Barnacles attach themselves to a ship and must be scrapped off. If not the ship will be slowed down as it journeys. As the barnacles grow and are joined by others the ship is not only slowed down but the surface can begin to corrode and lasting damage occurs. The vessel then must go to a dry dock for cleaning, repairing and painting.
Our idols are like barnacles. They lead us from God and into sin. The longer we co-exist with these idols and the sins that so easily beset us, the harder the going through life.
Paul called us earthen vessels, clay pots (chamber pots even?) and that we are cracked at that. We have barnacles that need scraping off.
One reason Paul told Corinth to examine themselves before coming to the Lord’s table is to scrape off barnacles. When your church celebrates communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s supper, be sure, even if the leader doesn’t remind you, to consider Paul’s words to Corinth. Examine yourselves. Scrape the barnacles.
God told us to have sabbath. As part of your sabbath, be sure you are scraping barnacles. Since you can’t see all your barnacles, be sure you have a fellow disciple that you can be real with and that will point to barnacles that you missed. Perhaps he will even tug at one to help you see it.
In this way, your vessel can sail with less friction.
Last Friday night David Brooks (on PBS NewsHour) emphasized the need to understand Vladimir Putin to understand what will happen next in Ukriane (and beyond?): “The main show is in Vladimir Putin’s brain. It’s sort of striking how it’s just one person who really matters here. And the brain, as it’s revealed it to us, even in speeches this week, is pretty aggressive, pretty assertive, growing increasingly more assertive. And it seems to me, in our response, we really need a psychiatrist more than a foreign policy apparatus. We need to understand what is going to upset him, what is going to disrupt him. And I’m afraid the way that we have done the sanctions has not been well-tailored to sort of a psychological campaign against Vladimir Putin.” (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/shields-brooks-keystone-politics-nevada-land-dispute/)
This weekend there were two articles about Putin, one about Putin and right wing nationalists in Europe from The Economist and the other about Putin and the US. Both are helpful in this broader question how to understand Czar Vladimir.
Months ago Victor Yanukovych now the hiding-in-Russia former strongman in Ukraine turned down a financial deal with the EU. Why? Tsar Vladimir (a.k.a. Comrade Putin, KGB agent) probably told him to. The Russian Tsar wanna-be, who is trying to reassemble the Slavic components of the Soviet Union into Russia one section at a time, most likely either offered Strongman Victor (of Ukraine, not to be confused with his western neighbor, Strongman Victor of Hungary) a carrot or threatened with a stick. Whichever it was that changed his mind at the last minute, Victor Y. turned down a deal with the West and found himself personally stuck between the East (Russia) and the West (everyone else who has a voice that could help Ukraine). Protests in Kyiv (Ukrainian spelling, not the Russian “Kiev”) began and went on for months until finally after a couple of sick days Victor turned the snipers loose and the Maidan looked like Sarajevo in the mid 90s. Many were injured and killed. When he realized what he had done no-longer-so-Strongman Victor fled to Russia for some R&R under the protection of Tsar Vladimir.
Meanwhile the E.U. and the U.S. make speeches, (during the protests, you may recall an assistant Secretary of State getting caught saying “F*** the EU” in a true sign of Western solidarity… her telephone call was most likely taped by the FSB (NSA style) – Tsar Vladimir’s modern version of the KGB and then put on YouTube probably by RT – the Kremlin’s favorite anti-American propaganda machine masquerading as a news channel and carried into millions of American homes… Sadly, I am afraid that there may be as many people who think this is real news as think that the NOAH movie was an accurate portrait of the biblical event – when in fact RT and the film Noah are fiction, the difference is that Noah says so – do the Americans who work at RT even realize they are part of a propaganda apparatus?) Anyway… I really digress…
So, thinking that the pen is mightier than the sword the E.U., the U.S, the U.N. and others rattle their pens (not sabers) at Russia for sending troops without insignia into Crimea and within a few short weeks annexing Crimea into Russia. Tsar Vlad’s approval rating among Russian citizens jumps from about 65% to something like 80% and Russians are seeing their Dear Leader (I borrow here from the Kim dynasty of N. Korea) as a Russian who will finally stand up to the EU and the US all the while massing who knows how many troops on two maybe three sides of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, surprisingly well equipped people (Russian speaking, well equipped, well armed, wearing no insignia – sound familiar) began causing trouble in Ukrainian cities that are actually closer to Russia than to Kyiv. These people have been causing trouble in eastern cities for weeks now, but apparently they are not locals since one band of these Russian speakers (Russian and Ukrainian are similar but not the same – a test is: can a person say a certain Ukrainian word for bread, if not, this person may not be Ukrainian at all – I know, my friends there tried in vain to teach me) broke into a building and demanded to see the mayor!!! It was the opera house. Locals? Right.
Jokes aside, the method of the take over was pretty familiar… well armed, uniformed, professional solders without insignia roll in, take over with military efficiency and then turn the “protecting” of this government installation to local “self defense forces” to maintain things.
Last week the Ukrainian PM offered an amnesty deal. The Russian speakers (hereafter known as the invaders) said no. Today we see on the news that the Ukrainian president announced the army was going in and one news report said that they had till morning to give up. All the while, just an hour or so away (at armored personnel carrier speed) Russian troops (with insignia) wait for the Tsar’s signal to go an rescue and protect ethnic Russians wherever they may be (by the way Hitler and his greater Germany and Milosevic and his greater Serbia has the same idea as the new Tsar).
With the Ukrainian army set to take those buildings back at dawn tomorrow, and the Russian army just across the border, I think again about all the orphans who are at even greater risk. This is because that every city, every region that goes to Russia puts these kids at risk because of the uncertainty that their status would be and because of the fact that Tsar Vladimir has halted all adoptions to Americans.
#prayForUkraine #prayForTheOrphans
Read more from The Economist … watch tonight’s interview from The PBS NewsHour…
