Silly Heathens! Mooning Is Commanded!

Malm is on another of his legalistic old covenant benders today:  Paying homage to the new moon.

HOW SHOULD WE OBSERVE THE NEW MOON DAY?  We are commanded to begin each month with special sacrifices to consecrate that month on the New Moon day.  Today we go to the Father with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Church organizations and independents should hold bible studies on the New Moon day and should pray to our Father through our sacrifice thanking him for the blessings of the previous month and asking him to bless us with his spirit and increasing understanding, wisdom, knowledge and blessings durimg the coming month. 

So should a person who follows Jesus observe new moons?

Even one of Armstrongism's biggest propaganda/apology sites says Christians should NOT be keeping New Moons: Are Believers Required to Observe New Moons?

But nowhere in the Bible is there a command from God that we in this present age are to observe new moons! There is no such command and that is why articles which assert that we are to observe new moons today are never able to quote a specific command from God. New moons simply don't feature amongst the commanded assemblies of God.

Furthermore, where does God say that on the new moon kings should have special meals, national leaders should address major problems, and those of military service age should be mustered?

Nowhere!

The new moons are not at all like Sabbath days! The very word "Sabbath" is an intensive form of the Hebrew word for "REST"! Any day that is NOT "a rest" is simply NOT "like the Sabbath"! And new moons are emphatically not at all like Sabbath days. Would God want a king to organize a banquet for a Sabbath day? Certainly not! So if a king does have a banquet on a new moon day, then this illustrates that the new monday is different from a Sabbath day.
Sometimes people quote Scriptures which refer to the millennium, and which also mention new moons. That's fine ... but that still is not the same as clear instructions from God for this present age. This approach is nothing more than reasoning that tries to INFER instructions for us today from these references about the millennium. But such inferences are not justified.

The point to consider is this: since without doubt new moons were important to Israel in Old Testament times, why is there not a single command to actually 'observe' them anywhere in the Old Testament? People did, and still do, many things which are not commanded. Some of these things certainly have some merit.

But the observance of days is not something God expects us to just 'infer!'

Of course this all ties into Malm's strict Sabbatarianism.  Here are a list of things that Sabbatarians do NOT like to be confronted with:  Questions Sabbatarians Don't Like

Miserere mei, Deus

 

David Hurd's Psalm 51

If someone had told me twenty years ago that I would be smearing ashes on the forehead's of people tonight I would never have believed them.  Tonight was Ash Wednesday at the church I attend.  A night that signifies the start of forty days of self examination.  An examination of our fallibility, our mortality, our participation in oppression and injustice to others.  At this time we are particularly drawn to Jesus' call for justice: freedom for the oppressed, release of the captives, good news to the poor and recovery of sight to the blind.  It's about confronting the power of death in all it's forms, terror and tyranny, corruption and greed, disregard for creation and all the forces that prevent people from living life in it's fullest.

It's not about giving up chocolate, sweets, meat, dropping a dollar in the swear jar, or other things.  It's about being authentic to yourself and to God, while you get off your rear end and make a difference in the world around you.

Growing up in Armstrongism I listened to endless sermons by ministers and evangelists mocking and deriding those that kept this day as insincere and a total waste of time.  Meredith came up with some of the most absurd  and inaccurate comments that anyone could dream up.  Actually what he said was and still is, a blatant lie!


Seeing the wide eyes of little kids kneeling in front of you with tears in their eyes, or huge smiles as they experience something that only a child can through untarnished minds.  They look into your eyes with a look of awe.  And then they turn to their parents and look them in their eyes with a deep connection only a parent can ever see. Probably like the kind of the look we should be having with God.  Totally free with no baggage. Oh, to be a child again!

I saw a blind young man tonight who is wheelchair bound with a body that is wracked by cerebral palsy, rhythmically moving in slow motion due to the muscles in his body twisting and writhing about, sit there with tears streaming down his cheeks as he attempts  to stop his body from moving when the ashes are placed on his forehead, clearly and distinctly saying 'amen' afterwords.  He does the same thing when the Eucharist is brought  to him.  His body stops moving as he takes the wafer in his distorted hands and places it in his mouth.and sips the wine.  He understands something that I probably never will.  Something deeper and more meaningful than any HWA sermon, booklet or book ever did. Something deeper about the mystery that surrounds us, the mystery of the unknown yet knowable, the grain of the universe that calls to us into something we cannot fathom, something so foreign to us that we let it slip past us the minute we walk out the doors of the church into the real world.

I saw people in attendance tonight that I know are agnostic and a couple of atheists who have no idea what or who God is.  Yet, they admit something draws them back, week after week. Something they cannot understand but want to be a part of.  They are involved in feeding the homeless, knitting prayer shawls for the sick and dying, caring for those with AIDS, working in hospice or visiting the  sick and home bound. They too have the opportunity to delve into something deeper and more mysterious with new ways of looking and understanding thatI can never have.  It is a delight to be around them

I am grateful for my journey out of Armstrongism. I regret  many opportunities lost because of its aberrant, absurd and irrelevant teachings, yet there was a lot I treasure. How I came out halfway sane is a miracle!  :-) I am grateful for Gavin's web sites and blogs over the years and for Dennis's unwavering self examination and willingness to question without apology.  What a ride it has been and continues to be!

Gary

Relationships

Relationships

This is a toughy.  I loved the relationships I had in WCG.  In all the churches I ever pastored, I found my best friends.  Of course, what joined us was the common hope that lay within us.

WCG provided me friends and relationships I never would had in any other context.  The people I met at AC were very sincere and just good folks.  They came from everywhere in the country and in fact, the world.  I never would have known them were it not for the church.

