organ music brings up stuff uncomfortable church services). I have a song that, every time I hear it, causes a nausea in me that I cannot explain or remember.

You remember those flash points embedded in the silver-nitrate of your brain. If you want to make something memorable? Surprise me, delight me, or even disgust me and I, you, we will remember it. It works in advertising, in speeches and sermons, in writing, and most of all in your daily lives. As we approach the holidays and family times I hope you pull out your Kodak and blind all your relatives with a surprise and delight that will never fade.

Life finds a Way

Dr. Malcolm in Jurassic Park warned of dinosaurs multiplying even though they were all “created” as male. He simply said “life finds a way.”

When the kids were young we lived in a town where it just wasn’t the right thing to do to have farm animals so we settled for fish and Gerbils. We had a wall full of fish, nine tanks, and in one tank we attempted to breed minnows or gold fish to feed a huge clown-fish we had in another tank. All of our attempts at causing an increase in the population of minnows didn’t work and we had to frequent the Pet Store to get our food supply. After a while the electrical cost of nine tanks, filters, heaters, lights, and bubblers got a little too much for me AND my budget. Life didn’t find a way with fish. But then again, that clown-fish never went hungry.

Our next attempt was with Gerbils. My kids and I looked at all the cool tunnels, rooms and exercise equipment in the Gerbil habitats and the engineer in us got the better of us. Fortunately the budget limited our Gerbil city to a few cages and tunnels to start out with but we were ready for the residents. We bought two Gerbils to populate our city and the Pet Shop attendant assured me that they were both male, after looking at their furry undersides. We cheerfully brought them home and watched them run from space to space, chewing up toilet paper rolls and building nests to sleep. One day, a few weeks later, one the kids said, “Um, dad, there’s baby Gerbil’s in the cage. How can they do that if both are males?” I successfully fended off the “birds and bees” question in favor of seeing how cool the 6 little Gerbils would be. We went to the Pet Store and bought a few more tunnels and rooms for our habitat and watched them grow. It wasn’t long, seemingly days, and we had a population problem in our habitat. Life was definitely finding a way! Before I could implement some population control measures the flurry of activity in the habitat produced a loose tunnel and they took over our basement. I had to do something before they took over the house and I did; at least I think I did, I wouldn’t be surprised if the new owners of our house still find them hiding in the old farm house basement. Life finds a way.

We humans deceive ourselves into believing that we are in control. Whether we are breeding dinosaurs or gerbils, we REALLY are not in control. Life finds a way. I pay hundreds of dollars a year for pest control around my house and yet my wife Frankie freaks out when she has to use the restroom at night because she found a small scorpion on the wall of our bedroom one morning.

We kill bugs one way and they develop a resistance so we kill them another way, then a new bug moves in because its enemy was just killed by you. Life finds a way. We are not in control. I am sure the Egyptians had their bug killers just like their snake handlers but it was soon proved they were not in control either. Life finds a way, just like the author of that life.

Signs of the Apocalypse

At the movie theater Frankie and I got our popcorn and drinks and the total came to $12.75. I didn’t have a ten so I gave the young lady a $20 and three ones. She looked at me with a confused expression and then handed back the three ones. I said I didn’t want all the change and handed the money back to her. Again, confused she took the money, rang it into the register, the drawer opened and she handed me the three ones back with a quarter. “I gave your $23” I reminded her, “so I should get back $10.25.” And I gave her back the three ones. She took them, put them in the drawer, stared at the various bills in the drawer, and then counted out ten ones for me and handed the stack to me. It was no longer worth the effort I put the huge wad of bills in my pocket and left with my popcorn.

These are from the internet and anonymous:

I walked into MacDonald’s with a buy-one-get-one free coupon for a breakfast sandwich. I handed it to the girl and she looked over at a sign that also said “buy-one-get-one for free”. She said to me that they were already buy-one-get-one free. I was about to put the coupon away when she took and said, “I guess they are both free then.” She gave me the two without charging me.

One day I was walking on the beach with some friends when one of them shouted. “Look at the dead bird!” Someone near us looked up at the sky and said, “Where?”

While looking at a house, my brother asked the real estate agent which direction was north because, he explained, he did not want the sun waking him up every morning. She asked, “Does the sun rise in the north?” When my brother explained that, the sun rises in the east, and has for some time now. She shook her head and said, “Oh, I don’t keep track of that stuff.”

I worked at a technical support for a 24/7 call center. One day I got a call from an individual who asked what hours the call center was open. I told him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He responded, “Is that Eastern or Pacific time?”

My sister has a lifesaving tool in her car designed to cut through a seat belt if she is trapped. She keeps it in the trunk.

My friends and I were on a soda run and noticed that the cased were discounted 10%. Since it was a big party, we bought two cases. The cashier multiplied 2 times 10% and gave us a 20% discount.

I could not find my luggage at the airport baggage area, so I went to the lost luggage office and told the woman that my bags never showed up. She smiled and told me not to worry because she was a trained professional and I was in good hands. “Now” she asked me, “has your plane arrived yet?”

Word Vision

Have you ever heard words that don’t give you information as much as they give you a picture, an emotion, or a vision?

