Isaiah Karma

Long, long ago in a blogosphere far away known as blogspot.com I published under the title of "Self Indulgent B.S." Those of you who have caught on to my way of thinking here in the Land of Bob can see the double meaning right off the bat. For you newbies...which would be 7+ billion people less the MAYBE couple of dozen folks who are reading this from my Facebook postings... the title was a combination of my editorializing on most of the blogs I had read up to the initiation of my own as well as the same sort of commentary on myself and my determination to 'dump my brain on the Internet' as I've been wont to say. The humor of the situation is that a buddy who is Net savvy told me he Googled the title and found me at the #1 slot; which, according to him is a paid for position by lots of websites and I got it for FREE.

That being said, on December 13, 2007...145 years to the day (thank you Frodo) when Great Grandpappy Jake and I fought at Fredericksburg and 'saw the elephant' for the first time as I've written about in "I Fought At Fredericksburg"...I began Self Indulging and sharing my thoughts with folks who did or did not know me. In the Profile section I mentioned I have "Isaiah Karma" so today I thought I'd expand on the concept.

According to scholars, Isaiah was a prophet who preached in Judah during the reigns of 4 kings: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah from about 739-686BC. By this time in Israel's history, the big civil war had divided the land into Judah with 2 tribes and Israel with 10 tribes. He must have been quite a tough guy, given the job description he was given that he describes in his 6th chapter of the book bearing his name in my favorite Ancient Near East Text. Actually, now that I think about it, in one respect Isaiah was a Hubster in his own day, writing a total of 66 articles/chapters in his book.

Well, in his Hub #1, he jumps in by declaring to folks he's giving them a message from the Living and True God of Israel (the whole nation); which includes things like "wash yourselves, make yourselves clean (which probably was a highly quoted verse by Judaian Moms before supper), cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor (another good group of things Moms and Dads should have told their offspring)(would the plural of 'offspring' be 'offsprings?'), defend the fatherless, and plead for the widow." Actually, those items seem to be a pretty sensible socio-political program in any country at any stage of world history. In any event...

In his version of Hub #6, he has a vision of his God sitting on his throne, "high and lifted up." FYI, this was "in the year that King Uzzian died" which most folks who have studied this subject agree was ca. 739BC...BCE if you prefer. (Just in case you're unfamiliar with the notations, BC stands for "Before Christ" and BCE for "Before the Christian Era.") Isaiah described his vision a bit and then got down to what is the heart of the matter for this article, his 'calling' to be a preacher/prophet in Judah. The conversation/interactions went something like this:

Isaiah recognizes his unworthiness for the job description, God cleanses him metaphysically so he then IS up to the work, God asks who should He send, and Isaiah says, "Send me!" This part of the whole process is often cited at Christian Missionary Conferences to get folks 'up to the task' to make the commitment to doing it. I'm of the opinion that a bit more of Isaiah's vision should be read. My reason is that Isaiah's Karma (yeah, I know, I'm constructing a syncretistic word play that will get some folks' 'knickers in a twist,' to quote my British friends) worked out to be one which was not highly attractive, if you think through it's contingent clauses.

The point is, after Isaiah volunteered, God told him to preach to people who would would not only not pay heed to anything he said, his message was specifically designed by God to harden hearts and block up ears so the people could not respond positively...bummer! When Isaiah asked "How long?" God responded, “Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, houses are without people and the land is utterly desolate..." This translates into practical history as 53 years until 686BC. Try to put yourself in Poor Old Ike's shoes with THAT as a job description, with no parole or time off for good behavior!! This aspect of what has become to be known in Christian circles as The Gospel (check out the Book of John, Hub #3 @ verses 16-18) is rarely pointed out by preachers/teachers other than folks who think like I do. God says, according to Isaiah in his Hub #55: So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;
it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.

My favorite Civil War general, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson might have summed up on his 'take' on this Hub with "duty is ours, consequences are God's." (Sorry, I don't have a specific book reference for this one, but it's common knowledge among Civil War historians, so I'll simple quote it.) Jackson pretty much had things on the mark here as he declared from his Calvinistic Christian belief system exactly what God Himself declared.

So, when I declare that I have Isaiah Karma, I am encapsulating most of my life in which, even though I'm given credit for knowing what I'm talking about on a variety of topics, especially religion and history, folks tend not to listen to what I have to say; which means that what I say might register in their conscious thinking, but it doesn't necessarily incorporate itself into their everyday lives. That's the 'bad news' while the 'good news' is that it's not my business to force anything on anyone in anyway...which I would offer to folks in general as a freeing lifestyle that let's the owner relax and be friendly to all sorts of folks with all sorts of world life views. Granted, it doesn't make me any less 'right' but let's me handle rejection better; a handy attitude to have, given some personal encounters I've had like being rejected by 71 publishers when I offered them the privilege of publishing God Caused the Civil War so they could make tons of money selling my book! ;)

I'll close by saying that there you have my 'priming the pump' in your thinking in order to maybe get you and thousands of others interested in hearing not only what I have to say here and on "Self Indulgent BS" which has 640 posts on it, about the Civil War and religion, but also interested in seeing some of the pieces of God Caused the Civil War here on Hub Pages! As Candalaria said to Frank Castle in "The Punisher": "Via Con Dios!!"