Theology Pub – Beach Day

It had been a normal few weeks at the pub.  My two wives and myself had decided some R&R was in order as we had been working hard ever since we got back.  The 4th of July Beach Party was next week and we knew that the preparations and such would be taking up a vast majority of our time so we decided to get a pre-break in before the madness descended.  We packed up a picnic lunch and headed to the beach.  Pint jumped in the car at the last-minute which kind of shocked me but I went with it.  Not like I had any choice anyway.

The Pub had been bouncing as both the inside and the outside courtyard had been full of patrons for weeks.  It was warm to hot as far as weather so most of the patrons were exercising the ‘clothing optional’ part of the pub and for many days a sort of heat wave hit so only me and the barmaids were clothed for a few days but even the girls were wearing their more revealing courtyard outfit even inside. My girls kept up with the demand for my theology and I had to spend the rest of my time in my cellar brewing everything from my simplest stuff to Blood Moon Wine to keep the Silver Shields supplied.  As Independence Day approached though things began to die down.  Tequila, Connie and Myself felt things had died down enough so we decided today was a day to beat a hasty retreat and get some well needed rest.

We headed to the nude beach (nudity required which cuts down on numbers of tourists) and after shedding our clothes we set up blanket, large umbrella, chairs and a small pillow for Pint beside my chair.  I collapsed into my chair and broke out a book.  The ladies together dropped the cooler down which contained, cold fried chicken, sandwiches, brews and wine coolers.  They served up Pint three bowls of beer which he promptly drank one of and then curled up and fell asleep.  He was positioned right so that while I was reading I could drop down one arm and scratch his ears.

The girls went right to work trying to get a tan line free tan.  They would rotate together and take turns putting sunscreen on each other.  I of course simple took it all in that two beautiful and lovely women who also happened to be both my wives were getting along so well and enjoying each others company.  After an hour though they both rubbed sunscreen on each other one more time and jumped up and headed into the surf.  I pretended to place my book down and nod off but the truth is I was watching my lovelies play in the surf.  I was glad that when I put down my book that it had indeed covered up the fact that I was indeed aroused.

Pint woke up and after downing his second beer took off to play with girls.  I love those beagle ears when be was bounding as it makes him look like he is flying.  Pint took turns chasing the girls and they chased them. After a while though they came back and flung themselves down exhausted.  Pint soon followed and after drinking his last bowl of beer curled up again and took a nap.  I myself renewed reading my book.

At roughly noon we had the chicken and sandwiches and the brews.  We also had some bottled water to keep up our hydration.  The afternoon consisted of me getting off my chair and taking turns cuddling each of them and engaging in small talk.  Soon I found myself in between both of them cuddling me on each side.  Pint finally woke up and ate the sandwich we had saved for him.

As the sun started to set we gathered up out things and headed home to the mansion.  I was about to send the driver to the pub with Pint but he hopped out and ran up the steps into our home.

“You suppose he gets lonely without us Boss?”

“Could be, but regardless he is a friend so make up a bed for him.”

“No need, he can sleep with which ever of us isn’t with you.”

It became a strange thing how Pint seemed to not only adopt the Pub as his favorite place but our home as his as well.  It began to pan out exactly as Tequila had predicted and Pint became part of the bedtime tradition.  He would follow all three of us up the stairs.  The girl who was sleeping alone that night would kiss me and then he would follow her to her bedroom.  One night I peeked in and there he was curled up on the corner of the bed sleeping.  After that night in a purely platonic sense nobody slept alone anymore.

Perhaps he is lonely or maybe he just likes to dwell with people.  Even though he is eternal, Pint seems to have a great fondness for people who love him and wants to be with them.  I walked in that night and kissed him on the head.  He opened one eye slightly but once he saw me he fell back to sleep.  He then went into a dream where it looked like he was chasing something.  I grinned and went back to my room.  If he wanted to stay here with us til we all were gone – he was always welcome.

Welcome to All Things Rabyd, your friendly neighborhood ‘clothing optional’ theology pub.  I, the Rabyd Theologian and your bartender, thank you for stopping by.  Please drink your theology responsibly or have a designated driver to get you home.  Please tip your waitress and they might give you a kiss on the cheek.  Just remember life is short so enjoy it.

The Rabyd Writer’s Soul – Soul Searching

It has been a grinding week in some respects.  I too experience this thing of ‘would the week hurry up so I can get to vacation!”  Mostly though I am already on the process of soul searching which is what this sabbatical/hiatus is all about.  I feel like I am missing something but I am really not sure what that is and so I want some time to look and see.  If there is anything that is.  I am not sure and that is what bothers and puzzles me the most right now.  Perhaps I just need some sort of quest.

The Soul Rundown:

Reading: Still moving forward.  My hope is to use some day hikes to get some reading done and I will have some time off coming up.

