From the Blacksmith's Corner

Ramblings from an Old Guy! Pt.3

2012-01-25T08:49:00.000-08:00

In looking back over the last year I find that I’m also reflecting back on my whole life. Like older people always say, I wonder where all the time has gone. It seems I woke up one morning and fifty years had gone by!

Like so many folks I know, I’ve had periods of melancholy and I’ve fought with feelings of depression. My youth is gone and I have lamented that. But, I’ve decided not to live there.

Today, in 2012, I awake to different feelings. Today I awoke with feelings of joy.

God has given all of us the gift of choice. Like the old saying goes: “Pain is mandatory but suffering is optional.” We all have the power to choose how we will face the truth of our existence. We will all grow older and, one day, we will all die. We can choose to be depressed about that, to suffer ‘existential angst’ in the words of some, or we can be thankful for the gift of this life. I choose to feel thankful to my Creator for this gift!

I can’t do the things I once could but, from a different perspective, I have the view that more years afford me. I can see things that I never could before. I awake to a new year. I look ahead to the challenges and blessings in it. I am assured deep in my soul that the best is yet to come!

I have found an inner peace that didn’t know in my youth. My faith in my Creator has grown stronger. My Hope in His gospel is established. I have opened my heart to feel love in a way that I never could in the past. I now realize that some things I once thought mattered so much…don’t matter at all.

In this new year that God has given me I choose to open my heart to feel the joy in His creation. I live in a beautiful place. I am blessed with a nice home on a great piece of land. I have a best friend that reminds me of the joy of life every day. I have good friends that are there when I need them. I’m there for them too. I love the work that I do! I am blessed...

I have the absolute Best mother on the planet! We have become friends and let the turbulence of the past go. I would like to do the same with all my family members but some just aren’t ready for that.

I now find that holding on to pain and resentment has only served to hold me back. I know from my own inner conflicts that people often do things they don’t understand. I have to allow that they too can change and grow. I’m learning to forgive everyone for everything. There are far too many good, noble and beautiful things in this life to focus on the bad things.

This is the Day the Lord has made…I will rejoice and be glad therein!

I’m sure the Best is yet to come!! I have to cut this short…Life awaits!

The Worst of 2011

2011-12-24T12:18:00.000-08:00

After noting the best ideals of 2011, I thought it would be appropriate to note the worst too. I think the worst example of the year is Eric Holder.

Holder is the Attorney General of the United States in the Obama administration. He is a small minded, weak, black man who was put into a position of authority by Obama because he holds the same values as Obama. I find nothing positive to say about this man.

Holder is a, passive aggressive, incompetent racist. He has called Americans ‘cowardly’ for not addressing the race issue. At the same time, in his position as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, he has refused to prosecute members of the black-panther party for voter intimidation. Former employees of the Justice Department have documented that it is Holders policy not to prosecute minorities for infractions against whites. One will note of his administration that minorities are always given favor over whites. That isn't justice any more than when whites showed favor for whites historically. It is racism.

Holder advocated trying Al Qaida terrorists in civilian courts when doing so would have made a media spectacle out of their cases and cost taxpayers a fortune. Al Qaida terrorists are NOT citizens...they are enemies of the US, most captured on foreign soil. They declared war on us! International law recognizes them as prisoners of war. The public outcry for common sense prevailed in that issue.

Holder claims to know nothing about the so-called ‘Fast and Furious’ gun running debacle...though he is the head of the Justice Department overseeing it. He has demonstrated a proclivity to cover up what he doesn't want made public. He has used the issue of 'Fast and Furious' to advocate new, unconstitutional gun laws. That was his, and the Obama administration's, intent all along. I have no doubt that his claims will prove to be lies plain and simple.

Holder isn’t even an elected official. He is the same stripe as Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, (More of Obama's "birds-of-a-feather") an enemy of traditional American values. This man is getting his 'pay back' using his racist anger against white people by abusing the power of his office. Most of the rest of the world is moving past issues of ‘black and white’ because we have other things to worry about...like the economy Obama is destroying. Holder doesn't care anything about real justice. He has only used his office to further his liberal, racist agenda. He is an embarrassment to America. Holder is an ENEMY of American values. He needs to be unceremoniously fired. Then, in November, the American people need to fire his boss.

The Best of 2011

2011-12-24T11:42:00.000-08:00

In looking back over the year there were two stories that stand out in my mind that represent the best qualities in living beings.

The first happened in Madison, Georgia. Little 9 year-old Anaiah Rucker and her 5 year-old sister, Camry were crossing the street to catch the school bus, one morning, when Anaiah saw a truck coming at her little sister. She jumped to push Camry out of the way of the oncoming truck. In the process she suffered two broken legs. Her left leg had to be amputated later. She lost a kidney and suffered a broken neck and spleen damage. Anaiah saved her little sisters life. She said of Camry later, “I thought she was too young”. “She’s my sister. I love her.” This story touched my heart. This little girl demonstrated the best qualities in the human spirit. She will live with her injuries for the rest of her life. Her little sister Camry will live knowing how great a love her sister has for her. Anaiah's story deserves to be remembered. I have no doubt that she has a great reward awaiting her. I think God has found another jewel for His crown…

The second story happened in the Arahama area of Japan. After suffering a devastating earthquake, the area was hit with an enormous tsunami. Thousands of people and animals died. The entire area was destroyed.

In surveying the area, a team of reporters happened on a dog that was battered and soaked from the tsunami. He was keeping the reporters at bay, protecting another dog that was in even worse shape. This dog refused to leave his wounded friend. He stayed at the side of his companion in the midst of that horrible devastation. The sight of it touched the hearts of the reporters…as the story did animal lovers all over of the world. This, too, demonstrated the best qualities of spirit in a living being. Nobility is not just a trait found in some humans. Dogs have much to teach us about nobility, friendship and loyalty. They deserve our love and respect.

For My Best Friend...

2011-12-21T16:23:00.000-08:00

I never had my own dog as a child. My sisters each had one and they were considered family pets but their loyalty was always to one of my sisters first. It wasn’t until after I turned fifty and moved to New Mexico that I finally got my own dog. I have to say, it was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life! I didn’t know that I had a hole in my heart until my Sara Bell filled it. She has become my best friend….

I thought I knew something about dogs before but I’ve learned so much from living with one that I realize I never even scratched the surface. I used to say I liked dogs but I’d never sleep with one or eat with one. Now, I do both regularly and it seems the most natural thing in the world. She has convinced me that dogs are a gift from God to mankind and they're worthy of our love and respect. They’re not only our companions but they can also be our teachers.

When I hear people talk about the intelligence of dogs I am reminded of a line in the movie Forrest Gump wherein the title character says: “I’m not a smart man but I know what love is”. While Sara Bell is very intelligent, she has other qualities that I think are more important. My Sara understands love, friendship, loyalty and affection. She 'gets' all the good stuff. She has the sweetest heart and a personality that makes me fall in love with her more every day. I’m convinced God sent her to me to teach me.

While I’ve always thought of home as a place, for Sara ‘home’ is with me, wherever I am. She just wants to be where I am and do what I'm doing. (That's why my food always tastes better than hers!) She’s my pack. She makes my house a home. She's always happy to see me. She's quick to forgive. She reminds me to play a little every day. She makes me laugh every day. She reminds me about how important it is just to feel joy in being alive. She brings me so much of that joy. She has opened my heart and my eyes to see things I never have. From giving my heart to her I’ve come to have more compassion for all animals. If Sara is capable of love then maybe other animals are too.

Sure, there are the little drawbacks. I dread rainy and snowy days because of the mud she'll track in! She loves to lie down and rub in dead things. She drinks from the toilet. She puts things in her mouth that would make me gag! And, there is hair on just about everything I own. But, like any relationship, we take the good with the bad. Like my mother always tells me, we accept our friends, warts and all.

Mans Best Friend lives to please the person they live with. It pains me to see them abused and neglected knowing how much they have to offer. How could anyone harm such noble creatures? I think Immanuel Kant was right, “We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”

I know, because of the differences in our life spans, that one day we will have to part. Until that day I will love and cherish my best friend and, by God’s grace, spend an eternity with her at my side. She has been my teacher even in that. I think it’s how we should see everyone we love and cherish. None of us knows how many days we get to spend with those we love so we should cherish them every minute.

Here are some things others have had to say about dogs...

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” Anatole France

“He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader, he will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart.” Unknown

“My goal in life is to be as good of a person as my dog already thinks I am.” Unknown

(If I didn't have a cat or a dog...) "I would not have to answer the question ‘Why do you have so many animals?’ from people who will never have the joy in their lives of knowing they are loved unconditionally by someone as close to an angel as they will ever get." Unknown

Now I get it...Thank You God.

Rest and Release, God's Economic Plan

2011-12-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

This is a time in America, and in the world, when people who don’t usually give any thought to economics have economics on the forefront of their minds. We are in a time of economic instability and uncertainty the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Great Depression. Our political leaders dicker and debate on exactly what to do but no one really seems to have any idea on how to fix our problems. The Bible hasn’t left us without guidance on this issue. God’s Word reveals to us an economic system that is both equitable and sustainable if we would implement it.

The first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses or Torah, contain laws of righteousness, those that instruct people in good morals and good conduct common to all men. They contain laws of sanctification that set the people apart for serving the One True God. They contain laws for individual conduct; for the worship of God both individually and ceremonially and laws to guide the nation including national economic laws. While it is unclear if ancient Israel ever consistently practiced these laws one thing is certain, they will be put into practice in the World Tomorrow. So the reader can consider this: ‘Millennial Economics 101’.

The readers of this will understand the significance of the number seven in God’s word. We are to rest on the seventh day of the week. We are to observe seven annual Holy Days. The nation is to observe a seven-year cycle. And the year after the end of seven times seven years, the fiftieth year, there is to be a Jubilee year. All of these laws affect the national economic system.

The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are the primary laws directing individual conduct. They are intended for all men in all ages. The forth commandment admonishes us to “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy”. It could begin: Thou shalt not work on the seventh day, but God chose to make it a positive command instead of a negative. We are to abstain from our usual labor both for our own physical and spiritual health and as a part of our national labor system. The seventh day is to be a day in which no commerce is to be practiced. It re-focuses us on our Creator and His purposes for us.

The seven annual Holy Days are signposts to guide us into understanding God’s plan for mankind but they are also reminders of our annual labors. They remind us of the times of planting and harvest that affect all of us. They mandate times of vacation and rejoicing for rich and poor alike. They show us that all citizens are to be partakers in the national prosperity.

In a like manner there is to be a seven-year cycle observed throughout the land. The seventh year is to be a Sabbath year for the land and its workers. The land is to lie at rest. It is not to be tilled or planted in. It is not to be harvested. Additionally all debts are to be forgiven every seven years.

The year following seven times seven years, the fiftieth year, is to be a Jubilee year. All debts are forgiven. All lands that have been bought, or more correctly leased, are to be returned to their original owners. The Jubilee year is somewhat akin to the Day of Pentecost. In a like manner Pentecost occurs the day after seven times seven weeks from the Wave Sheaf offering. The Day of Pentecost is the day God gave His commandments and laws from Mount Sinai thus freeing the people from the captivity of Egypt (a type of sin) and it’s pagan practices. In the New Testament is it the day God sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in the members of the first church thus freeing them from the captivity of sin. The Jubilee year too is a time of release and rejoicing. Together these observations of time serve as guideposts to remind God’s people of His economic system.

In the books of the law God forbids His people from charging interest to their countrymen on loaned money or other goods. The only taxation was the collection of tithes. The Levites, those who ran the physical government of Israel, were not allowed to own land but instead dwelt in cities, lived and ran the county and temple on the tithes of the rest of the nation. Gods taxation system never charged taxes on property. The tithes were only paid out of the increase or income of the people.

Families were instructed to save a second tithe to use on whatever they desired during the Holy Days in the places God appointed. A third tithe was to be collected during the third and sixth years out of a seven-year cycle. It was to be set aside to provide for the Levites and the needy among the people.

The government always ran on the tithes the people paid because the government was instructed not to borrow from other nations. The government could lend money to other nations and interest could be charged on that money. There was no gold standard that the monetary system was tied to. Free enterprise and private property ownership were allowed but the poor and needy were always provided for.

There was no communal ownership in Gods system. The only place that can be found in the scriptures is in the early church. In that time and place communal ownership, where everyone sold what they had and distributed the money to those with need among them, served to make the people liquid and mobile for the coming fall of Jerusalem under the Romans. Beyond that particular instance the scriptures clearly advocate that every man could sit under his own vine and fig tree and none could make them afraid.

Private property could never be taken away from its owner. Land could be leased for a price that reflected the amount of time until the next Jubilee year. It was then returned to the family of ownership. There was never any kind of inheritance tax.

This is only the barest outline of God’s economic system.

There are many more laws and principles that flesh out Gods way of building a sound economy. God’s system is fair and equitable. It allows people to maintain their dignity and feel safe in their homes. It allows people to pass on to their descendants what they have worked for all their lives. God’s economic system allows free enterprise guided by His commandments and laws.

Because of greed the worldly systems of economics can work people seven days a week, 24 hours a day. They have literally worked untold numbers to death. Instead of debt being erased every seven years, the worlds systems enslave people by crushing interest rates and poverty. For delinquent property taxes worldly governments can take away private property that may have been in the same family for generations. The worlds way can produce the very rich but at the same time it produces the very poor. Instead of a Jubilee every fifty years, the worldly systems tend to go through a depression about every fifty years.

Gods’ economic plan is unlike any worldly system. It is unlike socialism wherein the government owns the means of production and forcibly redistributes wealth. It is unlike communism wherein there is no private ownership. The state owns everything and distributes resources as it sees fit. It is also unlike our capitalistic system where greed and “the bottom line” are the only guides.

In a world full of bountiful resources with plenty of food…people go hungry every day. That would never be so in God’s system. What’s more Gods way is sustainable. It can last for a thousand years and beyond. One day He’ll show us that.

A Land Full of Bloody Crimes

2011-12-19T18:20:00.000-08:00

In a land full of bloody crimes like America has become there is a sharp divide on whether the death penalty is appropriate or humane. The way criminals are punished varies greatly across the country. The two percent of the population that are criminals hold the ninety-eight percent of innocent people hostage because of contradictory laws and good intentions. People that may mean well in our justice system have created a convoluted mess. The result is no justice and no peace.

The eighth amendment to the Constitution reads: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

This was added to the Constitution because of abuses the British had inflicted on American colonists. Our founding fathers wanted America to be different. The cruelty the old world had known would not stand here. It was, and is, a noble ideal.

As a Christian I have one issue with the admonition against the ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ clause. I think that standard should be determined by the act of the criminal perpetrator. If a murderer kills his victim by hitting them in the head with a pipe, for example, that’s how that murderer should die. This is a Biblical principle. Most people will recognize the scriptural phrase “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. Most people, however, don’t understand that it is a law intended for a government NOT for individuals.

I have often heard people claim the Bible contradicts itself when the law, ‘an eye for an eye’, is compared to Christ’s admonition to turn the other cheek. They don’t understand what the Bible says or why. When Christ said to turn the other cheek He was speaking to individuals NOT to a government. There is no contradiction. There are two different directives intended for two different audiences.

Many modern Christians will claim the death penalty is not a Christian value. Only the Bible can dictate what is and is not a Christian value. The death penalty is a Biblical law. It is the only law contained in all five books of the law. That makes it a Christian value.

Mahatma Gandhi famously said: "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and the whole world would soon be blind and toothless." Gandhi didn’t understand the Bible either. I have no doubt Gandhi, and those who hold similar notions, mean well. They believe they are holding human life to a higher value. A proper understanding of the Bible will show that the death penalty, in fact, holds human life to the highest value.

Genesis 9:6 "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.”

This is the admonition in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. It tells us that man is made in the image of the Living God. It is because man holds a special place that to kill a human being demands the highest penalty. Such is the value of human life.

Exodus. 21:24 “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,”

Leviticus.24:17 “If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death.”

Leviticus. 24:20 “fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured.”

Deuteronomy.19:21 “Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

If someone takes your hand, they owe a hand in return. It isn’t vengeance for a government to exact such a penalty. It is true justice. It becomes vengeance when an individual takes the law into their own hands. Justice is the true road to peace. Vengeance is the road to destruction.

Numbers 35:30 “Anyone who kills a person is to be put to death as a murderer only on the testimony of witnesses. But no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.”

Biblical law doesn’t arbitrarily demand a human life based on one persons word. That could lead to horrible abuses. Two witnesses were required to demand a life. In our world, with modern science, forensic evidence can easily serve as a witness capable of convicting a murderer.

_____________________________________________________

In the last few days a man in New York walked into an elevator wearing what appeared to be the clothing of an exterminator. He sprayed flammable liquid on a 73 year old woman then stepped out of the elevator and set the woman on fire, killing her. He did this in the view of a surveillance camera. He went on to turn himself in to the local police. The city and the nation were shocked.

It says something for a crime to shock the nation these days. We have become accustomed to horrible, bloody crimes against the innocent. Thirty years ago a bloody crime would make the front page of every newspaper in the country. These days it has to be something really unusual to do so.

