Presence

Space is a place
To be near
Presence is a grace
To touch and hear

Pitter, patter
Creak
Thud!
“MOMMY, I NEED SOME HELP!”

Tip-toe, tip-toe
Slide
Tug
“Daddy, I want some milk.”

Shuffle, twist
Tweak
Turn
“Honey, can you please be still? I’m trying to sleep.”

We should play trains

“Daddy, can we play trains?” (John Caleb)

“Sorry buddy, it’s bed-time. We can play tomorrow.” (Me)

“Ohhh I don’t want to play later. I want to play right now. We should play trains the whole day. And drink chocolate milk. That would be the greatest, mostest best day ever. And I would love that. Oh please? Pretty pretty please?” (John Caleb)

Quickly deleting users from a Facebook group

(This is old. It probably doesn’t work on Facebook anymore.)

Facebook unfortunately requires one to first individually delete users from a group before one can effectively delete the group. If you have thousands of users, this is a pain. You can use the following bookmarklet (I’ve only tested it in Google Chrome) to quickly delete about 100 users. Unfortunately, WordPress.com does not allow me to have drag-and-drop bookmarklet links in my post, so you’ll have to follow these directions:

  1. Copy the text from here.
  2. Create a new bookmark in Google Chrome and paste the text into the URL.
  3. Go to the admin page that lists users from your Facebook group and click the bookmarklet.
  4. When you are directed to the next page of users, click it again.
  5. To speed up the process even more, use multiple tabs on different pages.

For those interested, here is the code (I minified it using YUI Compressor for the bookmarklet):

function confirmDeleteUser() {
	confirmButton = document.querySelector('.uiButton.uiButtonLarge.uiButtonConfirm input');
	if(!confirmButton) {
		setTimeout('deleteAllUsersInGroup()',200);
		return;
	}
	mouseClickEvent = document.createEvent('MouseEvent');
	mouseClickEvent.initMouseEvent('click',true,true);
	confirmButton.dispatchEvent(mouseClickEvent);
	setTimeout('deleteAllUsersInGroup()',200);
}

function switchPage() {
	pageButton = document.querySelector('.next.uiButton:not(.uiButtonDisabled)');
	if(!pageButton) {
		pageButton = document.querySelector('.prev.uiButton:not(.uiButtonDisabled)');
	}
	if(!pageButton) {
		return
	}
	mouseClickEvent = document.createEvent('MouseEvent');
	mouseClickEvent.initMouseEvent('click',true,true);
	pageButton.dispatchEvent(mouseClickEvent);
}

function deleteAllUsersInGroup() {
	/* I pick a random user to account for some quirks in the process */
	deleteButtons = document.querySelectorAll('a.UIImageBlock_Ext.uiCloseButton.uiCloseButtonSmall');
	if(!deleteButtons.length) {
		setTimeout('confirmDeleteUser()',500); /* Usually one last dialog to clear */
		setTimeout('switchPage()',1500);
		return;
	}
	deleteButton = deleteButtons.item(Math.floor(Math.random() * deleteButtons.length))
	mouseClickEvent = document.createEvent('MouseEvent');
	mouseClickEvent.initMouseEvent('click',true,true);
	deleteButton.dispatchEvent(mouseClickEvent);
	deleteButton.parentNode.parentNode.removeChild(deleteButton.parentNode)
	setTimeout('confirmDeleteUser()',200);
};
deleteAllUsersInGroup();

Why make a pilgrimage to John the Baptist?

Because the Messiah is going to clean house and purify Israel. Because they wanted to enter the true Promised Land, even though they were already in the Promised Land. Because they were still in bondage, even though they had left Egypt long ago.

“Like Isaiah surprised by the presence of the Lord in His Temple, who confessed both that he was a man of unclean lips and a part of a people of unclean lips (Isaiah 6:5), those coming to John for baptism were confessing both that theirs was a sinful, adulterous, and unbelieving generation (Mark 8:38; 9:19), and that they personally had participated in it’s sin, adultery, and unbelief. They were admitting that they were still under bondage in Egypt, though Moses had led them out of it so many centuries ago…

“By making the pilgrimage to the Jordan, those who believed John’s message showed that they wanted to be visibly separated from those under judgment when the Lord came. They wanted to be members of the future purified Israel. Undergoing John’s baptism helped them anticipate that they were not only God’s covenant people, but that they would remain in that covenant after God cast others out. In order to be assured that they would be included in the future forgiven Israel whose iniquity would be removed, they needed to repent and ask for personal forgiveness now.” (Mark Hornes, Victory According to Mark, pp. 26, 27, link)

Radical Monotheism and Effortless Creation in Genesis

“The Genesis account differs markedly from the other cosmogonies in its assumption of monotheism. There is a single Creator, and no other gods are involved in the creative acts, either as helpers or as opponents. There is no primeval goddess, so the model of procreation for the creative process has no place in the account. It is also notable that there is no theogony as a preface to cosmology. The existence of the Creator is assumed, and there is no attempt to explain it. There are no lesser gods whose coming into being needs explaining. Some scholars think that the plural in Genesis 1:26 (“Let us make …”) is a remnant of an earlier polytheistic account. However, they agree that this is not the significance of the plural in the account as it stands. Most take it as either an address to the heavenly council (Wenham) or as a plural of self-deliberation (Westermann)…

“The use of speech as a metaphor indicates that the divine creative activity is voluntary, rational and effortless. There is no struggle or conflict, as in some of the other cosmogonies.” (T. Desmond Alexander, David Weston Baker, Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, p. 135)