Writing: The point of all the reading was to have extra stuff to talk about on the blog.  I need more than one post a day to hit my goals this year so it is important that the two go hand in hand.  Right now it is being in limbo before my vacation that is just making me listless.

Family: Well, with the bachelor party in the rear view mirror, all sights turn toward the wedding of the year on June 17th.  Just so everyone knows: Yes, I had alcohol to drink this last weekend following a few beer recommendations from an expert. No, I didn’t see and adult entertainment experts.  Yes, even with diabetes, my doc tells me a guy my size could get away with drinking ten beers but I don’t drink that much anyway.

Finances: To pay for my new hiking hobby. I think I will just create a jar and drop ten to twenty buck in it every week until I get the next amount for the next purchase. Being that my being temporarily diabetic condition prevents a lot of trips to the convince store, so I should be able to channel that money into some equipment over time.

Blessings and Cheers!!!

Hiking Meditations

I don’t really have time for a proper post on my normal subjects so I will do some writing here on hiking and what I think about when I am on a hike at times.

1. I think about hiking.  I know this is a tremendous surprise but I think about what I am doing at the moment, future hiking trips and hiking goals.
2. Theology – Yeah I tend to take theological ideas and bash them around too.
3. Books – Either ones I have read or want to read.
4. Stories – I actually come up with story ideas when walking too.  The only problem with this is not having a notebook is sometimes I forget them.
5. Family – given.
6. School – what I am going to do long term and short-term.
7. Gripes – I have them but it is easier to air them out on the trail to God.

There is also a whole other list of assorted things I think about on the trail but this is the normal thoughts list.  I think things through and it has definitely made me feel a lot better.

I have been spending time with my son this weekend instead of writing so much but i should be back at it full tilt next week.

Blessings and Cheers!!!

Harry Potter – Umbridge

Having finished Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix, I can say without a doubt as much as I think the main antagonist is an evil bastard, I would rather see Professor Umbridge dead first.  There is something to the kind of character who is drunk with power and does evil things in the name of good that I find much more dis-likable than pure desire for domination.  Voldemort’s evil is easy to see but Umbridge hides behind the rules and desire to force her will on others through legally obtained power and I find that more disgusting.  To use education for a political agenda is always a bad idea.

That said I am now in the second to last book and I find it very interesting at this point in the story.  There is the fact that Rowling has been allowing the characters to grow up and now face the social issues of growing up bu at the same time are facing real life and death stuff is great.  I get more impressed at her ability to write, use a good brevity of words but be very descriptive at the same time.  Her imagination and character development have been great.

With the last week of school upon me and then final next week I am looking forward to getting back the blog so to speak.  One of the things I will be doing is a closer look at Harry Potter once these things are done.  I have the movies on the way as well as a few other things.  The other thing I want to look at is the Hunger Games trilogy but I want to complete my full look at Harry Potter first.

Blessings and Cheers!!!

Harry Potter Notes

I have been in between classes and reading for school been reading Harry Potter.  I think the first thing I want to do this summer break is write a review on each book and movie.  First though I want to finish the books once and then go back and read them one at a time and then watch the movie related to it.  I want to compare the book to each movie.  At this point I have a few notes being one-third through the fifth book: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

1. There is definitely a feeling of dark foreboding that is growing at this point.  The first books kids could read and it would be pretty cool but the themes are getting far more mature as Harry hits his teen years.
2. The world is getting far more complex in a good way as I read them.
3. Characters at this point are getting far more three-dimensional.
4. The thing is these books beg to be made into movies.  That is probably why they were, because the visuals the book demand being turned into video.  Rowling’s is a fantastic writer with very deep descriptions without a lot of words.
5. I really have to discipline myself to keep working when I need to, the books are that good

Just a few thoughts at this point.

Blessings and Cheers!!!

The Rabyd Writer’s Soul – Main Character: Male or Female

Anyone who is long time reader of this blog will know that I like the two sexes just as they are.  For instance, I really have a problem with the idea of a woman becoming a better woman by being more masculine in her approach to things.  I don’t think our creator created two sexes accidentally and it really is a good thing that we are different.  I hear the idea of celebrating diversity on campus all the time but the one area this seems to be avoided is celebrating the differences between men and women.  Both sexes have their strengths and weaknesses.  I think design presses us toward the idea of complimentary opposites that are supposed to be working together with strengths covering the other’s weaknesses.  The idea that we are supposed to stand alone does not seem to fit with he idea “it is not good to dwell alone.”

Right now I am doing some of the ground work for my science fiction serial and the one real decision I am struggling with is should the main character be male or female.  I thought of using a couple and going back and forth as well but I am not really sure.  I have created the setting and the situation but my real problem is who should I drop into it.  I have a couple of weeks so I need to think about it more.  Your thoughts gentle reader would be appreciated.