Earlier this month in Canton, Georgia a seven-year old girl was raped, stabbed and beaten to death. The body of Jorelys Rivera was found December 5th in the afternoon in a trash bin. She had been thrown away like so much garbage. A 20-year-old apartment maintenance man is being held for the murder of this beautiful little child.

This story hardly made the news in most places in the country. It was reported between the weather and the latest football scores. Though it shocked the people in her community, the next day it was just a footnote to most of the nation. This kind of evil has become all-too-common.

The monsters that committed these horrible murders will, no doubt, go through a lengthy court process. They will most likely be found guilty. They may even be given the death penalty. If that happens they will go through years of appeals and may never actually see the death penalty. They will be housed and fed on taxpayer money for years to come. In a week or two their crimes will be forgotten for the next big stories in the news. The families of their victims will know no peace from our “justice” system.

If Biblical laws were enacted these monsters would die like the innocent people they murdered in a timely manner. Their deaths would be made public and you can be certain that it would send the message to other would-be rapists and murderers that to commit such crimes would see them die in a like manner. I guarantee that would deter most!

Oh, some of the more ‘humane’ among us would weep and moan for the terrible, and cruel way that these monsters were ended…but more families would sleep soundly knowing that justice prevails and their children were safe.

This world has gotten so off-track that it will take Christ returning to set it right. God’s system of justice is coming…little Jorelys Rivera will breath again. She, and all of humanity, will know true peace and justice one day.

Ezekiel 7:23 “Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.”

Christians and Christmas

2011-12-07T17:42:00.000-08:00

I’m one of the odd minority of Christians that don’t keep Christmas. You could call me literalistic when it comes to reading the Bible. I believe it actually means what it says.

While I have no particular problem with people wanting to acknowledge or celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ…I just don’t believe it should be a continuation of a pagan holiday. While there is no evidence that Christ or His disciples ever celebrated His birth, it is mentioned prominently in the Gospels. Of course most modern Christians don’t actually seem to have read the Bible as the ‘traditional’ story of Christ’s birth doesn’t fit the facts as presented in the gospels.

December 25th is a day that was recognized for centuries before the birth of Christ as the pagan celebration Saturnalia. Saturnalia was an ancient Roman celebration held in honour of Saturn, one of the Titans. Saturn was the father of Jupiter, the Roman version of the Greek god Zeus. The practice predated the birth of Christ by over 200 years. There is evidence that some version of it was practiced centuries earlier in Babylon.

The early Catholic church, in trying to make converts, adopted many pagan holidays, practices and places of worship and simply stamped the name Christ on them. That was the opposite of what the God of the Bible commanded His people to do. In the centuries since, many other pagan practices were folded into the celebration that came around the time of the Winter Solstice. Celtic and Nordic practices added what became Santa Claus, the Yule log, the Christmas tree etc. These things are all clearly documented in history books for anyone who cares to research them. None of these things has anything remotely to do with Christ. Modern Christians observe the ‘Christ-mass’ because it has become tradition…and because it feels good. Knowingly or unknowingly those that observe the day do so on the authority of the Catholic church and NOT on the scriptures.

I believe the Bible is abundantly clear that Gods people are NOT to worship Him they way pagan nations worship their gods. The story of Cain and Able clearly shows that God will not accept forms of worship that He doesn’t command. And, Christ himself warns His people that they worship God in vain when they substitute traditions for Gods commands.

It is easily argued that Christ was not born in the middle of Winter in Israel. He was likely born in the Fall according to scholars. He was born in the year 4 BC and not the year zero. Scripture says wise men came from the East bearing three types of gifts. It doesn’t say there were three wise men. While Mary, or more correctly Miriam in Hebrew, bore her child in a stable, he wasn’t there when the wise men came to visit. His name, incidentally, was Yeshua not Jesus. (There is no ‘J’ sound in Hebrew.) Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua and means ‘savior’. Christ means 'messiah', a title His followers gave Him later. So His birth name would have been ‘Yeshua ben Yosef ‘or ‘Joshua the son of Joseph’. All these are facts that most modern Christians don’t really even care about. They are more interested in their ‘feel good’ tradition.

It is also most often overlooked that during this ‘feel good’ time, that there are more suicides than at any other time of year. More people suffer from depression now than any other time of year. Anyone can see there is more stress and that's not to mention, the murder rate and rate of domestic abuse goes up during this time. And think of the number of families that go into debt buying gifts for their children as Christmas presents. I love children but they have been conditioned to expect Christmas presents regardless of their parents ability to pay for them. Now, my heart is touched when I hear of a child doing something unselfish during Christmas, or any other time, but Christmas teaches most children to think only of themselves. Greed and selfishness are not Christian values. None of this is what Christ intended for His followers...

People think of Christmas as the time to show love and good feelings towards others. Those who would normally ignore the disenfranchised in our society do ‘feel good’ things for them this time of year. The homeless, and everyone else, need to eat every day but it makes the more affluent among us feel good about themselves to feed the homeless...on this day. (Then go back to ignoring them when it's over.) The Bible tells us to love our fellow man every day of the year but, as has been pointed out, what the Bible actually says doesn't really matter to people who observe Christmas.

Every year Christ is removed a little further from the Christ-mass. He is talked about less and less. More and more stuff is advertised and sold. Some of the very things Christ warned against are emphasized this time of year. We have become a 'bottom line' culture in more ways than one. But, retailers love it…because it makes people feel good!

Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. (Mark 7:7)

The God I Know

2011-11-30T19:14:00.000-08:00

It is a typical human endeavor to create labels for ourselves. We like to define things because we believe when we do we gain some kind of power over them. We give labels to everything. Just think of going to a doctor with some kind of health problem. The first thing we want to know is: what is it? Is there a name for what I have? If we can name it, then we must be able to do something about it. In a like manner we create idols, images of things the way we want them to be. We reduce things to images that we can comprehend. Sometimes we make our idols out of wood or stone or metal. But most of the time we create our idols in our minds. Think about when you’ve heard something about someone you’d never met. You probably created a mental image of that person only to find later, when you actually met, they didn’t fit your mental image. We all do that to some degree. The problems arise when we react to our mental image, or idol, instead of reacting to the actual person. We may have heard that someone was a liar or thief or some other dark, nefarious type. When we met them, instead of meeting the real person in front of us, we reacted to the image we had of a liar or thief. Someone who themselves may have been the victim of a liar or a gossip. That’s one reason why God tells us in His word not to gossip.

We do these things, create labels and images in our minds, of God too. If the labels or images we create in our minds are not those of the God revealed in the scriptures then we have created an idol. When we worship the image we have of our god, we are worshipping an idol. We can do this all on our own but we have to remember too that we have powerful enemies in the spirit realm. Satan and his demons are attempting to lead us away from the One True God. They encourage us to create false images of God with our hands and in our minds. They encourage us to worship that which is not God. The world is full of false gods that mankind worships. We hear about them every day. We can’t just unconsciously allow such things in our minds or they can slowly change us too. We have to study the scriptures, pray and obey God to come to know Him. When we hear or read someone else’s labels or images of God we need to consciously remind ourselves, That’s NOT the God I know.

Here are just a few of the common misconceptions about Our Heavenly Father:

God is not opposite but equal to Satan. Lucifer was the being created by God who rebelled and became Satan. God is not at war with Satan. Satan has made war on God and lost: he will do so again…and lose again. He is in NO way equal to God. We shold not mistake the fact that God allows him to do what he does, for now, as anything approaching equality with our Heavenly Father.

God is not desperately trying to save all of mankind. If he were He’d be losing. This is ‘A’ day of salvation. God is not calling all of mankind now. The day will come when He will.

He doesn’t punish people for breaking His commandments in the way many think. When someone touches a hot stove God doesn’t send an angel down to burn their flesh. Sin, breaking God’s law, brings it’s own punishment just like a hot stove does it’s own burning. Like a parent punishes a child for intentionally breaking a rule, God punishes those who willfully disobey Him.

God doesn’t make ‘deals’. He laid down His covenant, His B’rith, and we choose to follow it or not. He set before us life and death and He implores us to choose life.

God isn’t in nature. He is apart from and outside of the universe. He cannot be reduced to any form in time, space, matter, energy or any other thing He created.

God doesn’t absolve people from obeying Him for simply accepting Christ as their savior. Faith requires action. To Love God, to come to understand Him, we have to obey Him.

God doesn’t automatically send someone who hasn’t accepted Christ to hell. He wouldn’t send a young child, or anyone else, to hell for never having heard of, or understood, Christ. He’s not a vengeful old man waiting to punish sinners or unbelievers. He doesn’t take any pleasure in punishing disobedient children. He wouldn’t send, even a disobedient child, into an ever-burning hell fire. Those who consciously reject Him will be burned up and even their memory forgotten.

He doesn’t love some of His children and hate others…He loves all His children.

He is not a part of some mysterious trinity. His Holy Spirit is His power that emanates from Him not some ethereal being, more powerful even than God the Father.

God is NOT ‘the goddess’ or ‘our Higher Power’ or ‘the deity’ or any of our other euphemisms. God reveals Himself to us as our Heavenly Father. God will not be reduced to any form we can conceive. God’s name is hallowed. It is not to be taken casually or lightly. In a like way His sons name is not to be taken casually or lightly.

God cannot be defined. To define something is to categorize it; to group it with other like-things. There is only One God. There is nothing else in that category. Because we are mortal beings with three-pound brains our brains cannot contain or conceive of God in His totality. We can only come to know what He reveals of Himself. Because we are limited in our various languages He uses terms that we can understand to teach us.

Only the scriptures reveal to us the One, True God. He is the Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer of everything there is. He is righteous, just, patient, merciful, everlasting…and so much more… God is a spirit. We must worship Him in spirit and truth. God is Love and Love is ultimately how we come to know Him.

The Power of Forgiveness

2011-11-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

Forgiveness is without doubt one of the fundamental elements of Christianity. Perhaps it is the fundamental element. Forgiveness is the key to Gods plan. God forgives us our sins and we are commanded to forgive one another of the wrongs we do each other. Without forgiveness Gods plan would be pointless. There would be no hope for any of us. Without our forgiving each other we would be unable to live together in harmony or know any kind of inner peace. Forgiveness is the foundation upon which a Christian life is built.

I’ve thought about writing an article on forgiveness for some time now. I first thought to do so in general, academic terms with a kind of dispassionate observers perspective. I came to realize that my own personal story may be the best way to approach the subject. Maybe there is someone struggling out there who needs a personal story to connect with. This is my testimony of forgiveness.

As a child I lived in a home filled with alcoholism, physical abuse and violence. The details aren’t important anymore. It was a long time ago. But it occurred at such an early stage in my life that it affected everything in my life for decades. For most of my life my relationships with other people have all been tainted by the abuse I suffered. I know that I’m nothing special. Unfortunately this is far too common a story in our world. Too many of us have had to deal with similar things, or far worse, in their own lives. The good news is that there is a way out of the darkness such things bring into our lives. The truth really can set you free…

For years I never talked about the darkness abuse brought into my life. It was too personal. I balled my feelings up and pushed them deep down inside me without ever addressing them. They kept me from getting too close to any other human being. They kept me from being able to trust anyone. They kept me from being hurt again. They made me prone to depression. And, they awakened dreams of revenge in me. Like a spiritual cancer those feelings slowly ate away at me. I clung to the hate they created in me like it was a personal treasure. That hate gave me a feeling of power, a power I didn’t have in my childhood.

I became a Christian some years later. With my efforts to seek God and obey His will I began to study His word. When I first read in the scriptures His admonition to love our enemies it was very hard to hear, but my heart knew it was the truth. I probably read the scriptures about how I should forgive my enemies hundreds of times, all without connecting what I was reading to my issues. It wasn’t talking to me it was talking to other people. I wasn’t ready to let go of my power. I wasn’t ready to let go of the dark feelings that felt good to me. The armor of God I wore was full of chinks.

One day, after professing to be a follower of Christ for years, I read about forgiveness yet again in Gods word. This time I realized He was speaking to me. I finally took it personally. In prayer I admitted that I didn’t have the ability to forgive, I just didn’t know how. But I knew that God, through His grace and the power of His Holy Spirit, could do it through me if I would get out of the way. So I prayed for God to work through me and forgive those who had hurt me. True to His word He worked in me to do it. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t an overnight event, it took me a long time asking the same prayer to finally let go of my hate and resentment. But it happened. God set me free of something that had pulled me down my whole life. I felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I began to feel Gods love. I still have scars on my body but my heart has been healed.

I had to repent of my dark feelings before God could forgive through me. Repentance is closely related to forgiveness. Repentance, admitting our sins, shortcomings and weaknesses opens our hearts and allows Gods forgiveness and love to flow through us. Only God’s light can drive out the darkness.

It seems a part of our human condition that we allow so many things to come between us. We want to see ourselves as separate. It makes us feel special. It also cuts us off from each other. But we are dynamic beings. Holding on to darkness only causes us to stagnate. It doesn’t allow us to grow. It pulls us down. God’s love, God’s light is dynamic. It flows through us and uplifts us.

I’ve made it a part of my life to study mankind by studying myself. I’ve learned that we hold on to hate and resentment because they feel good. They can give us a sense of power and control. God’s Holy Spirit working in me quietly taught me that that kind of power is an illusion. It only works to pull us down. Hate and resentment only hurt the one who holds on to them. They don’t cause the one hated to lose any sleep.

There’s a popular parable that says each of us has two dogs fighting inside us, one good; one evil. The one that wins is the one that we feed the most. I know feeding the one that holds hate in us feels good. I also know that road holds no inner peace. It only leads to destruction. Satan uses those chinks in Gods armor to constantly pull us away from God. I know that forgiveness is the only way to let it go. It feeds the good dog in us. Forgiveness is a part of love and real love flows from God like rivers of living water.

The truth is we are all connected. We all come from the same ancestors and they came from God. I wonder at people who question whether God even exists. I think they must live in a kind of prison. I want to shout to them from the rooftops that I KNOW God exists because of what He has done in me! I know that God is Love. He doesn’t exist ‘out there’ in some intellectual realm. He can live in us, if we make room for Him by allowing His light to drive out the darkness in us.

Because God’s love is dynamic we can’t just stop at forgiveness. We are called on to go further. We are called on to love our enemies. I knew that my heart had truly been healed when I was able to pray for those who hurt me and mean it.

I used to think of miracles, like calling down fire from heaven to destroy ones enemies, as the greatest proofs of Gods power to mankind. I came to realize that what He wrought in me by teaching me to forgive was a greater miracle. I don’t need any greater proof of His love…

Freedom of Religion and Giving Offense

2011-10-20T18:21:00.000-07:00

The first ten amendments of the Constitution of the United States of America are called the “The Bill of Rights”. These rights, and those enumerated in the amendments that follow, exist for ONE reason…to limit government’s power over individuals.

The First Amendment to the Constitution reads:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

It is a historical fact that this country was founded on the premise of freedom of religion. That was why the first Europeans came here. They rejected the authority of their various countries to establish state religions. That is why the first freedom enumerated in the Bill of Rights deals squarely with the subject of religion. What it says is that the government will make NO law respecting the establishment of a particular religion as a state religion.

What it has been interpreted to read is: “There will be a separation between church and state.” That statement is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. This interpretation has been extrapolated to mean that the government will not allow any religious displays in public places or on public airwaves. Anyone who attempts to honor God in a public place or ask Him to bless this nation thus violates federal law.

Anyone who advocates actually keeping the Ten Commandments is narrow minded and ignorant because concepts of Right and Wrong are culturally relative and Gods Commandments may offend someone if they actually have to see them in a public place.

To offer a prayer before a sporting, or other public, event is now to violate federal law. Because a prayer may ‘offend’ someone it is now illegal in public places.

It's OK for the football players in the NFL , who many young people look to as role models, to be convicted felons, drug users, misogynists or simply egotistical fools because those things are freedom of expression. But when a player like Tim Tebow offers a silent prayer of thanks to his Creator for his athletic ability...it's offensive!! People might actually have to think about the possiblity of they're being a God for a second of their lives!

It’s OK for a comic to use the most vile, disgusting language in their act because…it’s freedom of speech.

It’s OK to fill the airwaves and the Internet with all forms of perversion…from sex with animals to sodomy and rape to torture and murder…because that’s freedom of speech.

In America today it is OK to promote sexual perversion as an ‘alternative lifestyle’ regardless of whom it offends…because that’s freedom of expression.

It’s OK to promote sexual promiscuity, as long as one practices ‘safe sex’ regardless of whom it offends…because that’s freedom of expression.

It’s OK to advocate the wholesale murder of the unborn, because the labels of those doing so don’t recognize them as human beings. Abortion is simply a ‘viable method of birth control.’ Anyone who sees an unborn child as anything more than a mass of tissue is ignorant and unenlightened. And that ‘offends’ the more enlightened among us. (It is usually the same 'enlightened' people who are so ardently against the death penalty for murderers and other violent criminals.)