Beautiful Woman (by AR Ammons)

The spring
in

her step
has

turned to
fall

Cal you see it? Can you picture it in your mind? Can you see the beautiful woman? What I like about this short, one sentence poem is that you really don’t know if it is positive or negative? It doesn’t say the beautiful woman is no longer beautiful. In fact I would dare say that if you are reading this as a teenager, in the spring of life, you would take this as sad or negative. But if you are in your fifties you would look at this poem differently. It is almost like you are looking at this poem from different sides of the metaphor. As if you mentally hold the poem in your hands and look at it from a number of sides to figure out what it is saying. Then after careful examination you realize the poem isn’t saying much but it causes YOU to say a lot.

The mixed metaphor is almost a physical jolt to your brain. It causes your brain to do a: “Wait! What?” A spring in your step at the spring of your life seems to degenerate into falling into the fall of your life. But turn the poem to another angle and you find that the beauty of a fresh spring is just a foretaste of the beautiful maturity in the colors of fall.

We are now in a VERY political season and every word and phrase is analyzed and processed to the point where it is unrecognizable to the one who said it. Each candidate talks about “change” as if that is what we all want to do. But the truth is we are all uncomfortable with change, it is happening around us all the time, just watch the gas prices. Is change good or bad? The answer is both. If you pick up the word in your mind and look at it from all angles you will get both answer and more. You can take ANY word or phrase and make it say what you want it to say and do what you want it to do.

This makes our job more difficult because you and I can hear the EXACT same word and find what you want to hear in it. We need to hone our Word Vision and find intent behind the poem. We must take our stand on the intent and that takes work and research not just pundits and youtube videos. Find the intent and stand on it or you will fall for anything.

Captain Obvious

Let me give you a list of some of the studies that are being done right now according to Popular Science Magazine:

“Why do teenagers drink?” is a study in the by Prevention Science and what do you think there conclusion is? After years of studying and millions of dollars they have come to the conclusion that teenagers drink to “have fun.”

“Are vacations better without cell phones?” is a study being done by US university professors along with Tel Aviv University. After another million or so they have come to understand that vacations ARE BETTER without cell phones.

“Are un-athletic kids unpopular at school?” is a study in The Journal of Sports Behavior. There conclusions after their million dollars is YES they are more unpopular.

“Do long ambulance drives make you more likely to die?” is a study by Emergency Medicine Journal in September of 2007. YES, they found, in fact you are more likely to die the longer the ambulance ride.

Another study found out that “Loneliness sucks” and still another found that “You can catch the flu more likely in winter” and the king study of them all is that “Sleep will cure sleepiness!”

All of these studies spent millions of dollars and hours of research to tell us what all of us already know. But now “it is quantified and can be quoted” the professors tell us. Okay, it is time I apply for a grant too. Here are a few of my grant funding request ideas:

“How watching Basketball on TV and eating blueberry tort effect my midsection” I propose to sit during the who March Madness and NBA finals season in my Laziboy and eat blueberry tort to see if my midsection grows.

“How vacations effect relaxation” I propose to use the grant money to vacation all year and measure my stress level periodically.

“See if people are really happier with money” I propose to use the $10 million dollars per year of grant money to see if it makes me any happier or not. This might take a few years of research.
What do you think? I should be able to get mine funded with what the government is already funding. Sometimes you just want to give people a V8 bump on the head don’t ya?

Genius

I have to admit, I cheated in Seminary. That sounds pretty bad doesn’t it so let me soften it a bit. In seminary I got really good at killing two birds with one stone. I would have a huge paper due on one particular book of the Bible and so I would “just happen” to be preaching from that same book at my church. My masters thesis “just happened” to be on the VERY THING I was doing out in my community at the time. The research I did for my class I used in my sermons, the surveys and community involvement I did for my church also was the research for my master’s thesis.

In the 1700’s and 1800’s there were composers that would compose a complete opera for one particular opera house in a matter of two weeks. Rossini was one of those wandering composers who came to the Valley Theater in Rome and was asked for a quick opera. While a genius, many thought he was more lazy than genius and would often not compose the overture until the very day of the performance. The composers often did battle with the singers, especially the “prima donnas” who would take their composition and “enhance” it with all kinds of extra runs, high notes and even drop out songs to make themselves look better; after all, people came to the theater for the soloists not the composer. Rossini composed this opera in two weeks, turning over the overture a full day before the performance. The opera was a hit and Rossini became a legend. The opera was called The Barber of Seville and it’s overture was it’s second most famous piece. (Figaro being the most famous piece) Most of us grew up with the overture to the Barber of Seville from Bugs Bunny’s rendition: The Rabbit of Seville. You can find it on Youtube if you forgot.

What we don’t know is that the overture for the Barber of Seville was used not just once, but this was the FIFTH TIME he used this overture in one of his operas. You wonder how a composer can produce an entire opera in a few weeks. He borrows from all his previous operas, changes a note here and there and reuses it. He could get away with it since nothing was recorded in the 1800’s and composers would often wander from town to town. Talk about killing two birds with one chorus.

There are some preachers I know who believe they only have a certain amount of good sermons in them. Once they start running low they take a call to another church and start over again. Is this cheating and underhanded or is this smart and efficient? I have come to discover that if you give a lazy man a job that he HAS to do, you will find the most efficient and quick way to get things done. I think it all depends on your expectations. If you pay someone to produce a great opera for you, HOW he did it didn’t matter as much as how GOOD he did it. If you are expecting God to move through a preacher and touch you, should the fact that he gave that sermon 5 times before detract if the message truly moves you?
You will find many a genius is a master of efficiency. Or he could simply be lazy