The other thing in writing is the fact that I am doing more technical writing and assignment writing at school.  I am having a real problem with some of it because I really hate the style of most non-fiction writing.  There is a reason I like to tell stories and that is because I think it is far more interesting to read and actually has more influence on society.   I mean when is the last time you were excited to read a non-fiction book.

The Soul Rundown:

Writing: The blog and other things are changing over quite well.  My writing for school I struggle with because some of it is really not my style and so it seems much more like work.

Reading: I am actually a good chunk into Atlas Shrugged.  I have other motivations for doing it which involve firstly politics and exposing myself to more libertarian ideas of political science class, but also I am looking to what I am going to read next.  I have long put off the Harry Potter Series mostly because I have a tendency to shy away from things that are popular.  I do want to do kind of a read a book watch a movie thing with this.  Given that I have not read a single word or watched more than a half hour of the first movie, I should be able to give it a fresh perspective.

Finances:  I made the decision to have a political science major but I need to be more specific as far as direction and money is a big part of that like it or not.

Family: My baby girl just turned 22.  She is a great young lady and is turning into a fine mother.

Blessings and Cheers!!!

 

The Christian Marriage Bed – Part 32 – Christianity and the Kama Sutra – Introduction

Disclaimer: The subject of this post is human sexuality in the context of Christian belief.  It is intended for mature audiences.  If you are under the age of 18 you should have your parents read it and judge if it is appropriate for you to read.  Parents, lighten up about this with your teens because quite frankly I am trying to undo a lot of Christian mistakes in informing and educating people about sex.  You have been warned and encouraged, enter at your own risk.  Also, I am by no means a sexual expert, just a guy who has been married to the same woman for 25 plus years and a pastor who has for what ever reason been exposed to a lot of sexual issues during his ministry.  If you don’t find your answer here, keep searching there is probably someone out there that has it.

After my last post where I mentioned eastern religions, someone e-mailed me and asked about the Kama Sutra.  The question was a simple one about whether or not it was valid for the expression of Christian sexuality but that is an extremely complicated question when it comes to answering it.  There is no way a single post can suffice to answer this because the Kama Sutra covers far more than just sexual positions.  There is more to it than that.  This makes it a necessity to look at it in parts.  So here is the introduction.

Most of the copies of the Kama Sutra have dedication in them that was placed their during the British Empire days of the Victorian era.  The focus was to say the book was dedicated to those small numbers of people who were dedicated to study of the Far East.  Most people however knew this was just a cover story as it was given ‘wink-wink’ to a happy couple on their wedding day more than once.  In large part it was the only true sexual education for the time.  It is much older than the British empire and has several parts that were written from the 4th to 2nd century BC and were finally compiled at that later stages of the second century BC.  The original did not have illustrations but most copies do now that try to give an image to what is described.

It should be noted that the Kama Sutra covers more than sex.  It also covers such topics as how to acquire a wife, the duties and privileges of the wife, discussions on other men’s wives and courtesans.  There is a very heavy emphasis on sexuality for both pleasure and spirituality which has been something The Christian Marriage Bed has focused on from a Christian perspective but does that perspective and the Eastern one mesh and can we learn something from it?

Next week we will begin.

Rabyd Reader – “Time for the Stars” by Robert Heinlein – Book Review

Title – Time for the Stars

Author – Robert A Heinlein

Pages: 244

Publisher – Tom Doherty Associates (New York New York), 1956

Robert Heinlein’s tenth juvenile novel.  It was written with youth and young adults in mind.  It however definitely stretches anyone who might read it and I love some of the concepts that it uses to tell the story.  The story is once again told from a single point of view – Tom Bartlett’s who is telepathic with his twin brother Pat.  The book is basically put in journal form and there are times when Tom has to catch us up with years so it offers an interesting perspective.

The science fiction issues involved are the theory of relativity, the massive time differential that would be created by near light speed travel back to earth and the extreme difficulty of communication over those distances by conventional means.  Heinlein answers this problem with telepaths who communicate faster than light which ignites a whole new type of physics.

The plot is pretty basic as two twins first have to decide who will go and who will stay on an exploratory mission to the stars to find room to relieve the overcrowding of Earth by interstellar colonization.  Tom is part of the crew of one of twelve ships dedicated to this task as a ‘special’ communicator.  He is a young late teen boy when he leaves on this mission knowing that what he leaves behind will probably not be there when and if he returns.  The plot then centers on the travel from star to star and the difficulties that are encountered as they surveyed each world they found.  All the while Tom ages little and his twin back home ages greatly.  I will leave the end of this for you to discover but as always Heinlein banks on the advancement of technology.