It’s OK to refer to Christians as bigots, homophobes, sexists, misogynists, racists and simple minded, ignorant fools…because that only offends Christians….and it’s freedom of speech.

It is OK for Muslims who come to this country, expecting us to accept their cultural and religious practices, to be offended at our cultural and religious practices. (We don’t want to offend those who have called us their sworn enemies after all…)

Americans are supposed to be ‘tolerant’ of anyone and anything…except God and His Commandments.

This is not only inconsistent as a matter of law, it is Evil disguised as Good!

This is NOT the America our founding fathers envisioned! This is NOT the America that our veterans fought for in the wars we've taken part in. We fought for freedom of religion...not freedom from religion. We have turned our backs on our Creator...the ONE our Declaration of Independence says gave us our rights!

It is time Jews and Christians got offended at our country revering in decadence all the while being told that our values, the Judeo-Christian values that this nation was built on, may offend someone if they actually had to see or hear them!

Something is VERY WRONG here!

On Love

2011-10-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

Love is the most popular subject in our music and our poetry but it’s also one of the most misunderstood concepts in the world. We’ve all heard someone say things like: “I just love my wife so much I’d kill her if she ever left me”. Even with as much as we obsess over the subject, as a society, I believe we are somewhat uncomfortable with the subject of love. We’re not quite sure how or when to express it. It is often mistaken for weakness and we don’t want to appear weak. Even in churches where love should be taught as a part of the Gospel of Christ it is often misunderstood or misrepresented.

In a Sabbatarian church I once attended, it was ‘politically incorrect’ to talk about love. That was a subject that Protestants, and other ‘touchy-feely’ types talked about. Love was too often used to dismiss God’s law and what mattered was the law. Never mind the fact that God revealed His law to us as an act of love. Like when a parent tells their young child to stay away from a busy street. It is out of love that they do so. The law of God glows with love for His children. Love flows through every line of His word. That’s something it would do well for all of us to remember. We also need to remember that love has rules. It’s not just whatever we feel.

Love, in English, means very different things depending on how it is used. Dictionaries use words like: affection, attraction, tenderness, devotion and admiration to define love.

In a more precise way, Greek uses four different words for our word love:

Agápe means unconditional love. This is the form of the word most often used in scripture.

Éros is romantic or sexual love. It is the root word for erotic.

Philia means friendship or brotherly love.

Storge means affection.

We have often heard love defined as: “an outgoing concern for others” but it is more than that. Love is the extension of our sense of self. It is the extension of our sense of “I-Me-My-Mine” to include others. What we love we consider a part of us.

God’s word tells us that:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

(I Cor.13: 4-8) NIV

These qualities define the characteristics of Love. These are the qualities that God wants us to cultivate in our lives. These are qualities we must show to love to God and other people.

Here are just a few things God’s word says about love and some commentary:

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you (Matt. 5:44)

Love is not a noun it’s a verb. Love is not just what we feel it’s what we do. It isn’t easy to love ones enemies but as Christians we are called to a higher standard of behavior. This is a directive from Christ…a commandment for His disciples.

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. (Matt. 7:12)

For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? (Matt. 5:46)

This is ‘nuts and bolts’ Christianity. This is the aim of Gods Word. It’s not just for our brethren…it’s for everyone. This is how we can emulate God the Father. He loves all His children.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

What God asked of Abraham, to kill his only son Isaac, was to test Abraham’s faith in God. Well, God showed His faith in, and love for, us by sacrificing His own son. We often overlook the most obvious things in the scriptures by parsing Hebrew and Greek words and ignoring the obvious. A part of the God family stepped out of eternity into a mortal body and gave His life for us out of God’s love for us.

And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. (I John 4:16)

All real love flows from God. When we open our hearts to receive it and to allow it to flow through us we allow God to live in us. This scripture says it all.

If a man says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? ( I John 4:20)

We can’t say our hearts are open to God but closed to other human beings. They are a part of us and we of them. We all draw from the well that is humanity. To love our fellow man is a part of what it is to love God.

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. (John 13:34)

Christ loved us enough to die for us…that’s how He loved us. It was in what He did…not just what He felt.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)

We shouldn’t overlook the fact that others have died for us too. American soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and police are some who have given their lives for us. Their sacrifices should never be overlooked or shortchanged. God certainly doesn’t overlook them.

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. (John 13:35)

We often hear churches claim one proof or another that they are the true church. This is the proof that Christ pointed to. This is what Christ said identifies His disciples.

If you love me keep my commandments. (John 14:15)

Love has rules. It has boundaries. We can’t just do whatever we feel like and call it love. God tells us here what we are to do to show Him our love for Him in no uncertain terms.

These are just a few things God tells us about love. We too often overlook the most obvious things in the scriptures in our search minute or obscure truths.

The fact is that it doesn’t matter what a church teaches officially or unofficially.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing. (I Cor. 13: 1-3)

What matters is that we open our hearts and allow God’s love to flow through us.

If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but DOES nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? (James 2:16) NIV

What matters is what we do.

Materialism

2011-09-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

Stuff…everybody has it, most of us want more of it. We have come to think of it as a sign of wealth in America. The fact is that we could live without most of it.

Corporate America leads us around like sheep with commercials. They love it when they see people line up overnight to buy an X-box or watch a new movie.

When someone habitually or chronically shops all the time it is an indicator that something is wrong in their life. Perhaps they have lost any concept of purpose for their life and are attempting to fill the void by buying more stuff.

This is NOT a good thing.

I have seen people so wealthy that they spend millions of dollars on their homes…and they do this while people across their own town are going to be hungry. Something is very wrong here.

This is NOT what America was supposed to be about. People from other countries used to come here because they believed in the principles that our society was built on. Now, many will tell you openly, they come here to get rich…and then go back to where they came from.

We have become a country about greed…instead of living up to the true meaning of the principles our nation was founded on.

Fewer and fewer Americans actually make anything these days. Manufacturing and production jobs are shipped over seas. Americans look down on people that work with their hands and see the ‘best’ jobs as ones where they can wear a suit to work and look into a computer screen…then go golfing in their leisure time.

We are setting ourselves up for a great fall here. China has become the factory for the world. We send jobs there because they can make things cheaper. They work for pennies on the dollar. And, make no mistake about it, it is because of corporate greed that we want things made cheaper. One of the, many, problems with that is that China is NOT our friend. Every dollar we send to the Chinese strengthens the Chinese army and one day…we will regret that.

For now our greed for material goods is simply feeding an emptiness in us. It’s an emptiness that was left when we, as a society, threw out the values that made us great and opted instead for immediate gratification.

We have lost our way. With it we’ve lost any claim to American exceptionalism. I fear America is headed for a fall unless we turn our hearts back to God. More stuff is just more stuff.

We have lost our way.

Affirmative Action

2011-08-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

Dr. Martin Luther King, in his most famous speech, spoke of his dream wherein men would be judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their hearts. Dr. King’s speech challenged us to live up to the true meaning of “All men are created equal”. That’s a reasonable expectation in a democratic society. Now, some forty years later, are we living up to that value?

President Lyndon Johnson pushed legislation that established quotas for minority hiring and enrollment in colleges and universities. The reasoning was something like: “since the population of the country is about 12 percent black…the makeup of educational institutions and businesses should be about 12 percent black”. That, in affect, meant lowering the standards that most businesses used for hiring and the standards that most colleges and universities used for enrolling new students. This was all done in the name of ‘making up for past injustices’. Perhaps it was necessary for our society to be forced into accepting blacks into mainstream institutions. Racial prejudices that had endured for decades and even centuries, had to be confronted and challenged.

Dr. King was right that we needed to live up to the true meaning of our Democratic principles. All men and women are created equal in their rights and ought to be so treated in the eyes of the law.

I believe, if I were a black American, I would be offended by the very concept of affirmative action. Why should the bar not be held as high for someone whose ancestry goes back to Africa instead of Europe or Asia? It is an insult! Were I to be hired in a job or accepted in a college or university I would never know if it was because I had earned it or because I was being judged merely “by the color of my skin”.

Surely this has done more to harm the cause of equality and justice than to promote it because it assumes that black Americans aren’t ‘good enough’ to judged on equal grounds with whites and Asians.

Even though white Americans fought a civil war in which half a million died to end slavery. And, in a huge act of affirmative action, white Americans elected a president with black skin, cries of racism still abound. There are still those who demand that the government do everything for them.

The government is supposed to change the perception that non-blacks have about blacks. This is a trap that most minorities fall in to. It is something that the government will never do…nor is it the function of government to do so. If black, and other minority, Americans want to change their image in the perception of others then they need to clean up their own communities instead of whining that the government should do everything for them.

Black Americans voted overwhelmingly for Barak Obama…because he was black! It is just as racist to vote for someone solely for the color of his skin as it is to vote against someone for the same reason. The fact is that white Americans elected a black president and it still isn’t enough for blacks!

It is time all Americans pay head to what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood for. It is time for us to live up to those ideals and judge each other, not by the color of our skins, but by the content of our hearts. The REAL affirmative action is affirming that it is what is in our hearts that matters.

Political Correctness

2011-07-17T09:14:00.000-07:00

We, Americans, fought a war against colonial oppression in giving birth to our nation. We fought that war to ensure and protect our God-given freedoms. Freedom of speech and the freedom to practice our various religious faiths are the very first of those freedoms. There hasn’t been a war to take those freedoms away from us but they are, nonetheless, being taken away from us. The social movement called political correctness or ‘PC’ is destroying our right to freely practice our religious values and our right of freedom of speech just as surely as any conquering enemy.

Every Soldier, Sailor, Airmen and Marine takes the same oath as our elected officials to protect and defend our constitution against ALL enemies both foreign and domestic. What threatens to destroy our freedoms is our enemy…period. Political correctness is an enemy of freedom. It has served only to harm our society. It is psychologically dangerous and clothed in dishonesty.

To grow as individuals, and as a society, we need to be honest with ourselves and with each other. All we do otherwise is repress any real feelings until the day they blow up in our faces. Politically correct behavior is dishonest behavior. It is not diplomacy or common courtesy as some may claim. It is hypocrisy plain and simple. It is ‘politically incorrect’ to point out any shortcomings or faults in those groups who feel they need such protection. One dare not point out any unflattering fact about a minority for example. That would cast them in a bad light and they can’t have that! What’s worse is that an honest comment can label the person making it a racist, a sexist, a homophobe or any number of other slurs. What the PC types hope to accomplish with this ridiculous standard of ‘correct’ behavior is nothing less than a revision of history. To rewrite history to suit some current political trend is a tactic commonly used by totalitarian governments to shore up their own agendas. That is exactly what the PC movement is, a subtle form of totalitarianism. They want to control our thoughts!

Not everyone is equally protected under the umbrella of political correctness strangely enough. If you are a straight, white, English speaking, male you’re fair game for any derogatory slander. The same has become true for Christians. In our own American press it has become commonplace to insult Christians, they are considered fair game and no political correctness is necessary. But the same people dare not say anything against Islam…that might offend Muslims! The Hollywood elite frequently joins in insulting Christians and treating Muslims with kit gloves. Rosie O’Donnell said some time ago that radical Christians were ‘just as dangerous’ as radical Muslims! To label some of the most decent, generous people in the history of the world ‘just as bad’ as the terrorists trying to destroy us is ludicrous! How IDOITIC can a person be?

Even the Pope, it turns out, is supposed to be PC. In the news some months ago he made some comments, taken out of context, by some Muslims and many of them went up in arms. The Popes comments seemed to indicate the Muslims were associated with violence. Those who took offense obviously didn’t listen to the whole speech…or it’s intent. They simply deemed it offensive to mention Islam and violence in the same speech. So what did some of the Muslims who took offense do? They reacted violently against churches and murdered a nun in response! Surely the irony of all of this isn’t lost on anyone of reasonable intelligence?

What the Pope should have said is: “Yes, Muslim history is a history of violence and a good deal of the faithful are hateful warmongers. The bloody history of Islam is a matter of record for anyone who cares to research it.” Instead he apologizes, after a fashion, …his words chosen carefully of course. Political correctness demanded it after all!

Where was the Muslim outrage when the head of state in Iran said that Israel should be wiped out? Where was Muslim outrage when any of the THOUSANDS of innocent people were murdered in the dozens of terrorist attacks in the last few years? The answer is NO major Muslim group has expressed any outrage. That’s because most of those attacks were against white, Christians and Jews. The ‘politically correct’ apologized to their Muslim attackers for not understanding their pain. Some of them even went on to blame the victims!

The truth is, and this will be politically incorrect, the Muslims that liberals fight so hard to protect would cut the throats of those infidels given the opportunity.

Politically correct liberals tell us that racial profiling isn’t PC even though it is Arab Muslims that have declared war against us. It isn’t PC to declare that America is different than the rest of the countries on earth because we have historically fought for what is fair and right. (We even fought for Muslims in North Africa during WWII, in the former Yugoslavia, and to free Muslims in Iraq.)

Our Political Correctness has done nothing but embolden our enemies. The world is coming closer everyday to annihilating itself because good men have become afraid to take a stand!

The rule of the PC seems to be that who ever whines the loudest gets the attention. Conservatives don’t whine because they believe in personal responsibility and maturity. That leaves the most liberal among us doing most of the whining. They want a ‘Mommy’ state wherein the federal government does everything for everyone. Mature people don’t want that. It is an abdication of maturity and personal responsibility.

Political Correctness is a liberal practice because they want to feel warm and fuzzy. They don’t want to think or be confronted with the facts because they have made their minds up already, to the extent that they use their minds and not just their feelings. Most of us have to live in the real world.

The federal government can’t change the hearts and minds of people! What changes peoples perceptions is a change in behavior by the irresponsible and immature to begin acting like adults. Practicing honesty instead of political correctness will begin a real dialogue and start to make real changes in our society instead of the phony, superficial changes that make us feel good…

The Past and The Future

2011-06-19T16:47:00.000-07:00

I love history. Our history tells us where we came from. It can tell us who we are, if we’ll take the time to learn it. Shakespeare, another one of my loves, wrote: “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players…” I think of history as a kind of stage. It’s like a continuum of theaters. Most have been small with audiences of only a few people. Others have been grand and commanded the attention of millions. Where we are today is connected to those performances.

Some forces and movements began hundreds, and some thousands, of years ago and still move people today. It reminds me of the way a wave passes through water. Individual water molecules aren’t moved along like they are in a current. They remain where they are but are raised and lowered as the force of the wave passes through them. In a similar way, forces of history pass through individuals as they move through time. To understand those forces it’s useful to know when and where they began.

Some say that history repeats itself. While that may not be technically true, it certainly seems true that similar trends repeat themselves in history. Human nature has remained unchanged throughout human history and that gives us a common ground on which to understand some of the repetitive patterns in it. That’s the main reason why the works of Shakespeare and others are intelligible to us. We understand the motivations and actions of past human beings when we understand their circumstances. I am reminded of an incident wherein President Harry S. Truman was reported to have been reading Plutarchs’ ‘Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans’. When asked why he was reading it, his reply was that he wanted to know what was going on in Washington!

The idea that history repeats itself is so common some cultures employ divination methods that are based on the probability of pattern repetition. The Chinese, for example, use the I-Ching. The idea is that patterns tend to repeat or replay in nature and knowing those patterns can help to predict the future based on where one is in a current pattern. While I believe occult divination methods are primarily baseless superstition, there is some logic in them or, at least, in this particular method.

It is an historical phenomenon that when times become very chaotic for people they tend to turn back to their traditional values and faith. In times of war or natural disaster they are comforted by the beliefs they were raised with. This seems to happen in cycles as well. Over years people gradually leave their traditional faiths for more and more freedoms until their societies become so chaotic that a trend usually occurs that causes more and more people to turn back to their historical faith. I believe we are on the verge of this particular pattern repeating itself.

American and European values have become such a free-for-all that it has left a great many people without any purpose or direction in life. The backlash may very well be a return to the traditional faiths of our ancestors.

At the same time the Arab-Muslim world is in a state of upheaval. They are struggling with where they fit in to the modern world. In Iraq and Afghanistan especially, I believe there will be a backlash following the wars wherein people turn back to their faith. Ironically, what the war will produce is more radical Muslims and more hatred of the West than ever before.

For hundreds of years now the philosophy of Islam and the Christian influenced secular philosophy of the West have been at odds with each other. They have ‘pushed’ at each other because they are incompatible with each other. Islam is a view of life that is opposed to democratic ideals. That doesn’t mean all individuals who practice Islam, it means the philosophy of Islam itself. The West today is locked in a conflict with Islam. I don’t say ‘radical’ Islam so much as ‘orthodox’ Islam.

What is sure these days is that the world seems a much smaller place than ever before in history. The population has just hit seven billion. There are emerging powers all over the globe. The Chinese are on the ascendancy. The Muslim world is on the ascendancy. The United Europe is growing and consolidating its power.

America, on the other hand, seems on the decline. We have turned over most of our manufacturing capabilities to countries like China. (Who will prove not to be our friend.) We have lost any moral authority because we have thrown out the values that made us great. We are a culture at war with itself.

