@ken: “I think you know me ….What do you think? …

Comment on NCSE Report: Adventist Education in the Midst of a Sea of Science by Wesley Kime.

@ken: “I think you know me ….What do you think? Am I listening to my own…or a ‘Higher’ voice?”

What a question! I recuse myself — on grounds of (1) knowing you too well – I’ve been reading you voluminously for 2 years now and know you as well as Ronnie Eddie Ervy Taylor – and (2) having absolutely no clue. I know your question marks; I don’t know …you. Only God knows …you. I don’t even know whether your question (yet another one) was serious. If it was, you’re asking the wrong man. Ask God.

Alas, hey, I don’t know myself. Not really. Your friend Plato is said to have said (Wiki says lots of Greeks said it), Know thyself. Waytogo, Plato, but the more one knows oneself the more one knows that one does not know oneself, not really, any more than Eonic Creation knows God. Like, only God knows if I personally really, truly, at core, enjoy being whimsical and droll (as would be the obvious judgment, no doubt widely and rightly held), more than being insightful much less at all helpful. All I know is that I do not know myself and that I do want to know God, who does know me, and …you. All I know is, let’s you and me go read John again, in our bunker-bomb shelter in the grandstands, or on that park bench in Pugwash. (I’m on chapter 4, again, hearing Jesus talking to that really sassy lady, she sounds like a fun girl to talk to, a little like Ken, and He knows all along what she is thinking.)

Wesley Kime Also Commented

NCSE Report: Adventist Education in the Midst of a Sea of Science
@ken: It’s fun, our polkas and waltzes, me piping pointless metaphors, you bunny-hopping around eternalities.

But seriously, it’s mainly Dr. Pitman’s no-nonsense, back-to-earth, solid posts that count. Edifying. Like his of March 22, 2012 at 4:20 am, to Eddie, who does a pretty shimmy himself. His posts deserve more than a thumbs up. The icon to click should be Durer’s Praying Hands.

That Sean can work such gems for EduTruth in between lymph node biopsy reports (which, take it from a pathologist, requires as much expertise and wisdom and fluency as arguing a case before the Supreme Court or advocating a balanced budget; I’d sure like to read one), is thanks to more than just God-given brilliance, it must be his God-given mission. Someone had to do it.

Meanwhile, back in Gibranomesh, what’s up, Ken? A poem, (It’s these my mind can’t stop flipping out, as yours pops agno questions.)

With each frayed thread it’s clearer
That a mere thumbs-up
Is not for Pitman’s posts enough.
Better icon, praying hands by Durer.


NCSE Report: Adventist Education in the Midst of a Sea of Science
@Ken: Re. the Great Thumb God, just one of the many begotten sons of the Great Goddess of Awards, of whom there is such a vast congregation of adherents, of whom many walk these very halls, is it not written, Man shall not live by thumbs up or down alone? (I can hardly wait: How many thumbs-up will this get?)


NCSE Report: Adventist Education in the Midst of a Sea of Science
@Ken: What edifying, beatific quotes! A moment of silent meditation. Amen.

Now then. Actually, there’s more in there, in the Bible, right there in the Pauline part, in Romans. Read on. Read his other epistles. Especially Corinthians, both 1 and 2.

Nobody is more emphatic and unmistakable than Paul, especially about love. Take 1 Cor 13. It is classic; it is transcendent; it is pure poetry. It is inspired. Nobody has said it better, ever, nor could anybody, poet, pastoral theologian, philosopher-blogger, sainted or Nobel’d. Amen.

And in his next breath nobody has instructed more clearly, if inconveniently but not incongruously, that those brethren who have taken to dissing the gospel as originally preached be eschewed, with love. In fact, the first part of 1 Cor. Is an urgent, almost panicked judgment of one such sinning Corinthian and of the church for accommodating him, no bones about it. To thus censure, with as much certainty as charity, is mainly why Paul wrote that epistle, called “first Corinthians” (today it would be, could well be, EduTruth.) By the way, Second Corinthians is mainly relief – you can just hear Paul sighing mightily — over the Corinthians’ repentance, and a loving exhortation to reinstate the sinner. How glorious that Paul was thus moved, for if 1 Corinthians hadn’t been written, we wouldn’t have chapter 13.

