2 Chronicles 14-16 – the story of Asa

i think one reason people dont read the bible from cover to cover is because it takes forever and your mind can wander pretty easily.

but one of the ten commandments is to take a break driver 8 on sundays.

some people say saturdays but it doesnt matter

one day a week you should just chill out.

that means let your mind chill out too. and a great way to practice that is by reading.

when we read and we are into it our daily internal yammering gets put on hold, which is so healthy.

today i read the bible for an hour. it wasnt easy. but when i finally gave in and rested the mind i was able to get into the story of Asa, and friends lemme tell you it was so worth it.

Asa starts off totally ruling. literally. he was in charge of the tribe of Judah which at the time wasnt the biggest one, Israel and others were bigger. but Asa and Judah were true believers in the Lord, and weirdly Israel wasnt- they were building golden calves and praying to them.

so Asa, before several big battles with the likes of Israel to the Ethiopians, prays to God and says look i know we are small but can you bro us out on this one? we love you. lets do this thing.

and God would totally deliver Asa enemies to his hand no matter how big or wily they were.

sidenote: apparently post-victory plundering, which doesnt seem very sporting, was totally en vogue and God didnt seem to have any problems with it either.

one day Asa sees that one of his enemies is building a super huge blockade preventing travel and trade between Judah and the rest of the world. it was called a “Ramah”. so Asa cut a deal with a neighbor nation saying yo heres all this silver and gold, join us, break your alliance with my enemy and lets tear down that damn Ramah and take over some lands together.

Asa’s neighbor accepted the deal, the enemy was the defeated, the Ramah was dismantled and everything was chill until…

until an OMG SEER cruised by and told Asa that actually he had effed up. that because he relied on mankind instead of just saying a prayer that the Lord was pissed. “Herein you have done foolishly;” the seer said, “for from henceforth you shall have wars.”

Asa wigged out, put the seer in stocks in the prison, and “inflicted cruelties on some of the people at the same time”. Asa flat out busted with the simultaneous cruelty card and the Lord busted with some old testament stuff hisself.

two sentences after the cruelty we read “in the 39th year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe; yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but sought help from physicians. And then Asa slept with his ancestors.”

A MEN!

ps “and they made a very great fire in his honor.”

awwwww

asks a busblog formspring questioner

the day after my high school graduation i moved to california.

i too was 17.

that first summer was pretty lonely for me as i had no friends and the girls at the mcdonalds that i worked at were neither impressed by my grandmas cadillac nor my lack of breakdancing moves.

in the fall though i met michele, who would soon become my first california girlfriend.

today, incidentally, is her birthday. 6/6. and i miss her so.

im not sure what her parents advised her on her high school graduation, but whatever they said was perfect because this girl was interested in poetry and journalism, foreign lands, the environment, good music, interesting friends, politics, foreign films, and making out in the parking lot of zuma beach with me.

for some reason michele had it totally figured out.

oddly she acted like she had no grasp on anything. she was always questioning. and sometimes worrying. in three years we broke up three times, officially, but maybe 333 times unofficially.

it was a rollercoaster. an emotional one. but never boring. and so much of what she turned me on to from the Cures Pornography to the works of Robert Creeley and Emily Dickinson have stuck with me.

but the biggest thing she taught me is what id suggest to todays youth: always stay in the question.

whats really going on here? is this truly what i should be up to? whats the best possible solution for everyone? am i growing in this environment? am i pushing myself in this situation? is this good for the World? how can i improve here spiritually?

seriously 18 yr old michele was thinking and asking those things outloud at all times.

and soon-to-be 18 yr old tony was saying things like “fine, lets consider panties. i bet yours are cute. and yet what good is their cuteness if the boy in the car never sees them? lets imagine the amount of worldwide goodwill if more panties were able to see the light of day – or better the glow of the moonlight through the backseat windah.”

so my advice to a 17 yr old female high school grad would be: always have condoms, dont ever feel bad about saying no to anything, you dont owe anyone anything except yr momma who you owe everything, and over the next ten years meet as many interesting people you can because these are the people who will subtly shape the way you’ll be forevers.

happy 25th birthday michele!