History teaches that when there is a power vacuum in the world someone will fill it. Another lesson of history is that political leaders tend to use religion to unify people and give them a common purpose. As stated earlier, in the times of greatest uncertainty and confusion people tend to turn to the faith of their forefathers. In the Middle East that means most will turn back to Islam. In Europe Catholicism is the faith of their fathers. Other areas pf the world will follow suit. The problem is that all these faiths are at odds with each other.

These worldviews compete with the hearts and minds of people searching for meaning in their lives. There is a strong attraction to people who are certain of something. That’s one reason why cults continue to draw so many to their ranks. Cults leaders will undoubtedly begin to multiply. Political leaders will rise and give voice to frustrated populations. Power will coalesce around these leaders because they will tell their people what they want to hear.

Technology too has made the world a much smaller place. There is no longer any place left to go. It has also made the world a far more dangerous place. The weapons of war now include biological and chemical weapons alongside the immense power of modern nuclear weapons. The weapons of war have become vastly more destructive than at any time in history. The thing about weapons is that every weapon that has ever been devised, from throwing rocks to the atomic bomb, has been used in war. The greatest predictor of the future is the past.

All these trends are happening in a world running out of natural resources and workable land. It is a world with a growing population and, human nature has not changed since the beginning of history. All of these trends show we are headed for a conflict the likes of which have never been seen on earth.

We simply cannot go on the way we always have. Something has to change or mankind is doomed to self-destruct. As a Christian, I live with the hope that Christ will return and save mankind from itself. It is the only light I see in a world growing darker every day. We have to turn our hearts back to our Creator....

He is Coming...

2011-05-14T20:06:00.000-07:00

Very soon a great being will make his appearance on earth. He will come in power and great glory. His appearing will be marked by wondrous signs. The leaders of many religions on earth will acknowledge that this is the one the world has been waiting for. He will unite peoples and nations. He will bring peace to a war torn, traumatized humanity. Peace, peace…finally. Or so it will seem…because this man will NOT be Jesus the Christ returning. The peace this man will bring will not be the inner peace of God that passes all understanding…it will be only the temporary cessation of war. This man will be a counterfeit that fulfills how the world has been deceived to see the Christ.

The problem with a counterfeit is that once you have one you don’t fill the need for the real thing. If someone owes you money and pays you with a counterfeit bill, you think you’ve been paid…until you take it to the bank. This man will be a counterfeit Christ. His coming is prophesized as clearly in the scriptures as the coming of the Real Christ. His coming will be the key sign to the people of God that the Real Christ is coming soon. This man will begin by speaking soft words. He will tell mankind what they want to hear. He will tell them that they’re all already OK. That’s a far cry from the message of the Real Christ.

This man, this Anti-Christ, will fulfill the prophecies of many faiths. He will smooth over the differences between them and bring them all into one fold. He will move against the King of the South that has united the nations and lands of Islam. The religion that has been a thorn in the side of Christendom will be utterly destroyed*. The Anti-Christ will take upon himself the power to change the laws and times of The Most High God. He will redefine what sin is. He will seat himself in the temple as Gods equal. This will be the Abomination of Desolation spoken of in the scriptures. The great false prophet, the leader of the biggest church on earth that uses the name Jesus Christ, will point to Him and tell the world that this is the Christ. That false prophet will make an idol of the man and demand the world worship it. Many miracles will follow. The world, thinking that he is the Real Christ, will obey. Taking him into their hearts and minds and doing his will, with the work of their hands will be taking his mark in their foreheads and on their right hands. This will signify their covenant with him.** All who refuse his mark, all who deny that he is the Real Christ, will be persecuted, many to death. Those that persecute them will think they are serving the will of God.

Worldly Christendom will have been expecting another Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin as the Anti-Christ. They won’t be expecting a peacemaker. That’s what this man will seem to be…at first. He will be wounded almost to death and be miraculously healed to the amazement of the world. This man will be an Israelite, probably a Jew. Since the Real Christ, at His first coming, remained celibate it is possible that this man will show no interest in women. This will fit the image of many people who believe celibacy is somehow more ‘spiritual’. He will rise to rule the united nations that have revived the old Roman Empire for three and a half years…the same amount of time the Real Christ preached the good news of the coming Kingdom of God. Just as Christ first came to do the will of His father, this Anti-Christ will do the will of his… He will be the embodiment of evil. He will appear to be a bright and shining savior to the world but his gospel will be a corruption of everything Holy. When he has drawn in those that will follow him, those who have taken his mark, they will suffer his fate by following him into the lake of fire. There will be a kind of symmetry between his life and that of the Real Christ. He will deceive all but the elect…and he will almost deceive them.

History shows us that even those who know the scriptures can be mistaken. When the Christ came the first time people who had made the study of the scriptures almost a profession expected a conquering king. What they got was a babe in swaddling clothes. Now the world expects that babe to return, with all the warm and fuzzy feelings they have come to associate with him. What the world will get when the Real Christ returns will be a conquering king!

When the Real Christ returns…the world will rise up to fight against Him thinking they are doing the will of God. They will be doing the will of their god…but not that of the Most High.

Two men are coming…the Beast and the false prophet. Two Witnesses are coming to proclaim the true gospel. The world will kill the latter. The Anti-Christ is coming and the world will accept him as Christ. The Real Christ is coming and the world will fight him and seek to kill those who follow Him.

He is coming…will you know Him when He does?

Don’t be deceived by signs and wonders. Only The Most High God can say what righteousness is. Who are you listening to?
_______________________________________________________________________

*There is a prophecy in Islam of a coming messiah-like figure called the Mehdi or Mahdi that will unite all Muslims. This prophecy dovetails in with the prophecies in Daniel about he King of the South. Many will believe that this Mahdi that unites Islam will be the antichrist because he will kill Christians and Jews. They will see the man who destroys this Muslim leader as Christ. They will be mistaken…

** There is still a ritual in modern Judaism wherein phylacteries are wrapped around the right hand and arm and a part of the law of God is worn in a small box on the forehead to signify that one has entered into a covenant with God.

Worldly Christendom erroneously believes that the Mark of the Beast will be a computer chip or some other physical form of identification. Such a mark would not violate the law of God. This ‘mark’ will violate Gods laws and that is the very definition of sin. All who take this mark will be cast into the lake of fire.

The Decline and Fall of America

2011-04-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

In 1941 America was drawn into the greatest war in human history. At the onset of that war America was the greatest industrial power in the world. We could manufacture cars, appliances, and whole host of goods that improved the lives of Americans and others around the world. We took that manufacturing capability and retooled it to make planes, tanks, ships, guns and the other necessities of war. Our ability to do so saved the world from the tyranny the Nazis and Japanese would have imposed on it. Our industrial might was a sine qua non of our national defense and national security.

Today, in 20011, we have shipped most of our manufacturing ability to other countries, mainly to China. The Chinese are today where we were in 1940. Students in our public schools used to be taught shop and other practical skills for an industrial based work force. Today almost no public schools teach shop anymore.

We have done all this because we, as a nation, bought into the notion that our children should all go to college and become doctors and lawyers. We have instilled within us the idea that to work with ones hands is somehow less worthy than wearing a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase to work. We now have a nation where we don’t make anything anymore. Our public school children don’t know how because those skills don’t measure up to using a computer.

If another world war were to start we would be caught with our pants down. We could once take comfort in having two oceans to insulate us from the rest of the world. But the world is no longer so large. Modern technology has made the earth a much smaller place. Modern weapons have now put the entire human race in danger.

On top of all this, modern values, or the lack thereof, have stolen the steel that the American spirit was once made of. The generation that fought World War II went through the Great Depression and went on to save the world. When they returned home they built the greatest country in the history of the world. Today’s young people don’t have the same foundation that generation once did. The young people of our generation don’t share any common values outside of greed and immediate gratification for all their desires. Maybe it’s not their fault but the result is still the same. We simply could not do what the generation that fought World War II did. Those that disagree and say that the young people of every generation seem the same are out of touch with reality.

The problem is that human nature hasn’t changed. Technology is more far reaching and more dangerous today but human hearts still fall prey to the same weaknesses that they were always prey to. If history teaches us anything it teaches us that there will be more war. Rounds one and two of the world wars were just a preamble to the next one. And America is on the decline.

Our nation is on a self-destruct course. Greed is the only value that is common these days. All the traditional values that made us great are under attack. Right and wrong are now seen as culturally relative. We have a federal government run by men who will promise anything to their constituents to get re-elected. Corporations want more profits because their shareholders want more. We all want to pay less for the goods and services we purchase. And we all want more money for less work. We’ve thrown God out of our public places and out of our public discourse. We are in a state of economic upheaval because of our desire for more and more and our unwillingness to practice self sacrifice. We have left a spiritual vacuum in the world, one that the Chinese and others are more than happy to fill.

Our decline is leaving a power vacuum in the world too. One that Europe will be forced to fill. The balance of power in the world is shifting. The Islamic world is on the ascendancy as are the Chinese. There are no other countries that share the values that have made America the greatest nation in the history of the world. We’ve been willing to spill our blood and spend our treasure to free people all over the world from tyranny. No other nation in history has ever done what this one has.

Any student of history can see the signs of our decline. America has been a light to the world but that light has grown dim. We have made some terrible mistakes. I believe our greatest mistake is throwing out the concept of reverence. We hold nothing sacred anymore. Anyone who stands up for the traditional values that built this country is branded as a racist or homophobe or worse. We have lost our way.

Our problems may be too late to correct even if we had the heart to do so. We’re not going down with a bang but with a whimper. We just don’t have the moral certainty that our forefathers did. We don’t make anything anymore. We don’t even try to instill good character in the next generation anymore. I fear that what happens to us will be what we deserve...

China...The Dragon on the Horizon

2011-03-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

There are many reasons to fear for the decline of our nation and culture. For example, one can argue that the moral decline in our culture bears a strong resemblance to a similar decline in the Roman Empire in the days before it's fall. For my purposes here, I'm focused on the decline of America’s work force skills and our growing dependency on a dangerous "friend".

Ask most college students these days and they'll tell you that they want jobs in the business world where they can wear a suit and tie to work; carry a briefcase and sit in front of a computer one way or another. Not many young people are interested in learning skills where it's necessary to sweat. It is those skills, manufacturing and construction related, that built America and have kept her strong and free.

What we have become is a nation of consumers…only consuming and not making anything anymore. It seems like virtually everything has a “Made in China” stamp on it these days. China, it seems, has become the manufacturer for the world. The problem is that China is NOT our friend.

China is looking to become a dominate world power and they know from the lessons of history that industrial power is economic power. And thier economic power is growing with their military power. They are using their totalitarian system to build their infrastructure and their military might. They will eventually challenge us for supremacy in space. They have begun to build, and send into orbit, killer satelites that can destroy other satelites. They will also eventually challenge us for naval superiority. They just launched their first aircraft carrier. And we are financing it all...while we are giving away our industrial power.

China has embarked on a social engineering project the likes of which the world has never seen. They have instituted a one-child limit for the 500,000 families that make up the country. Families see male children as more beneficial for economic purposes so many, many have aborted their female children or given them over to adoption agencies.To date this social policy has men outnumbering women in China by about 18 million.

That means 18 million men without any women to marry. 18 million testosterone driven men that have no outlet for their sexual, or for their aggressive energies. The country has only realized in the last couple of years that spells disaster for the future. Just imagine a future where no one has any brothers and sisters or cousins, aunts, and uncles. Women and families are a civilizing force on men…one the Chinese won’t have in a few years. Don’t think for a moment that those men won’t start to look around for a sexual outlet.

In addition China can’t even feed the population it now has without supplementing it’s food supplies with imported goods. The most populous nation on earth can't feed its own people. That alone sets the stage for a coming conflict.

China and India are both on the ascendancy. Both are competing for the same resources…energy and rare earth minerals to name two big ones. When China has built it infrastructure it will begin to flex it’s muscles and it’s immediate neighbors will be the first to feel the tension.

You can bet the Chinese military commanders are planning scenarios in which China and the US go to war. Their hackers have been looking for weaknesses in our national security systems, as well as, practicing industrial espionage for years now. Additionally the Second Artillery Corps, a secretive branch of the Chinese military charged with protecting and deploying Chinas ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, has constructed thousands of miles of underground tunnels and many underground bases to hide their nuclear arsenal. Since China has not been a part of the nuclear arms treaties that the US and Russia are bound by...no one knows how many nuclear weapons they have. Analysts have speculated that they number as many as 3000. It will only get worse as they become emboldened. And we are paying for all of it...

Right now America is borrowing money from China. We owe them over a trillion dollars. At the same time we’re sending them foreign aid? Our country is at odds with itself and the Chinese know it. They have been manipulating their currency for years to undermine us. They can smell our weaknesses and are happy to take advantage of them.

Our, potentially, greatest enemy is our biggest trading partner right now. They make everything for us. We have become dependent on countries that DO NOT have our best interests in mind. We recognize the threat from the Arab-Muslim world but we don’t see what’s coming from the East. Our media, and most of our politicians, seem completely oblivious to the growing threat that China poses. While China prepares for war we sleep...

I hope we wake up before it’s too late…

Words of Warning...

2011-03-09T21:00:00.000-08:00

For a student of history a time of upheaval, like the one we live in, has almost always meant a time of great change. It is worth noting that many of the greatest wars in history began in a time of economic uncertainty. We live in such a time. Many economists have said that the United States is going through the worst economic period since the Great Depression. The Great Depression was, of course, followed by World War II. The fact is that Europe is also on the brink of economic collapse while China and the oil producing countries of the Middle East are on the ascendancy. It is also a fact that those countries that are becoming economically more powerful are NOT our friends. The balance of power in the world is shifting in a way that is dangerous to the United States and our interests.

It was the industrial power of the United States that won World War II. We can no longer claim anything like the manufacturing capability that we once had. We have given away our birthright for cheaper blue jeans and techno toys.

There is a prophecy in Islam that a messiah-like figure will arise and unite the people and lands of Islam. He will be called the Mehdi or Mahdi. Many Arab leaders in history have believed they might be the Mahdi. The leader of Iran believes he is paving the way for this man right now. The very existence of Israel, and the peace in the Middle East, is threatened by the growing power of Iran and the rise of Islam.

The attention of the entire world is drawn to the Mid-East because it’s THE source of oil for much of the world. Europe can’t afford to lose their supply of oil from the Middle East…nor can China. The, already shaky, economies of the world depend on oil for their very existence. Modern economies are coming to depend of modern technologies too. Modern technologie that require rare earth minerals. The economies of India and China both depend on them. These too are limited and a potential source of conflict between the nations that need them.

Overpopulation, and the stress it is putting on strained food supplies, is yet another source of potential conflict. While America is attempting to clean up the air and water that our industrial revolution has polluted over the decades other countries, like India and China, are ignoring environmental concerns in the rush to become modern economic powers. Economic power is world power. America is giving it up out of a sense of guilt and a move towards socialism…a system that has never worked anywhere it has been tried.

We are living in VERY dangerous times. America used to be the hope of the world because of the values we held dear. We used to have the moral certainty that goodness and right would prevail. Now we’re taught those values are relative. America used to be the place the world’s displaced went to escape the troubles in the rest of the world. There is no longer any place to go.

Our system…the last, best hope for mankind in the view of many…has become a popularity contest for greedy, incompetent politicians. Our leaders, if they can be called that, lack the moral certainty and courage to make the tough decisions. America is in serious trouble. That means the world is in serious trouble.

As a Christian I know the only hope we have is to turn our hearts back to God. We need to repent of our love of money that has clouded everything we do. We need to repent for kicking God out of our lives. We need to repent of the wholesale murder of our unborn. We need to fall to our knees and repent of our national sins. The alternative is a coming fall the likes of which the world has never seen. There is a time of trouble coming. Too many forces in the world are headed for a collision course. We simply can’t go on this way.

Those who believe need not let their hearts be troubled…if they’ve turned their hearts back to God. The world is growing darker every day. God’s way is the only light to be seen. The human heart is where all real change begins. I wonder if we have it in us?

Burn a Koran Day

2010-09-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

In a couple of days the leader of a small "Christian" church in Florida is planning to burn copies of the Koran to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11. It seems like every branch of the media is blowing this story up to unimaginable proportions. The American media has made an international story out of it. The whole thing has me fuming!!

Let me say first that I am AGAINST book burning in any forum. I think it is UN-American, it is UN-Christian and it's plain stupid! I also think this moron and his little band of followers has every right to do it.

What has me fuming is that the ACLU and other groups that ordinarily come out en-masse for the right of idiots to be idiots are nowhere to be found. This mans right to freedom of expression was given to him by his Creator. American blood has been spilled in all our wars to ensure that he keeps that right. One used to hear Americans say they would stand up for someones right to do such things even if they completely disagreed with the act. It's even legal to burn an American flag in this country! That irks me terribly too...but I would defend someones right to do it. This is not even mentioning the fact that one can see Muslim Arabs burning American flags in almost any newscast! It's quite obvious that cultural sensitivity and tolerance only work one way with those folks.