Meanwhile, how are things in Gloccamorramesh?


Recent Comments by Wesley Kime

Beyond the Creation Story – Why the Controversy Matters
@Ken: Ken, re. yours of May 31, 15 12:42 pm: … those standing up for FB28 have every right to do so…until they [presumably the FBs, not the communicants, although either could be changed in a twinkling of any eye] are democratically changed.”

FB28? What’s that? You probably know better than I. Genesis 1 I can quote; FB28 I can’t. And won’t bother to check. I couldn’t even tell you where to find those FBs. I read what you say more assiduously than the FBs. (What’s FB? FaceBook?)

In the first place I think you’ve got Adventism wrong, or at least Adventism as I know it. Well, maybe you haven’t, the postmodernist kind anyway. I’m pre-catechistic, ergo prehistoric, alas. I’m that old.

FB28 or whatever it is, if it WERE changed, democratically or otherwise, dramatically or creepingly, by evolution or edict, even if expunged and expurgated in the interest of big-tent accord, which seemed on the verge of happening pre-T. Wilson, and may yet, I wouldn’t even know it until I saw it here. You’d know before I would.

With or without and despite FB28 or whatever, or EduTruth, I’d still honor Genesis 1. I’d honor it, A, by faith, because the Bible, i.e. God, says so. A validated faith validated by B, The evidence, good scientific falsifiable evidence. And C, the consummate cosmic multi-vectored syllogism. Everything fits.

Seriously, though, discussion has to start somewhere and be referenced by something, for convenience if not citizenship. But I’d prefer to start, if granted “every right,” with Genesis 1, at the beginning.


Dr. Ariel Roth’s Creation Lectures for Teachers
@Ken: “something Dr. Kime said struck a very strange chord in me: that a Chair in ID at Harvard would be a quantum leap (forward – my edit) while such a Chair would be a step backward at LSU. I’ m very sorry Wes, but for me to honestly investigate reality, such double standard is not acceptable. …[therefore] I think I’m coming to the end of my Adventist journey.”

I can, of course, dear friend, understand why, and respect that, you would see the two directions of leaping, forward and backward, by Harvard and LSU, as a double standard.

But might it also be seen as simple Einsteinian Relativity? It all depends on from whence you’re starting or observing. Two venues, Harvard vs. LSU, two vectors, not two standards. At any rate, a parting of our ways. The Chair did it. A very unlucky ill-omened Chair, from the start.

Parting — that indeed is sad, especially this parting. I grieve too. In sadness we are agreed. That’s not double speak; only you could I say that to.

For these several years you, and your courteous ways, even your questions, have been most fascinating, even endearing, inspiring to both poetic and, I now regret, rasping response. I’ve so much enjoyed your postings, always looked for them first, and appreciated your uncommon patience and politeness, and our camaraderie in the bomb shelter and on the grandstand. Too bad the Chair, our double bed, didn’t work out.

As benediction, maybe we can all get together again, somewhere. Meanwhile, the Mizpah, which I think I should be the one to deliver, seeing it was, you say, my one-liner that was the last straw, for which I’ll get heck all around, and rightly so: “The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” Genesis 31:49.

What the heck, have some popcorn for the road. And don’t forget your cyber plaque. You will be remembered, appreciated, thought about, prayed for. Do come back soon.

Until then, your jousting friend, W


Strumming the Attached Strings
@Phillip Brantley: Excellent! I shall quote you: “learn something from Sean Pitman.” Indeed, indeed — there’s so much to learn from that man.


Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Bill Sorensen: “I don’t know if anyone has really been able to follow your thinking…”

A tad, a smidgeon, just slightly overstated maybe? Just a tad, just a smidgeon, at the cost of not a few dislikes? Well, I for one do follow it. And with great admiration. Great.


What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
@Ervin Taylor: Out of purely poetic symmetry of rhetoric, Ervin, your trademark whimsical “…I guess someone who rejects…” is asking for — I was waiting for it! — a Pitman’s “I guess someone who accepts…” Lovely diptych, ping and pong.