I did date some of the same girls Garner Ted did.  ( :(  )  Naive and very fine human beings with a desire to do and believe the right things.  They were not insincere.  They were not looking for power or recognition.  They simply wanted to be a part of the right thing.  They wanted to do the right thing and see the Bible in the correct way.  The best friends I ever had were members of the WCG.

One of my best friends was a guy I met in Ohio when I was transferred there.  He always spoke his mind and while , at first, it made me nuts and distrustful, I now realize he simply knew how to express what he was observing and it made me, as a young minister,   uncomfy.   The problem was with me, not him.  We moved to Ohio and rented a house next to the railroad tracks , which to us was a palace.  Ok, we had to put up with the train going past, but it was steady and predicatable and I loved the sound of it.  It relaxed me at night.  We lived so close to the tracks that any accident would have taken us immediately into the Kingdom of God.  

I remember well this fellow, who helped us move in, saying..."I just wanted to see what my tithe money was doing."  Ugh....give me a break.  I have to live somewhere.  But he was honest and it was that honesty that bound us rather closely over the years.  He eventually got booted as a deacon from the church for being too honest and observant.  I returned for a reunion of ministers in this Ohio congregation.  The present minister was "honoring" the deacons for their work in the church and, of course, he was left out.  He was sitting in front of me and while listening to the minister tell of the other men's service, I took out a piece of paper and wrote:

" In honor of Gary________, For years of dedicated service and care in the Worldwide Church of God."

I reached around him and put it in his hands.  He looked back at me with a look time can never erase.  "Thank you," he said somewhat stunned.  We have been closer friends ever since.  

I made and lost some of the best friends I ever had in the bonds made in the WCG.

This past weekend I went to celebrate the 3rd birthday of my grandson.  He is the only boy of three other goddesses I call my grandchildren.  Sheridan, Maggie, Lily and Nicholas.  My ex wife was there and it was difficult.

Nothing that has transpired is her "fault."  Everything just fell apart.  When you life church, church, church 24/7 and it goes as WCG went, it just all falls apart.  She came from a long time WCG family.  We had our good years raising two great boys.  We went to the Toledo Zoo after church services on the holy Sabbath and took some heat but mostly made people think perhaps life was not to be such a church burden.  This was in the 70's.  Every Friday night in the winter we went to the YMCA to swim with the kids and have "family time."  No one gave us a hard time for that and I told them that's what we did.  We ended the Friday night swim with a trip to Dunkin Donuts with the boys in their "jammies" and life was good.  

Once my youngest climbed into a locker at the YMCA and locked himself in.  I told him to keep talking and Dad would find him.  It was hilarious.  I finally found the appropriate locker and liberated this small, naked and goofy kid from his prison.  We laughed our butts off.

Another time, I took my oldest, then 5 , to a funeral in Kentucky.  On the coffin there was a spay of flowers and a red toy telephone with a sign that said, "Jesus called."  He asked me what the toy phone was all about and I explained the concept to him. Then I got called to give the sermon.  He grabbed me almost in a panic and I said, "Let go, I have to speak."  He said in a panic not since heard,  "Dad...if that phone rings, please don't answer it!"   Another great memory.  All through the service the coffin between me and him sitting on the front row, he glared at me as if to say  "Dad...don't answer it."  Now he'd probably say, "Dad, go ahead and answer it."  But that is another story  :)

Anyway, driving home from the weekend alone and having seen everyone in my past life was a bit difficult.  I can't unring the bell.  I can't fix all that is broken.  I never would have predicted the route my marriage and life would have taken, and yes, I did make my decisions along the way that have cost much.

I have had a couple relationships since then.  Mistakes were made and the price has been paid.  It's me, the Shih Tzu and the Lionhead Goldfish at the moment and it's not been easy.  I have endeavored to meet new people through the various web based sites, but somehow I am the most comfortable with those that know my past and understand.  Loneliness is a concept I never knew until the last couple years.  I am sure somewhere along the line there were singles who expressed this concept to me and I said some really dumb shit stuff as how they needed to solve it.  Boy, has the Karma Fairy flown over and taught me a lot about shallow advice not based in reality.

I don't find people all that honest about what makes them tick.  As I have written in the past, everyone wears masks. Masks tend to grow into the skin and are ever so hard to take off.  However, dropping them is liberating.  I imagine the cost of  being oneself, by most, is considered too high and so they fake it. 

Everyone Wears Masks - Your Pastor and Priest, Your Mom, Dad, Family, and YOU!

 

At any rate, the best friends I ever had were the members who drove me nuts when I was their pastor.  They were right.  They had nothing to lose being right, well except their membership in the group think.  

I find that lost relationships is a very big issue in the demise of the WCG.  We all had absolutely nothing in common and at the same time, everything in common.

I miss those relationships and am sorry they ended as they did.  

I do not miss my relationship with "Headquarters."  What a mess that always was.  Were you telling me the truth or were you shitting me?  In hindsite, you were shitting me.  You were my friends but then you became my worse enemy.  You lied and made excuses for the obvious and proved to be shallow friends at best.  "We will take care of you," came to mean, "by screwing you."  We "wish you well and will pray for  you," meant "We dont give a rats ass about you and probably won't pray for you either."  Those in high places were relationships that taught me well what "be warmed and be filled" really meant.

Life is relationships.  Some people come into our lives forever, for a time, for a season and then either stay or leave.  There is much to learn from each, but it can be very painful.   

My thanks to those who have hung with me through the years.  For those who have come and gone, I thank you as well and wish it may have been better or different.  

I never came into the WCG for anything less than doing and believing the right thing.  I have learned much from the experience but the price has been high.

They say that experience is the BEST teacher, BUT the tuition is high.  I have learned that experience is the ONLY teacher and all else is mere hearsay.  

That doesn't mean it's easy or how one wish it had gone...

DenniscDiehl@aol.com