I've read what this 'minister' has published and I agree with him on one point. Where will American appeasement to Muslims stop? Americans gave their lives to protect and defend Muslim lives in WWII; in the former Yugoslavia and in Iraq during our first and second wars there. We seemed to have forgotten that they attacked us on 9/11. Since then we have allowed them to encroach on our culture in almost every way. In public places where opponents have vigorously denounced Christian symbols and practices Muslims are now allowed theirs. Muslims are intentionally portrayed in the media now as peaceful, good citizens. All this is done in the name of NOT offending Muslims! Now, we have people that want to allow them to build a 'victory' site next to ground zero where the World Trade Center stood. (Yes, I know, they have that right too... It is also in VERY BAD taste. It demonstrates a complete ignorance of Muslim history and practices on the part of American liberals. And it is completely contrary to what the Imam claims it is supposed to do...build bridges to other faiths and people.) Now, he warns us that if it is not built where he plans it...there will be violence in the Muslim world! Talk about plain extortion!!! (From the members of "the religion of peace...")

It is the very heart of irony that Americans who are offended by Christian practices...in the culture that Christians built, (Yes, this country was built by Christians on Judeo-Christian principles...) would welcome Islam in getting a foothold here. If those same people were to really realize what Islam teaches...that Muslims treat women like property, they are completely intolerant of any other religious practices in their own lands, and it is their own stated goal of taking over the world for Islam, (because Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the other other completely Islamic countries are such shining examples of paradise on earth no doubt)...those same liberals would be horrified at the prospect of allowing Muslim culture to grow here!

I'm sick of the kind of appeasement that gives our enemies a greater and greater foothold. Islam is NOT a religion of peace. IF it were so...no one would have to 'tread lightly' when criticising it for fear of violence. We might like to convince ourselves that we're just being the bigger souls by allowing Muslims more and more concessions here...but you can be sure that they see it differently. Muslims see us as the 'Great Satan' and they will do anything to ensure our downfall. They see our concessions not as our greatness but as our weakness. What they will do is what Lenin taught his followers to do..."thrust the bayonet in until you strike steel."

There was a time when Americans would Never negotiate with terrorists! Now, it seems, we're just going to hand them the keys to the country by fooling ourselves that they're going to "play nice". You may mark my words...this will evolve into a war of cultures eventually. The West versus Islam is what it will become. Just look at history. Any Serbian can tell you how Muslims 'play nice' once you allow them a foothold on your soil. In every country in the world where Islam has gained a significant foothold there is violence in the Muslim community directed towards non-Muslims.

We are constantly told, mostly by the elite far left pseudo-intellectuals, that we need to be more sensitive and tolerant to Muslims. Well, this is America. Muslims living here have it better than in ANY Muslim country in the world. I think it's time they learn to be sensitive and tolerant of us and our culture! You remember...the one that has saved Muslim lives over and over throughout this century. We should NEVER give in to extortion and allow another country or culture to keep Americans from exercising their own God-given rights for fear of reprisals! Real Americans DO NOT give in to terrorist threats!

These Days 'In Amerika'

2010-08-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

This is a strange time in the history of our country. It seems to me to be that way at any rate. We have a president that was elected with NO military experience, NO experience in owing or running a business and that had NO executive experience before he assumed office. Exactly what made him think he was qualified to become the most powerful political leader in the world is beyond me? We had an electorate that was tired of George Bush Jr. and tired of the war he seemed to have gotten us involved in without any connection to what happened on 9/11. Additionally, the Clinton name came with too much unsavory baggage. We were tired of "politics as usual". We were ready for a change.

What we got wasn't the change we had hoped for. What we got was a man who thinks he's wiser than the rest of us. We got a man who seems to think he's a king or dictator...instead of what he is...the temporary occupant of the White House...and the employee of the American people. One thing is obvious...the man is as arrogant as he is unqualified. He has set about to 'socially engineer' a new America. The problem is he doesn't know what he's doing. It's not that America is perfect. God knows we could use some changes! The thing is, our country has worked for over two hundred years now on some pretty sound principles. Barak Obama is ignoring those principles in favor of a Socialist agenda. There is no question, given his direction, that he's a Socialist. Socialistic principles have been tried over and over again in Europe and the East and they just don't work! In fact the Europeans have begun to give up their socialistic ways in favor of more capitalistic practices. Obama wants to build a European style socialist country when even Europe is headed away from that!

Obama has it in his head, no doubt from his upbringing with Communist parents; his experience as a community organizer; his 20 year association with the radical-racist Jeremiah Wright and his other 'dealings' with crooked Chicago politicians and socialist radicals, that what this country needs is to become a "nanny state". The federal government, in his naive view, should ensure that everyone has the right to equality of outcome..so the wealth of this country has to be redistributed. In short, the government should do everything for everyone!

The problem, as any student of history can tell you, is that every time the government is given more power...especially the power to redistribute wealth...the governed lose more of their freedoms. The United States government exists to give people the most amount of freedoms without stepping on the rights of other people. It was NEVER the job of the federal government to do everything for everyone! It is the federal governments job to: 1.) Form a more perfect union, 2.) establish justice, 3.) insure domestic tranquility, 4.) provide for the common defense, 5.) promote the general welfare, and 6.) secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. Those directives are stated in the preamble to the constitution of these United States. Every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine...and politician takes an oath to protect and defend the principles in that document against all enemies both foreign and domestic. Now, almost every administration in our history has attempted to expand one or more of those directives to give the federal government more power. For example, "Promoting the general welfare" has been expanded beyond all common sense by this administration. The amendments to the constitution, the Bill of Rights, are clearly stated to LIMIT the powers of the federal government. They exist to protect the citizens of these United States from our own federal government. What many people don't realize is that every time we ask the government to do more for us...we give it more power and we lose more of our freedoms. These are the facts.

The principles in our constitution were written down and made the law of the land by Men who understood history. Our founding fathers were statesmen...unlike the sleazy politicians that have usurp-ted the leadership of this nation.

Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reed and their like don't care what the will of the American people, their employer, is. They don't care what the constitution says. All they care about is their own power...and pushing through their own political agenda.

The Republicans who they took power from were just as guilty of that! George Bush started a war his father left unfinished. Saddam Hussein was as evil as any dictator in history and he deserved to be killed. But there is simply no proof that he had anything to do with 9/11. We engaged in a war that costs the United States TRILLIONS of dollars and will leave the volatile Middle East more unstable than ever. What Saddam Hussein did was give the Muslims in the Middle East something to worry about. Now that he's gone we'll face a much bigger problem with an Iran that is going nuclear. All the US did under Bush was remove one evil dictator to make room for another that will be even worse and, in the process, almost financially break this country!

Add to this we have a president that is as naive as Chamberlain was with Hitler...he thinks he can appease the Muslim world by sweet talking them! What he has done / is doing...is making us look weak to the rest of the world and to Muslims in particular. George Bush, for all his faults, had a cowboys sense of justice... I Thank God every day that we had a cowboy in office when 9/11 happened. He kept us safe for the remainder of his term. Let's see if Obama can say that when his four years are up. And, let's hope we can still recognize this country when Obama's time is up...

I Come in Peace...

2010-07-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

I received an email recently that spoke to me on a deeper level than I, at first, realized. It was a series of photographs taken in the Hudson Bay area of Canada. The photographer had a team of dogs out in the Arctic that was approached by a polar bear.

Anyone who has lived in the North knows that polar bears can easily kill a team of dogs. There are many stories of those who have done so. Polar bears are powerful creatures that usually only socialize when they mate or raise their young. The rest of the time they live solitary lives in one of the harshest environments on earth.

This photographer just knew his tethered dogs were about to die. As the bear approached it became apparent that he only wanted to play and share some affection. He came in peace. He didn't come to see what he could take. He only wanted some companionship...and a hug.

This story and its photos touched me. I think it's what inspired a dream later. In my dream I was on a battlefield in the middle of another war we, humans, seem so found of. We were all there because our governments had dictated to us whom we should hate and kill. In the middle of the fighting Christ returned. He didn't return as a conquering king like the scriptures say He will. He just walked onto the field and spoke in a quiet voice: "I come in peace...". Somehow every heart heard Him. Most of the men on the field dropped their weapons and rejoiced at the prospect of peace...finally. Only the leaders refused to stop fighting. They called for their men to resume the wholesale murder of their enemies. But the men, hearing a higher calling, walked away and left their leaders with no one to lead. Peace was the deepest yearning in our hearts.

We only needed someone to lead the way. After that dream, all day, I kept repeating the words, "I come in peace" in my mind. There is something in them that speaks to a heaviness in my heart.

We live in a world that grows darker every day. We're all caught up in the smoke and mirrors, in the illusion, that what happens here really matters...and it doesn't. What matters is how we how we live our lives. What matters is who our hearts choose to listen to. Do we choose to listen to God or to our own desires. Do we come in peace or do we come to see what we can get out of someone else? There are only two ways to live in the final analysis. We can live the way of Get or the way of Give. Just imagine a world where no one ever serves anyone else. A world in which everyone is only out for what they can get. If you'll follow that to it's logical conclusion you'll see that kind of world will eventually self destruct. We have it within each of us to choose what kind of world we want to make. That choice comes from whom our hearts listen to. Our choice may not change the world...but it just might. Either way it will change us. Now imagine a world in which everyone willingly serves their fellow man. It's coming...That's the gospel of Christ.

Term Limits Now!

2010-03-01T11:41:00.000-08:00

The founding fathers of our nation had the wisdom to design a system that provides checks and balances to the powers of the federal government. The executive, legislative and judicial branches of government were instituted to keep each other in check. Unfortunately, what the founding fathers never conceived of was the abuse of power the legislative branch was capable of.

The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators that would serve their constituents for a time then go home and back to work. Serving in Congress is an honor, it was never meant to be a career.

Because of the lack of term limits, like the one Congress imposed on the President, many men have turned it into a career. Some have served for decades and, in the process, become politically very powerful. That is exactly what was NOT supposed to happen!

Congress has the power to tax the citizenry, and the power to exempt itself from the laws it passes. With the abuse of those powers the U.S. Congress has become a cesspool of corruption that is destroying the ideological foundation of this nation! Most of its members want only one thing…to stay in power. Because there are no term limits, the majority of the time and effort that most congressmen and senators expend is on being re-elected.

Every one of them is a servant of the American people. Their guiding directive should be to “speak for their constituents and act for their country”. What they do instead is represent whatever special interest donates the most money for their re-election. Lobbyists are the most powerful people in Washington…they are the ones who finance the men and women who have been corrupted by power.

What we need now, what would be Real Change we can believe in, is a reformation of Congress!

One possible solution could be the establishment of a Citizens Oversight Committee. Just ordinary citizens elected only once, for say, one year at a time to oversee the actions of the House and Senate. These could have to power to veto any special favors that congressmen try to give themselves.

The guidelines could be something like these:

1.) A 12 year Term Limit imposed on all elected public servants. That allows a member of the Senate to serve two six-year terms and a member of the House to serve six two-year terms. No public servant may serve more…period! (Let them get real, productive jobs!)

2.) Congress will no longer have the power to vote themselves raises…period! They may receive the same cost of living increases that everyone else does. They may receive NO other financial perks. (My grandmother would call what they do now "Letting the fox guard the hen house"!)

3.) All contracts with past and present congressmen are to be made null and void effective immediately. The American people didn’t make such contracts with these people; congressmen made all these contracts for themselves...without citizens oversight.

4.) No Tenure / No Pension: A congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office...period!

5.) Congress can purchase their own retirement plan just like all other Americans.

6.) Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the one they vote on for the American people.

7.) Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund should be moved to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.

8.) Congress may NOT touch the money in the Social Security system…period!

9.) Congress must abide by a balanced budget. A constitutional amendment requiring one should be passed now! (Let's make them play by the same rules most families have to!)

10.) If a congressman wants to run for another office, he or she must resign first…period! (Why should they recieve taxpayer saleries/subsidies while they look for another job?!)

11.) If a congressman decides to change parties from the one his/her constituents elected them in…they must resign first…period! (No more scum-bags like Arlen Spector changing horses in mid-stream in a feable bid to stay in office!)

12.) Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people…period!

Barak Hussein Obama

2010-02-10T13:47:00.000-08:00

I don't write much about politics. I don't think the focus of Christians should be in worldly pursuits and, as a political independent, I'm fairly disgusted with both Republicans and Democrats. Both seem intent only on being in power...and in spending other peoples money...namely ours! I've watched Barak Obama for the last year and have realized, like many other people, that the change he promised was just something to say to get elected...another load of crap!

Obama has never started, owned or ran a business. He only spent 143 days in the US Senate and, while taking a 160,000 a year income from taxpayers, he ran for president. There is no question that Americans were ready for a change. George Bush Jr. was an unpopular president who got us involved in an unpopular war. I believe Obama got elected simply because he was Not George Bush.

Obama never really said exactly what he would do as president. He ran making people believe he was a moderate. That turns out to have been all political calculation. He has proven to be a far-left Liberal with a Socialist agenda. That's become plain to the country and most voters have turned against him since. In fact the only thing this president has done in his first year is win the Nobel Peace Prize. (Having only been in office for four days at the time...that has turned the Nobel prize into an inconsequential joke...)

Obama clearly has a huge ego and believes he's smarter than everyone around him. It is obvious now he has no real clue how to run the business that is America. He believes he's the equal to the great statesmen of the past and quotes them often...without actually reading the history of this nation! He even went to Europe, like the commander in chief, before being elected! He began his political career in Chicago, a city renown for it's political corruption, and has proven to be just another corrupt Chicago politician. So much for "change we can believe in"! That 's just another cruel joke on the American people.

He has traveled abroad and apologized for American arrogance. Now, I too think Americans have been arrogant at times but, we have also been the most generous country in the history of the world. We defeated aggressors in two world wars, rebuilt the countries that were destroyed...including those of the aggressors who started the wars...and then forgave the debts! We nave NOTHING to apologize to the world for.
Obama has denied that this country was built on Judeo-Christian principles and that we are primarily a Christian nation. His own 'christian' practices were just another calculated political move for appearance sake. He has made a point of kissing Muslim asses around the world...like that's supposed to appease an enemy hell-bent on our destruction. Such naivete! This country isn't more safe for all Obamas political correctness...it is still a target for Muslim extremists...and now an easier target!
He promised transparency in government...what we got was a series of secret deals in putting together a health care deal that could potentially bankrupt our nation.
(Now, I have no problem with the idea of a national health care system. I think America should have something like that. The problem is...we can't pay for the entitlements we have now! We owe the Chinese almost a Trillion dollars in loans! We Americans are going to have to tighten our belts and learn that the government simply can't do everything for us. It wasn't designed for that... Our system was designed to oversee private enterprise to keep it fair. That's why America works! Liberals like Obama want to turn a working system into a "mommy state" that's 'politically correct' and that will destroy what made this country the envy of the world. At the rate we're going we could easily end up like the former Soviet Union and dissolve because we've gone broke. That would leave the world a far more dangerous place! Imagine the world with two super powers...China and a united Europe. Who would have the courage to stop Iran from going nuclear?...Certainly not those two! Far left liberal ideas are not only bankrupting us...they are heading us towards another world war!!)

Obama promised no lobbyists in his administrative posts...he forgot to add...except for the ones He wanted.

He promised no taxes on anyone making less than 200,000 a year...he neglected to mention that any taxes he passed on corporations will simply be passed on the folks as higher prices. The result will be the same...less money in our pockets...and an even more powerful federal government that is spending us broke!!

Americans have elected the most naive, incompetent president in this century...and the worst part of all is that the 'perfect storm' ushered in a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress...and all because people were tired of George Bush!

Luckily, like all American political offices, the office of president is a temporary one. We've had incompetents before and gotten rid of them...in three years we'll get rid of this one too... I just hope it won't be too late...

Elena Desserich

2009-11-06T15:45:00.000-08:00

Every now and then in the drama that is mankind, a Great Soul emerges. The Indians use the word Muhatma, as in Muhatma Ghandi, to make note of them. We usually look to great religious or spiritual leaders for the title and, in doing so, often overlook the simple, unassuming among us. It's unfortunate...because so many Great Souls are just simple and unassuming people. Many of them are only children.

I was touched by a story I read recently about a little girl who was diagnosed with brain cancer. She was only six years old. This little girl...this Great Soul...reached out to comfort her parents in the midst of her illness. After being diagnosed with brain cancer Elena Desserich wrote hundreds of love notes and hid them around her home for her parents to find. They found them in the pages of books and in stacks of CD's and other places. Each one an unselfish act of love.

Just the thought of this beautiful little girl focusing on love and grace in her illness touches my heart so profoundly that I had to make a note of her life and her passing. The thought crossed my mind that God saw the heart of this little blessing and said to Himself: "That's all I need to see...This soul is worthy of My Kingdom"...and He allowed little Elena to pass on. She touched hearts and, in so doing, taught us something priceless.

Elena sleeps now, awaiting the resurrection of the just. I have no doubt that God has found another jewel for His crown. He certainly blessed the rest of us with her coming and going. Elena's parents, out of their own love, are publishing a book of her notes to share with the rest of us. What a gift!