As always Heinlein is brilliant when it comes to the human psychology and interaction problems that space travel would create.  Especially the issues of keeping a crew of 200 people on a single ship for a long period of time.  Central to some of those interaction problems is the time difference between a ship traveling at near the speed of light and the Earth left behind.  He was dead on for his time that 5 billion people would overcrowd the earth’s food resources but he hadn’t foreseen agriculture would advance as much as it has.  He was also behind at this point with communication and computer technology because I don’t think he could foresee at that point the notion of miniaturization of transistors that would take place.  Still a heck of a story because we still face the same problem of communication and star travel because star travel is something that involves something really BIG – Space.

I like this book more than most of his juvenile novels as it deal with some real adult thinking and he definitely tries to get some more adult themes like marriage and even a little bit of sex but more than that he deals with some of the social issues that star travel and telepathy would cause.  This is particularly telling when Tom arrives home to find is brother an old man but he a young one.  Good story and still a great book to get you to dream and think today.

Rating: 3.75 stars (that’s out of five for those that don’t know).  I like this pretty well but it is not as enjoyable as some of his adult stuff.  Although in this one you see Heinlein kind of playing with the edges of social convention.  Good read.

Rabyd Reader – “A Dark History: Celts” by Martin J. Dougherty – Book Review

Title: A Dark History: Celts

Author: Martin J. Dougherty

Pages: 219

Publisher: Metro Books (New York)

I purchased this book on a trip to Grand Rapids MI a few weeks ago and I was interested in it for several reasons.  1) It was cheap, 2) it was about the Celts and 3) I was looking for a more detailed look at the Celts for point of inspiration for a fantasy novel I am working on where I want the culture to be Celt-like.  This book seemed to call for me to buy it and I must say I was not disappointed.

The book is divided into eight parts: 1) Who were the Celts? 2) Celtic Society 3) Celtic Art and Religion 4) Celtic Myths and Legends 5) Technology and Warfare 6) Expansion and Decline in Europe 7) Celts in Gaul and 8) Celts in the British Isles.

I would say each part did its job remarkably well.  A good chunk of this was history as best as it can be said as one of the great challenges in studying the Celts is that they left no written record and much of what we know is from the people who dealt with them.  For me though the heart of this book and the part which I enjoyed is the parts involving Celtic society, religion, art, myths and legends.  This is the stuff a fantasy author can draw inspiration from and write a story reflecting.

The positives of this book are its large pages and print, it very straightforward style, its organization and pictures which are large enough to show some really great points but small enough as to not take away from the text.  Martin definitely shows his knowledge of his subject and it was great and easy to read but I never felt my intelligence was being insulted.

If there is a weakness it is the maps and that is not a great one.  I like the ones that were given and there are quite a few but they were not large enough to really show everything and I had  a feeling that they would have been a great way to show a lot of the history better had there been more of them.

Rating – 3 and a half stars – If you are looking at a basic primer on the Celts, their history and culture this will do it.  The fact that he included their society and mythology was a great bonus to me.

Rabyd Reader – Spring Reading List

I look across the table where I write and there is a plethora of unread books.  I have a new reading schedule but realized that progress needs to be made on a lot of fronts.  There is fiction and non-fiction aplenty and I have to start making some progress on both.  I don’t really know how this happens other than I get into a book buying mode and think to myself ‘ Yeah, that would be cool to read.”  I buy it stack it in a stack and their it sits for months.  I actually have some books in this category that have sat for a couple of years.

So what to do? I have always saw these people with reading lists for the summer and fall and whatnot but never thought about doing it myself.  I mean I can pile drive a book in a short period of time but there is some logic to deadlines otherwise there is nothing driving the process.  The purpose of a list is to cross things off until they are all crossed off.  It offers a kind of visual look at getting things done.  So what is my Reading List for the remainder of Spring.

One final note, I am getting some non-fiction that enjoy reading into the rotation here so it would be different from what was originally planned by a little.  So here it is with the due dates which will be followed by a review of course.

March 18 – A Dark History: Celts by Martin J. Dougherty

March 25 – Time for the Stars by Robert A. Heinlein

April 1 – Death Masks by Jim Butcher

April 8 – Every Day is an Atheist Holiday by Penn Jillette

April 15 – Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A Heinlein

April 22 – Blood Rites by Jim Butcher

April 29 – Atlas Shrugged (First Third) by Ayn Rand

May 6 – Atlas Shrugged (Second Third) by Ayn Rand

May 13 – Atlas Shrugged (Final Third) by Ayn Rand

May 20 –  The Door into Summer by Robert Heinlein

May 27 – Dead Beat by Jim Butcher

Yes, I am reading Atlas Shrugged in thirds and I will review each third because the book is so massive.  I am actually thinking of doing one big book like this each season.  There are some good books that are just so huge many people don’t read them.  Three weeks should be sufficient.  Maybe for Summer I could tackle War and Peace.

Blessings and Cheers!!!