Make note...a Great Soul has passed this way.

Sleep now little one...You will breathe again...Your name will not be forgotten.

Unsung Heroes

2008-12-07T09:40:00.000-08:00

I was having a conversation with a friend recently about the little things people do every day that change the world. Their stories are seldom told because their acts are done quietly behind the scenes. My friend works at the local ski resort teaching the disabled to ski. She told me a story about one disabled Desert Storm veteran that had lost both legs in that conflict. He was learning to ski with his disability. He was trudging through the snow with his prosthetics hidden from the view of others. Nearby a mother and her little girl were making their way through the snow drifts too. The little girl was a tiny little thing struggling to make her way through the deep slush. She complained to her mother that she was having a very hard time. This veteran, this American hero, reached out to the little girl and said: "Here sweetie, I'll help you..." No one could see the struggle it was for him but my friend knew and the scene touched her heart. When I heard the story it touched mine too. I felt like the story deserved to be told.

This was a very simple thing. This man neither asked for, nor expected any recognition for helping this small child. He could have displayed his own disability in an attempt to elicit sympathy for himself. He, instead, took no thought for himself. Whether it's in the heat of battle, or in the simple act of helping a child, that's what a hero does.

I'll never know this mans name or how he lost his legs, but in this simple act I can know his heart and his heroism. Things like this happen everyday all around us. There are heroes among us who's stories go untold, their songs unsung. In their simple acts they preserve what is best in us...

Home

2008-12-06T20:40:00.000-08:00

There is no other place on earth quite like the American West. The rugged mountains, the vast plains and the sunbleached desert all dominate here. I've always felt something deeply moving about the places where the desert meets the mountains especially. Such places make me feel small and inconsequential. At the same time they make me connected to something much bigger than me. I recently moved from my home in Texas to just such a place in New Mexico.

From the front door of my new home I can look out and see Capitan Gap in the Lincoln National Forest every morning. Something quite unexpected has come from that for me. I'm much more aware of the skies here. The changes in the weather seem more spectacular, bigger than life even. When thunderstorms move in they can often be seen coming from miles away. On several occassions I've seen them share the sky with rainbows and clear blue patches on the other end of the same mountain range.

I now have deer in the yard every day. I've seen bear, elk and mountain lions around the mountains and the African imported Oryx in the nearby desert. The edge of the desert is only miles from here and, like I said, the place where the mountains meet the desert has always been magical to me.

The local culture is made up of Mexican, Spanish, Apache, Navajo and Old Western influences mixed with modern American. A few miles to the East is the historic town of Lincoln of Billy the Kid fame and twenty miles to the South is Ruidoso, a mountain resort community, known for skiing and horse racing. The Mescalero Apache reservation is right next door where people come to gamble at the Inn of the Mountain Gods. Whenever I hear that native Americans got the worst land in the country, I think of the Mescalero reservation. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth. White men once saw it as useless because they couldn't grow crops or raise cattle on it. The modern world would, no doubt, bring a smile to the Ancestors of the Apache now making money hand over fist from white gamblers.

I now live in a town that doesn't even have a stop light. I've jokingly referred to it as New Mexico's version of Mayberry. Some great folks live here...most I've met are very friendly. Most people seem to come here to be left alone and just about everyone respects that. It is so easy to feel blessed here. It feels easier to breathe here somehow.

I often think of a line from the movie "Dances With Wolves" wherein Kevin Costners character says of the American West: "Every day here ends with a miracle." I know the truth of that now. I see miracles here everyday. I don't often use the word 'spiritual' but I have to say that there is somiething deeply spiritual about this place. When I'm away it seems to whisper to me to return. God has left His fingerprints all over this...land of enchantment.

Change Has Come

2008-11-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

No matter what your political views are, we have all just witnessed an historic event. An American of partial African descent has been elected the next president of the United States. In a mere half a century since the great civil rights movement began, a man who would have once been denied an education, denied the right to eat or drink in the same places a white American and denied the right to vote has come to hold the most powerful office on earth. America has struggled to live up to it's creed for over two centuries. In our sacred documents it is declared that "All" men are created with equal rights under the law. At first that meant only white, land-owning men. Slowly, over the decades, it came to include all citizens.

What this has meant to most Americans is that we are struggling to live up to our creed. We, as a nation, voted for a man because we didn't care what color his skin is. Most of us didn't care that is... That isn't true of black Americans. Most black Americans voted for this man only because of the color of his skin.

Now, I am inspired by the words of the great civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King that one day a man would be judged, not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his heart. Most white Americans did just that. Black Americans, however, didn't live up to the creed that they, as a community, claim to believe in.

It is my hope that black Americans will begin to lay aside their anger and their own racism and live up to the creed that Dr. King so beautifully enunciated. It's time we begin to heal from our past national sins.

I didn't vote for Barak Obama. But he will be our president the day he is sworn into office on January 2o, 2009. As an American I will accept him as my president because I've chosen to take part in our democracy and I accept the will of the majority of the people. I hope that those who voted for another candidate will do likewise. I will watch my president closely and I will voice my opinions when I agree, and when I disagree, with his leadership. That too is a part of being an American. We can all use this opportunity to live up to another of our mottoes: E Pluribus Unum... Out of many...one.

Child of God

2008-11-01T17:30:00.000-07:00

I used to think that carnival sideshows were cruel. I believed they exploited those unfortunate people born with genetic and other defects. My views have tempered over the years. I now think there is some legitimacy in being made aware of those on the edges of the human condition. They have their stories to tell and those stories deserve to be heard.

I recently saw a show on the Discovery channel that focused on a young girl in Haiti. She was the victim of a horrible tumor that had so disfigured her face she no longer even appeared human. The program was about how a team of doctors set about to help this child. She had to undergo a series of operations to regain some semblance of a human being. After the first operation she looked into a mirror to see the results of what the doctors had done. She hadn't looked into one in over two years. I watched as a single tear streamed down her face. I was so touched by that moment that I thought about it for days.

I'm like most people, I am attracted to beautiful people. Like most men, I like to look at beautiful women. Some call that shallow...I don't know...it seems to me to be written into the genetic code somehow. What I know is that seeing this child made me want to turn away. At the same time my heart went out to her and I was again reminded of the words of John Donne: "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." You could just as easily substitute the words illness or disfigurement for death in that Donne quote. It was not her death but her condition that I felt connected to... We are all connected even though most of us turn away from those so afflicted.

None of us are free until all of us are free. None of us will be completely healthy until all of us are. My faith teaches me that we, human beings, are all a part of one family. This child of God, so horribly disfigured, is connected to me and I to her. My heart went out to her and I felt some small twinge of the pain that she has endured. My heart understands a part of what she has gone through because we are connected.

Perhaps only the strongest among us are called on to bear such burdens. Perhaps the very reason they are sick and broken is to teach the rest of us. Thinking thus keeps me from blaming God for such things. Sometimes things just happen. My faith helps me to understand that one day she, and all the sick and broken human beings...all the children of God...will be healed and made whole. That's what helps me to go on. Twenty-five million years from now their afflictions won't matter...what will matter is what we learned from them and how we responded to them. My faith helps me to understand that when I encounter the sick and the broken, those with afflictions I can see...and those with afflictions I can't see... I need to reach out to them as I would my own family...because they are my family.

But for the Grace of God...there go I.

Values

2007-12-07T19:45:00.000-08:00

There’s a popular bumper sticker that says: “He who dies with the most toys wins!”

This slogan speaks to what many, many people have come to believe either consciously or unconsciously. Materialism is the dominant value of our culture these days. Think of the people that will spend millions on some artifact or piece of art just to be able to say they own it. Then weigh that against how much money they spend giving back to the world, feeding the poor, curing a disease, housing the homeless... Too many of us live our lives completely devoid of any greater meaning than acquiring more stuff…as if life were some kind of competition to ‘die with the most toys’. How empty our lives have become…how devoid of any real meaning.

Our culture is set up to value only one thing…the ‘so-called’ bottom line. Profit is the ultimate goal. Profit has become the very definition of success. It’s become more important than our quality of life. It’s become more important than the health of our planet and even the health of our children to some. Just witness the recalls of various products found to have been made with cheaper, less safe, ingredients all for the sake of profit.

There are old, beautiful neighborhoods all across America that are being destroyed because investors are buying properties in them, tearing the old homes down, and putting up duplexes and other monstrosities to wrench out every possible penny in profit. The air we breathe and the water we drink are being polluted to produce more and more products that we have become convinced we need. We crave more and more energy to produce more stuff…and that means greater dependence on fossil fuels and more nuclear power plants, both of which have their own set of problems and both of which harm our home...the planet earth.

We can’t turn on a TV, drive down a highway, or flip through a magazine without being bombarded with ads trying to sell us the latest gadgets or services. They want to convince us that to be happy we must have what they are selling! We are drowning in our own greed and lust for more stuff! What we are losing in the process is beyond any monetary value. As a culture, we’ve forgotten that there are things far more important than money and the stuff it can buy. The quality of our lives isn’t improved one bit by having the latest fads. We have begun to use stuff to fill the voids in our lives.

Materialism has replaced spirituality as the defining character of the American people and it is destroying us. People, at one time, came to these shores to better their lives. They believed in the principles that America was founded on. Now they come here only to get rich…and many couldn’t care less about the principles this nation was built on.

America used to stand for something deeper and more meaningful than gross materialism. This nation was founded, not only on free enterprise, but on freedom of religion. It was so important to our ancestors that they be able to freely express their religious beliefs that they left their homelands and came here to build a nation on that principle. Their religious beliefs were in the forefront of their minds and at the center of their lives. That was the foundational value that built the greatest country in the history of the world. It wasn’t about who has the most stuff. Think about that…

Labels

2007-07-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

Nigger, Kike, Spic, Cracker, Faggot, Bitch…these are all words that people have used, and in some cases still use, to demean and dehumanize other people. They’re labels that people have attached to others to categorize and pigeonhole them into some preconceived notion of what those others are supposed to be like. Most of these words have largely fallen out of use because of the negative, and even hateful, connotations that they are associated with.

Not everyone who has used such words has meant them to have hateful connotations. I remember when I was a child my grandmother used the word ‘nigger’ to refer to black people. Though she was a product of her generation, having some of the preconceived notions about race that were common in that era, she had no hatred of any black people. She treated everyone with simple respect…because “that was what Jesus would do”. The label didn't mean to her what it came to mean to so many others. We give our labels their power.

It's politically incorrect to use such words these days…even if the underlying feelings are still around. It is the underlying feelings that are so hard to eradicate. That's where the power of our labels comes from. I believe there is just as much, if not more, hatred in the hearts of people now as there ever was. Just mention that you are a Conservative Christian in some circles and you’re automatically reduced to the labels: racist, sexist, homophobic and narrow-minded bigot. The labels, Christian, Conservative and Republican evoke contempt and even hatred from many “enlightened” people. The same can be said of the terms: Liberal, Democrat, Feminist, and Gay among other people. None of them tell us who the individual is...

The funny thing about labels is that, once you pin one on someone, you no longer feel any need to get to know them personally. With the act of labeling someone, the other person is summed up and nothing else need be known about them. It is a peculiar power of human language that naming something gives us a sense of power over it. We all do that to some degree.

The truth is that human beings are more complex than any label. Most people are much more multifaceted. We only tend to see the sides of them that we want to see, or are conditioned to see. Kids tend to see their parents in only one way. Parents tend to see their kids in only one way. Men sometimes see women in only one way. Women sometimes see men in only one way too. We can even become socially conditioned to see, whatever race we're a member of in some preconceived ways. We can also learn to see other races in preconceived ways. When we limit ourselves to see others so, we tend to see only those things that reinforce our preconceived notions and ignore everything else.

A big part of human history can be summed up as people rebelling against being seen by others in only one way. Minorities in every age and nation have fought to be seen as the equals of those in the majority, just as varied, just as complex and just as worthy. It’s an old story that has replayed over and over in our history and literature.

When someone does something we disapprove of, we typically see only how they’re different from us and ignore how they’re the same. That’s the root of prejudice…seeing only the differences and ignoring the similarities, then labeling “them” as “all the same”. They’re just not like us after all!! Among human beings, things will always be this way until our human nature is changed. It is a strange irony of life that the thing that makes us all the same is the very thing that makes us focus on our differences? The good news is that individuals can change…if they make the choice and the effort.

It takes energy to do so, but each us of has it in our power to learn to see the world differently. We all have it in our power to see each other as individuals that could never truly be labeled and should never be dismissed out of hand. The results of learning to see the world in such a way makes it a far more interesting place. Seeing people as individuals instead of numbers in some category makes them more real…and harder to hate. Not a bad goal if you ask me…

Have YOU seen this little girl?

2007-06-09T18:19:00.000-07:00

The beautiful little girl in this photo is four year-old Madeleine McCann. Madeleine is a British citizen who was vacationing at a resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal with her parents. On May 3, 2007 Madeleine was kidnapped out of the room she was staying in and hasn't been seen since. Police have been doing their jobs to the best of their abilities but they need the publics help. If you think you might have seen Maddie, especially if you live in Portugal or Spain, please contact your local law enforcement agency.

Maddie's abduction is a Crime Against Humanity…and she’s just one of many, many children that go missing every year. You can just imagine the nightmare that Maddies parents are enduring. It's a horror that no parent should ever have to endure. Maddies parents have the means and the financial support of many of their countrymen to try and help find her. Most abducted children don’t have parents with the money to engage the national media…but we bloggers can put our two cents in.

There are around 100 child abductions and murders every year in the USA. About 74% of these children will be dead within three hours. The statistics are similiar around the world. The kidnapping and murder of the most innocent among us should bring an outcry from all of us! The perverted animals that perpetrate such crimes hide and scurry in the dark like the cockroaches they are. Governments need to pass legislation to deal quickly and harshly with such animals. They are guilty of stealing our future; of destroying our innocence. These truly are crimes against humanity! We cannot allow them to perpetuate this perversion generation after generation! We cannot allow them to continue to harm our children!

Pay attention to the children around you and how the adults they're with treat them. Be alert to their cries for help and call the authorities if you suspect neglect or abuse. Don't just throw away the milk cartons or fliers with pictures of missing children on them. Look at them. Remember their faces. One day a child you know may go missing.

Mine is a voice that may only reach a few people, but I believe this is what a public voice is for. I can’t, in good conscience, pass up the opportunity to add my voice to those who have done likewise. If you're a blogger, a web page owner or have some other kind of public forum, imagine that you put up a photo and some information on a child who has been abducted - and that your site is visited by someone who has just seen them. You could have saved a life...

This, and my fervent prayers for little Maddies safe return, are what I have to offer...

Symbols versus Substance

2007-05-31T18:57:00.000-07:00

There is an, often overlooked (or ingnored) , scripture in Matthew 25 verses 34-40. In it Christ likens religious people to sheep and goats. He says to the sheep, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you took me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” (NIV)

When the righteous asked ‘Lord, when did we do these things for you?’ His answer was: “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

This is ‘Nuts and bolts’ Christianity. This is Love in action. This is loving our fellow man like we love ourselves. It is the heart of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ. To be sure, there are truths that it is important to have, and live by, to be a true Christian. One can’t believe just anything and be considered Christian. But for those who claim ‘The Way’ these words of Christ are more important than which church one attends. These words are more important than having the nicest clothes and sitting in the front row of a church every week. They are more important than any ceremonial worship of God. This is the Spirit of God in action.

It’s often overlooked because it’s easier to appear to be righteous than to actually ‘be’ righteous. Too many Christians want to appear to be decent, upstanding people without actually ‘doing’ the things Christ said to do. That was the attitude of the Pharisees. Those folks are addressed in the next verses when He speaks to the goats. Their reward isn’t quite so appealing. The reader can see those verses for him or herself. My point here is simply to go straight to the heart of the matter of what it is to be Christian. I say go ‘to the heart’ because that is where it all starts. The heart is where true faith and hope and love come from.

The world today doesn’t want to deal with Christians. It asks us to leave our flaky, religious views outside when we come in to deal with them. They’re tired of the theme parks and the bumper stickers and the hypocrisy. If more of us simply lived our faith instead of talking about it, if more of us practiced ‘nuts and bolts’ Christianity, we would be invited in much more often. The impression we make would be much more positive and much more lasting. We would find people coming to us and asking what is it that causes us to behave so. We should then be ready to give an answer… Until our lives reflect something of Christ, He would be better served if we remained silent. That’s the real meaning of ‘Taking God’s name in vain’. When we advertise our religion the world scrutinizes everything we do.

In the meantime, a life lived like Christ would speak much more loudly than any Sunday morning TV show, bumper sticker or pamphlet. A life lived like Christ is a light to the world. It is an announcement that there is a better way. People that live Christ-like lives are the salt of the earth; they preserve it. They're the kind of salt that there can't be too much of. Unfortunately, the world is running out of salt...and it's beginning to rot for the lack of it.

Boys and Girls...Men and Women

2007-05-29T22:16:00.000-07:00

I like women, but not just in the way one might think. I like they way they look, the way they smell, they way they move, and I like the way they are with each other. Women will freely open their hearts to each other in ways few men would ever think of. A wise man can learn a lot from women. Women can also learn some things from men.

I’ve given it some thought and I think the genetic make up of women drives them to behave completely differently than men. I don’t believe it's all in how we’re are raised. Contrary to what some PhDs’ would have us think…men and women really are different. Luckily, there are enough people still endowed with common sense to see that. That’s a perspective I believe one has to start with if one ever hopes to understand how men and women interact.

Men and women are only whole when they’re together. When we remain separate and only spend time with our own sex we tend to get a skewed perspective on life. Children, especially, need mothers and fathers to get a complete picture of how separate parts make up the whole.

When I was a little boy, if I were to fall and skin my knee, my father would tell me to pick my chin up and take it like a man! If one of my sisters were to do the same, he would speak softly to her, hug her and kiss her bruise to make her feel better. I don’t resent that in any way…it’s what I would do myself if I had children. I think boys need to be strong and that’s the proper way to teach them. Only the shortsighted among us apologize for that.

In a related way little girls are encouraged to show love and affection. They can do with it their dolls, with their pets, with other little girls and no one thinks anything of it. Boys are just expected to be more…‘manly’...than that. To develop that strength, boys are not encouraged to show all their feelings. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes that can go too far, but on the whole I think it’s a good way to raise young men. The world is tough and it takes tough men and women to deal with it.

When men learn to let their guards down it’s usually with a woman. She’s the more experienced in showing love and, while that can be a problem, if he’s open to it, she can teach him how to love. Men and women can learn from each other. Again, I think that’s a good way to do it. When boys are raised to be men this way they don’t open their hearts often. When they do love though…it can be a strong love. Call me a sexist, but I think women are the best at teaching men how to love. Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, girlfriends even neighbors are all teachers for boys.

I don’t think women are as good at raising boys as men are. Women, in general, don’t understand what it takes to raise a little boy to become a man. Women want to nurture and keep all harm away from their children and that’s a great thing…but it isn’t always the best thing for little boys trying to become men. Sometimes they need to experience pain to prepare them for a tough world.

There is a concerted effort in the US today to eradicate all the traits from little boys that feminists feel are ‘undesirable’. What that amounts to is the emasculation of young men and it won’t work. It has the opposite effect in fact…it makes boys meaner and more violent in the end.

Boys need the guidance and influence of good men to become good men themselves. Unfortunately, good men are in short supply these days. Frustrated single mothers have had to step to the plate and try to take the place of good men. That’s a shame on men everywhere. While I admire and applaud single mothers, they just aren’t equipped to teach boys some of the things young men need to know. Women can teach men and boys how to love. That’s one of the many strengths of women. But, only a real man can teach a boy to become a man.

Women need to stop trying to be men and stop trying to change men. Instead of trying to emasculate them…women should encourage them to step up to the plate and be real men! That isn’t the same as being a woman with different plumbing… Men and women are different! Women need to realize that, and be grateful for it instead of trying to remake men into what they ‘think’ men should be.

Men need to realize that being a real man has nothing to do with sexual exploits or what you drive or what sports you play. Being a Real man is about having integrity; having the strength of character to stand up for what's right. Being a real man is being honorable and doing the right thing. It means giving the women and children in your life someone to look up to and respect.
Real men don’t walk out on their responsibilities. Real men don’t walk out on their families. They take care of the women they love and the children they bring into the world.

We need to dump the idea of unisex that pervades and infects our society. Men and women are different…and we need each other to be whole. We need to be glad we’re different and take pride in it!

It Ain't Over...till It's Over!

2007-05-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

No one hates war more than a military man. They’re the ones that have to do the killing and the dieing. Most of the men who have served in Iraq in the last couple of years will tell you that they believe doing so was the right thing. They believe in bringing the freedoms of a democratic system to a people that have never known them. No one involved ever believed it was going to be quick or easy.

We went into Iraq because of the intelligence reports that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. All sides agreed on that until none were found. Then, for political reasons, Democratic politicians started playing to the most liberal elements of their party and started calling the president of the United States a liar and worse. He was called a “liar” for actually acting on what they all believed!

President Bush never lied to the American people about Iraq. He has steadfastly held to a course of action that he decided was the right one. The majority of American people elected him to do just that. George Bush Jr. believes in Democracy and believes it will bring stability to the Middle East. Whatever else can be said of the man, he has been true to his principles. They are American principles.

The fact is that we are now in Iraq. The Iraqi government is too new and unstable to effectively control their country. For us to pull out before they are able to do so would be a disaster that would reverberate far and wide. Iran would become the major power in that part of the world. The very existence of Israel would be threatened, as would the flow of oil to a power hungry world. We cannot let that happen. To do so would be condemning us to a much more widespread war in the future. And, if you don’t like gas prices now…just think about what they would be with even more instability in the Middle East.

Most of the people that are demanding that we end the Iraq war now may mean well…but they are letting their feelings cloud their common sense. The politicians that are playing on those feelings are doing so for their own ambitions. America finds itself, once again, embroiled in a conflict that is setting our own people against one another. We need to remember the American principles that President George Bush hasn’t forgotten. We need to remember that freedom demands a price.

We are in a war against a sworn enemy. Radical Islamists want to destroy us and they won't stop. To pull out of Iraq now would give them a breeding ground where they would multiply like rats! To leave a stable democracy in Iraq would be to stop a good deal of that at its source. We can fight them there...or we can fight them here.

As for those in Hollywood and the media spewing hatred for our president and sympathizing with dictators in lands where the people don’t enjoy our freedoms…there was a time when what they are doing would be considered treason. It is a slap in the face to the troops they claim they support!

Just so I’m clear here…I hate this war. I hate the fact that innocent people on both sides are dieing every day. I was against going into Iraq in the first place…but we’re there now. To support our troops means to support their victory…anything less would be to make the lives of all of those that have given them meaningless. And it would leave the world a much more dangerous place. We have to see this through. We have to see this through!

The Darkness and The Light

2007-04-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

In a movie I saw recently, one character was an Apache witch. He had a line that struck me as very insightful about human nature. He asked the question, ‘You have two dogs fighting inside of you, one good the other evil…which one wins?’ The protagonist answered: 'The one you feed the most'.

I don't believe there's a battle between good and evil in the universe. That presumes goodness and evil are equal but opposite. Good and evil are not equal. God allows evil to exist as it suits His purpose. In the human heart it’s a different story. We are at ground zero for our own battle between good and evil. We can understand those that do evil because we know the evil in ourselves. We all draw from the same nature. We take that nature with us where ever we go. For that reason there can never be a Shangri La or a Utopia. We would take our nature, who and what we are, with us there and it would eventually destroy what we hoped to find. We can pass laws to try and reign in our nature. We can look to our heroes for their examples of how they have overcome. The battle still belongs to every human being and the fight is still a personal one. The battle between good and evil in the human heart is a battle that must be fought in every human heart. Those that win in conquering their own evil can’t conquer it for anyone else. Every newborn child is a new battleground.

Incidents like the recent slaughter of 31 innocent people at Virginia Tech make it clear that some people give themselves wholly over to evil. The most ironic thing in our modern American culture is that the very things that serve to constrain the evil in our hearts are being slowly eliminated from our national consciousness. Our sacred writings declare that there is a Creator and it is He who endows us with our human rights. Dark forces, in the name of the separation between church and state, are attempting to erase all mention of that Creator from our national consciousness. They are promoting the concept of cultural relativism, the idea that there isn’t one standard of right and wrong but many depending on the time and place they are conceived. The same forces deny even the existence of evil. These dark notions are destroying the strongest safeguards we have against the evil that is among us. Those behind the ideas know that when light shines into your life, it doesn't just make the road ahead more clear, it reveals your own dark places too. And, it is in our nature to want to hide our own darkness. That's the very reason we need the light so badly. That light can only come from God.

It isn’t so important that every individual in our society believes in God so much as it is a cultural value. We need to have something to look up to. We need someone to answer to. We need a common value to give us purpose. Without that we are finding ourselves in a moral free fall. We need to recognize that there are some things that are right and some that are wrong and they always will be. We need to recognize that evil exists. It is among us. It is in us. To erase those very ideas from our national consciousness is to cloak ourselves in darkness. To deny those truths is ultimately to commit suicide.

As a Christian, I have a firm faith that God is; that He is watching and that He cares about His children. My faith gives me hope for a better future. God gives me a clearly defined moral value system. He defines what is right and wrong. God is my light in the darkness...even my own darkness. God gives my life purpose. I believe that God will prevent us from destroying ourselves one day. He will change our very nature one day so that our utopian ideals will be realized…in His Kingdom. If I didn’t have my faith, and the hope that comes with it, I sometimes think I would succumb to a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness. I look around our culture and see that many, many others have done so.

Knowing that I will stand before God one day scares me a little. It makes me feel the need to change; to work on being better than I am now. That makes me uncomfortable but it also makes me a better person. I don’t insist that anyone believe what I believe. I don’t ever try to convert anyone. I don’t use my faith to judge others. I am guided by my faith to see my fellow man as the children of God, made in the image of the living God. I am guided by my faith to love them as I love myself, to forgive them when they wrong me, and to serve them wherever I can. Without that, I honestly don’t know where I would be or what kind of person I would be. That’s a part of what knowing God has done for me.

It is the dog we feed the most that wins out. Character is built, brick by brick, by what thoughts we give power to. Every time we do the right thing we strengthen that part of ourselves. Every time we give in to our darkness we fall a little deeper into the pit. The darkness is closing in to be sure. But in the darkness I see the light. It is the desire of my heart to share that with my fellow man. All I can do is try, to the best of my ability, to be a conduit of the light in a dark world. I have no doubt, whatsoever, that the light will prevail!

God Spoke and...

2007-04-16T07:58:00.000-07:00

We live in an amazing time in human history. We make strides in knowledge and understanding about our world and the universe in which we live almost daily. We're beginning to understand things about our universe that would have sounded like science fiction a few years ago. Like Einstein, I think the most amazing thing about our universe is that we are capable of understanding it. We are a part of the universe. We are a microcosmic reflection of the greater whole. To come to understand it is to come to understand something about ourselves…and vice versa.

I’ve always had an interest in the sciences and in Physics in particular. Physics gives us insight into how the universe works; it uses the tool of mathematics to do so. There have been many noted scientists that have believed knowing the natural laws that govern the universe give us an insight into the very mind of God. They are the framework upon which God has designed and now sustains His creation. To be able to utilize mathematical formulae to predict the orbit of a planet around its sun or to calculate the distance to another star are amazing feats but, they’re only the beginning of what we're learning.

One of the most simple, yet profound, mathematical formula that predicts and directs some of the natural order around us was discovered by an Italian mathematician named Fibonacci centuries ago. I imagine that he was just playing with numbers one day and found that if you add consecutive numbers together, then add the last two numbers used, the series of numbers they produce predicts a specific relationship in many natural phenomenon. 1+2=3, 2+3=5, 3+5=8, 5+8=13, 8+13=21 and so on. The numbers this produces are: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 etc. These are now known as the Fibonacci sequence. The relationship between 3 and 5 is almost the same as that between 13 and 21 and so on. That relationship is about 1:1.618. We now call it the Golden Mean. It’s a very simple proportional relationship found many places in nature. From the design of the human body the curl of a nautilus shell this relationship is found over and over.

On a related front, fractal geometry is teaching us something about the formation of non-Euclidian geometrical forms. It seems that nature doesn’t so much give every detail of how things like clouds and shorelines are formed so much as it follows mathematical formulae that dictate such things. One such formula produces the ‘Mandelbrot set’, the most famous series in fractal geometry. From a simple mathematical formula repeated over and over one can find complex forms that trail off into infinity.

In the field of Physics, scientists have believed for decades that they can find a Unified Field Theory or ‘Theory of Everything’. Such a theory will unite the various other theories into a single, harmonious ‘One’. Newtonian physics were considered the be-all, end-all word on the subject until about four hundred years later when Einstein came along and demonstrated that Newtonian physics only explained one element of the way the universe works. Quantum physics then came along and Einstein’s theories were found lacking in explaining the physics on the sub-atomic level of reality. The ‘Theory of Everything’ will have to harmoniously unite all of these.

The most promising candidate for a Theory of Everything, at the moment, is Super String Theory or ‘M-Theory’. In a nutshell M-theory explains the workings of the various levels of reality by postulating super small strings that vibrate at different frequencies to produce different physical phenomenon. One string vibrates at a frequency that creates an electron; another vibrates at a frequency that produces a proton etc. The theory dictates that there are multiple dimensions in which the strings vibrate. They exist in our universe and outside of it at the same time. It's really quite a fascinating explanation. It is, at one time, very simple and immensely complex. The mathematics to flesh out the theory are still being worked out .

From a Christian perspective M-theory is especially captivating. Scriptures teach us that God spoke and the universe existed. That is somewhat akin to the Hindu creation story wherein it is believed that sound was the first energy in the universe. It was Gods use of sound, or more precisely, standing vibrations that created everything. If M-theory proves to be ‘The’ theory of everything it would fit in nicely with Biblical theology.

All of these things point to mathematical formulae that dictate the shape and functioning of our universe. Mathematics seems to be the language of God 'The Architect'. We, ourselves, are a product of it. The Word of God is written into the very fabric of the universe. And we are capable of understanding it! Just think about that for a moment...we can know the Mind of God!

The Artists' Eye

2007-03-15T21:19:00.000-07:00

The process of becoming an artist is really quite fascinating to me. Psychology has trained me to observe people closely to find what motivates them. Martial arts have trained me to observe what’s going in myself to gain some measure of control over it. The artist observes things only with an eye towards recording, or interpreting, them. Other than that, there seems to be very little judgment about them. When studying someone’s face to paint or sculpt, for example, you forget about whether they are beautiful or not, the goal is simply to examine the lines and color and so on. That information is then filtered through the artists’ lens and the moment recorded in whatever medium they employ. It seems a very Zen-like process to me because it prompts one to live in the moment.

I used to wonder what a painter or photographer was thinking by producing a picture of say, a pair of sneakers or a simple window. Such things have begun to make sense to me. There is a profound beauty in the most simple, everyday things if we can only learn to look at them with new eyes. This brings to mind The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius , one of my favorite books of all time. The emperor says:

“Make for yourself a definition or description of every object presented to you, so as to see distinctly what it is in it’s own naked substance, complete and entire, and tell yourself its proper name, and the names of the things of which it is compounded and into which it will be dissolved. For nothing so elevates the mind as to be able to examine methodically and truly every object which comes before you in life, and always to look at things so as to see at once what kind of universe this is, and what kind of service each performs in it, and what value each has in relation to the whole, and what it has for man, who is a citizen of that loftiest city, to which all other cities are families.”

“Look beneath the surface. Let neither the peculiar quality of anything nor its value escape you.”

I have found that it does indeed elevate the mind to see things for what they are and where they fit into the big picture. It's helped me to grow as an individual to learn to see things the way some artists see them.

I don’t mean those 'works of art' that are supposed to make some kind of statement and are devoid of any beauty. I have often thought that people who pretend to see deep political or social ‘statements’ in a work of art are also the kind that see the emperors' new clothes. To be sure, many people who call themselves ‘artists’ produce pure garbage. I'm not talking about beginners here, or those who haven't yet found their own style. The 'artists' I mean seem to have somehow secretly agreed with other ‘artists’ (who also have no talent) to esteem each others' work. The rest of us are told we ‘just don’t get it’ when we don’t see the emperors new clothes too. I don’t buy into the delusions of such folks.

I do find that others have a unique way of perceiving the world around them, and in their quiet ways, try to share a glimpse of that with the rest of us. Rembrandt has made me see people a little more thoughtfully. Monet has made me see beauty in simple forms. Picasso has taught me that forms and my feelings about them can be separated. Mark Rothko has shown me what deep emotion there can be in color without form.

I've only mentioned the visual arts here but, sculptors, dancers, writers and actors can all do the same kind of things. They have the power to uplift and transform, the power to help us be carried away in the everyday. They can add richness and texture to our lives. I’m of the school of thought that art should be beautiful. I believe artists are here to make the world more beautiful. There is enough ugliness in life. We don’t need to see it reflected in works of art too. Art, at it’s best I think, uplifts the daily and mundane and helps us to see the beauty in it. It helps us to see the same old things with new eyes.

Life is renewed each moment when one sees it with such eyes. What a gift that is…

Love and Only Love

2007-02-07T07:52:00.000-08:00

I am endlessly fascinated by the subject of love. It warms something in me to see the love of a father or mother for their child; the love of a man and wife; the love of grandparents for their offspring…and all the other variations of love that open and bind the hearts of human beings.

When we open our hearts to allow something or someone in, it changes us. I have observed that love changes with people as they mature and grow older. It can deepen and mature along with them. It can communicate what no words could ever say. It is no wonder that more songs and poems have been written about love than any other subject.

I’ve heard love defined in many ways: an emotional need for someone; an outgoing concern for others etc. I’ve decided that the best working definition I can come up with is: Love is building a sense of connection between us and someone else, it is the expanding of our sense of ourselves to include others. When we love things or plants and animals, we come to include them in our sense of ourselves. We identify with them as a part of what makes us whole.

When two people marry they ‘become one’. We get a glimpse of love in the act of sexual union. For a brief moment we can drop the barriers that separate us from another and we can experience the joy of at-one-ment. In the union of two spirits, when one experiences joy or pain, the other feels it too. There is no longer a sense of you or me, it becomes ‘we’…ideally. When children come from such a union the sense of ‘I’ or ‘we’ is expanded further to include them. If ones sense of self is not expanded in marriage and having children then something is amiss. One has not learned the lessons from these experiences.

When we love someone their needs and desires become important to us, ideally as important as our own. We have expanded our sense of our-self to include them. I have come to believe that expanding our sense of ourselves is one of our primary purposes for existing here on earth, if not THE primary purpose. Whatever one believes, one has only to look around to see that life is about growth. Acorns push up sidewalks to become oak trees. Love is growth. Love can be painful because it breaks through the barriers we erect for ourselves to separate us from others.

We can expand our sense of ourselves to include our clubs, our sporting teams, our villages and towns, our states, our countries and even our planet and beyond. When one of the things we identify with experiences something good or bad we can experience it too, depending on how much we identify with it. Most of these forms of love are only glimpses of the real thing. The real sense of being ‘one’ with another is beyond the power of words to describe.

Most religions teach some form of love, however imperfect. Faith invites us to become ‘at-one’ with God. That is the ultimate love. He feels the connection with us because we came from Him. It is we who have broken the connection and need to learn to re-connect. On some level we all know this and feel the need for that ultimate connection. We rebel against it at the same time because we want to keep the barriers that separate us. That’s the conundrum of our existence.

Just think of the admonitions in the scriptures:

Love God with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength and
Love your neighbor as you love yourself...
Love one another as Christ loves you...
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you...
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love...
God is love...

It's never been said better.

Love comes from God through us, but we have to make the way clear for it to come out of us. We have to reach out to express it; to grow and to connect with each other. That's why we're here...

To Save Our Children

2007-01-17T11:04:00.000-08:00

Christian churches are losing the children that grow up in them to a world of smoke of mirrors. What our children see is a world filled with pleasures but so many of those pleasures turn out to be traps. Ours is a world filled with violence, pornography and meaningless lives. There are forces capable of saving our children from the world but many are failing for lack of knowledge. Churches have failed for the most part, but churches are built on the foundation of solid familes. The greatest influence in a childs life are are his or her parents. Below are recommendations dedicated to those whose job is to raise the children of God....the parents who love their children.

1. Set them the right example of a man or woman of faith. Don't tell them one thing and do something else. Even at a very young age they will be watching you as parents. They will be learning how to be a man or woman and how men and women interact from you. Let them see how the Holy Spirit works in your life to change who you are...

2. Be honest and straight with them. Let them know what you believe and why. Don't try to hide the realities of life from them. This is especially important in matters of money, sex, drugs, alcohol, tobacco...etc. Don't put your own head in the sand! If they don't learn them from you...they will from someone else.

3. Get involved with your children's lives. Go to their sporting events and school shows. Show them you care. Know who their friends are...(That is very important!) Eat dinner with your children and talk about your day.

4. Let your children know you believe in them. Let them know their ideas and opinions are important to you...that they matter. If they don't know you believe in them...they will find someone who does, and that will make them susceptible to being manipulated.

5. As they grow older, let them make more and more decisions for themselves. They need the experience of making their own decisions to become responsible adults. You'll show them you respect them as responsible and you'll build a bond of trust with them.

6. When you have to correct them, make the punishment fit the crime. First, make sure they know what you expect of them. Only then will you be justified in any punishment. Ask them how they should be punished. Many times they will be harder on themselves than you would have been. (Only an openly rebellious spirit should merit corporal punishment.)

7. Pick your battles with them...don't fight over every little point.

8. Establish a merit system for them. Don't just punish bad behavior, reward good behavior and encourage it. Let them know when they've done something that makes you proud or happy.

9. Be as concerned with what goes into your children's minds as what goes into their bodies. The Internet is an ocean filled with reefs of pornographic and violent images. Television is little better. Know what is going into their minds from these sources and from their school.

10. Limit their use of video games and other modern electronic devices. There is an element of addiction that is only beginning to be understood about using new technologies. There is also a link between Attention Deficit Disorder and computer use that is only beginning to be explored.

11. Pray with your children. Let them see you are honest with God during your prayers

12. Institute a family night once a week. Turn off the TV and the video games. Play board games. Talk to each other. Make it a fun time that they look forward to...not a burden to bear.

13. Get the men and women, and their families, in the local churches involved with preaching the Gospel and carrying it on. Set up a system for older members to visit newer families once a month to teach and discuss church doctrines. (This will be the equivalent of a family night for your spiritual family.)

14. Get them involved with the church. Youth programs are great but unfeasible in every church. Institute a kind of mini-missionary program where the children are involved with carrying out the great commission. Use your imagination!!

15. Always...ask for Gods guidance.

The Language of Numbers

2007-01-03T21:59:00.000-08:00

I’m a writer; a wordsmith; a sculptor of English. I love words. They can be used to paint pictures or evoke images in the minds of others. Words can be used to tell stories. Words can be used to construct ideas and convey them to others. Words can be both precise and imprecise. That’s their beauty.

It’s been my good fortune to learn a little more about another language of late…mathematics, the language of numbers. Unlike say, English, numbers relate to each other in very precise ways. Numbers strip away everything but the essential qualities of things, their units of measure.

When you are only concerned with units of measure you can ignore all other qualities. Color, texture, sound, smell, and taste are no longer considered…unless they are the subjects broken down into units of measure.

Units of measure involve individual things and groups of them; they involve length, width, depth, height, weight and so on. When one designates a standard for the units of measure involved one can begin to speak in the language of numbers. Coming to understand their relationships is coming to understand precision itself.

There is a beauty in the language of numbers that can’t be denied. There is a certainty that’s very appealing. There is an austerity in the language of numbers because they strip away everything but that which they address. Its relationships are clear and pristine. Knowing those relationships allows one who speaks the language to start with the known and find the unknown.

The language of numbers is rigidly logical; it’s rules unwavering. The universe is run by it and we can, quite literally, set our watches by it. Like any other language though, it is lost on those not conversant in it.

Admittedly, I’ve only scratched the surface of the language of numbers. I stand on the outside looking in, quite enviously, at those who are fluent in it. I can sense its beauty like that of any exotic language. It's musical to my ears but only a few of its utterances mean anything to me. It’s quite appropriate that the universe was written in the language of numbers. I am awed by the beauty of the universe. Its complexity eludes me, but on some level I sense that it's rules are really quite simple. I can say the same about the language of numbers. There is an old saying that chemists only talk to physicists and physicists only talk to God. They do so in the language of numbers. There have been quiet nights when the thought has crossed my mind that the language of numbers is the real Word of God.

Like the cabbalist, on a deep level I sense that the answers to the biggest questions begin with the language of numbers. In the beginning is emptiness, zero…and then there is one. From one comes two, and from the interaction of the two comes the myriad of all things. Simple as it seems, even this only floats on the edge of my understanding.

From nothingness…one. From one…two. From two…all. Hmmm. Sounds almost like A, B, C…
And to think there's a vast library out there waiting to be revealed!

Pornography

2006-12-15T17:50:00.000-08:00

Sexuality is a gift from God. When used the way He prescribes, it can draw two people closer together in a bond of intimacy. Sexual energy can be used to create stable families and provide children with a strong foundation to become decent adults. Like Gods other gifts to us, sexuality can also be misused and perverted. When that happens it destroys the very things it was given to us to create.

Just like other things we human beings need and desire, our desire for sex is often exploited for darker purposes. The beauty of women has long been manipulated and exploited.
Men have manipulated women for their beauty and women themselves have used their beauty to manipulate men since there’ve been men and women. They don’t call prostitution the ‘oldest profession’ for nothing. Societies moral standards have usually held those desires in some kind of check. They have helped us to focus our sexual energies into positive, uplifting pursuits and provided some balance in helping us to rise above our desires. Today even that balance is disappearing, and with it the stability of our society. We’ve thrown out the very moral code that has served to uplift us and help us rise above our basest desires.

Now, I love women. Just like most men, it’s written into my genetic code to respond to them in a chemical way. Their eyes, their hair, their figures, the way they smell…something about all of those attributes pushes buttons in me that make me want to, at least, be closer to some women. That’s perfectly natural. If it weren’t that way our species would have died out long ago. Like most men, I feel the desire to look at women. No big surprise there. Unlike some men though, I have no desire to debase them or see them perform sexual acts with others. I believe God made them, and me, to be better than that.

At one time most men had access only to paintings or pictures of naked women. Whether those constituted pornography or not may be debatable, but that’s all changed, especially with the Internet. The pornographic industry has exploded in recent years. The quality of pornography has declined over the decades to include images of intercourse, homosexuality and lesbianism, group sex, sadomasochism and vile displays of oral sex to name a only few of the more common types. The lowest, and most destructive forms of this phenomenon involve rape, physical violence and even sexual acts with children and animals.

What pornography has served to do is demean and debase women and even innocent children to little more than toilets to be used by men. Pornography has turned what was meant to give us intimate, loving relationships into one of the most destructive forces in our society. It’s ironic that so many people these days realize the need to watch what they put into their bodies, because their physical health depends on it, but then fail to realize the need to watch what they put into their minds...because their spiritual health depends on it. When it comes to sexuality the rule seems to be ignore any ‘outdated’ moral codes based in Biblical principles; practice ‘safe’ sex, and if it feels good do it. Pornography has fueled that attitude.

Pornography can be addictive for those who provide it and for those who consume it. The nature of any addiction is to seek stronger and stronger forms of the thing that satisfies the desire. Those desires can easily cross over from fantasy to reality. Countless men who are addicted to porn have been known to act out their fantasies after having fueled them on porn. (If you don’t believe that seeing images in a photograph or on a screen can alter behavior, just ask yourself why sponsors spend billions on advertising for thirty-second spots during the Super Bowl.) We are a society that’s beginning to drown in our own lusts. Nothing could be more destructive to personal relationships, marriages and families!

Though it's often asserted, it is by no means true that only women with low self esteem work in the porn industry. It is a fact, however, that many, if not most of the women in the industry do suffer from low self-esteem. It’s not uncommon for the victims of sexual abuse, as well as other forms of abuse and neglect, to find employment in the porn industry. Some part of them may believe that’s all they’re worth. That we could use each other so… That a fellow human being could believe that their only value is in being used as little more than a toilet is a shame on us as a species. It diminishes us all. And, it only serves to perpetuate the culture that is pulling us down.

One of the greatest shames is that this is all being done in the name of freedom of expression. I wonder sometimes if our founding fathers aren’t turning over in their graves for how we have twisted the meaning of the rights they secured for us.

Pornography destroys lives and it destroys families. When healthy families cease to be the building blocks for a society…that societies days are numbered. Because we are being led only by our own unchecked desires, and not by our Creators instruction manual for His creation, we are on a self-destructive path. It's time we stop letting others manipulate and exploit our natural desires. It's time we take control of ourselves, and what we allow into our minds. We need to learn to redirect our energies into positive and uplifting pursuits instead of fueling our own self-destructive lusts.

It's time we learn to see the value in each other as unique Children of God to be prayed for... not just objects to be used and preyed on. Let's bring back the concept of shame. Let's bring back decency…

The Tao

2006-11-26T12:33:00.000-08:00

I am a Christian or, what some call, a Messianic Jew. That is to say, when I read the Bible the truth of it resonates in me and I can’t deny it. I believe it is the revealed Word of God. It contains instructions for the way for human beings are to relate to each other in harmony. And it contains instructions for the way we are to relate to God. I believe it's the instruction manual for mankind and I am bound to live by its principles. Those revelations are the things that we human beings couldn’t find out on our own. That does not mean that the Bible contains all the truth there is to be had.

To be sure, every culture in every age and in every corner of the earth has discovered some truth that is relevant to our existence here on earth. While I draw on the Bible to understand God and His will for us, I have learned to draw on the truths of all cultures in coming to understand what it is to be human. One body of wisdom I have come to respect and draw on is Taoism.

Taoism teaches that everything is part of one ultimate reality. That reality comes to express itself in a duality. In searching for words to express the duality of the universe the early Chinese chose the terms Yin and Yang. They were words that originally referred to the light and shaded sides of a mountain. Yin and yang are equal but opposite. In yin there is some yang and in yang there is some yin. The duality of yin and yang is expressed everywhere in nature. Male and female, light and dark, expanding and contracting...many other pairs of opposites express the duality that is all around us. Everything is a part of the Tao. Yin and yang are a part of everything. They interplay continually. If that interplay is balanced there is harmony between them. The most well known symbol displaying the interplay of the yin and yang is the black and white circle called the Tai Chi. Translated into English it means 'the Supreme Ultimate'. The Tai Chi represents the essence of what cannot be defined or quantified; it represents the Tao... The Way.

While I do not believe in Taoism as a religion, I do believe it contains a fundamental truth of our reality. I don't believe it extends to include good and evil as equal but opposite pairs, so I don't believe the truths of it include all truth. The ultimate reality that Taoism points to is impersonal and is the sum of all creation. Some may call "it" god but it is not. God is not a part of creation, He exists outside of it. So when ‘the one’ is spoken of it does not mean we are ‘one’ with God in this life, but we are one with His creation. That's the level of truth that the Tao speaks to for me.

While I see the Tao played out everywhere in nature I see it's duality played out most clearly in the interaction of men and women. I believe that men without women, or women without men, are out of harmony with The Way. I have often sensed that when men and women congregate only with their own sex something is out of balance. The views that they develop are out of balance and dis-harmonious because they're lacking the perspective of their opposites. We live in a culture where this is becoming increasingly true and I believe it to be dangerous. In the health of the body when energy is out of balance it's called dis-ease. In the health of a society where energies are out of balance there is also a kind of dis-ease.

Men and women need each other to be whole, to be balanced. We need the perspective of our opposites to have a clearer picture of our world. That perspective is quickly being lost in our ‘war between the sexes’. The result can only be chaos and confusion. We are in need of a wake up call. We need to come back into harmony in our homes if we are to have harmony in our world. We need to learn to see the Word of God written into creation as well as that revealed to us in scripture. We are a people out of harmony with ourselves. We are out of harmony with the natural world and with each other. We are out of harmony with God. We have lost our way and are on a path that leads only to our own destruction…

We need the Hand of God to intercede and keep us from destroying ourselves...to put us back into harmony. The Good News is: ...that day is coming...

Giving Thanks...

2006-11-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

That we can look out over the sea or into the stars and feel thanks for this life is evidence enough that there is someone to thank. In this, our national time of Thanksgiving we should reflect not only on what we have to feel thankful for…but on whom we should be thanking. We accepted the guidance of The Most High God in building this, the greatest nation on earth. Now that we are enjoying the fruits the labor of our forefathers we need to remember our Heavenly Father. Without His guidance and blessing we would be nothing. Without Him central in our lives we will come to nothing. We need to give thanks every day because every day is a gift from God. I could not demean the Most High by referring to Him as my ‘higher power’ or lower Him by equating Him with something He created. God is above and beyond anything we can conceive. The most amazing thing about Him is that He cares about us… We owe Him every breath we draw because each one is His gift to us. For those that feel they have nothing to be thankful for…look around. The hand of God is everywhere. The blessings of God are everywhere. Because we have become so accustomed to seeing Gods miracles every day…we have forgotten that they are miracles. Stop and take notice. If you do…you’ll find a "Thank You" coming out of you almost without thought. It is as natural as the air we breathe.

Amen...

For Marian Fisher

2006-10-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

The news today reported that one of the little girls in the slaughter that took place at an Amish schoolhouse a few days ago asked to be shot first. Marian Fisher made an effort to save the younger girls by offering herself first. She was 13 years old. Her little 11-year old sister Barbie offered herself next and, by God’s grace, survived to tell the tale.

There are times when I am ashamed of being a human being. When I first heard about the monstrous evil that one demented man inflicted on such a peaceful community it grieved me to be a part of a race that could conceive of murdering it’s own children.

That fact is that we all draw from the same well that is human nature. If we can conceive of a thing, either good or evil, someone somewhere has done it, is doing it or will do it. That we can conceive of it means it is not foreign to us. This is both a blessing and a curse. We can understand the hopes and the dreams of other human beings because we all draw on the same nature. We can understand their thought processes. It’s a blessing because it can give us empathy. We can know what it’s like to be in another person’s shoes. It’s a curse, too, because it means that the evil that was / is in their hearts is also a part of us… We are all in this together.

While I am sometimes disheartened by the darkness that is in human hearts, I am also uplifted by the love and the courage that human hearts are capable of. This little girl, who never got a chance to live, showed such love and such courage that it leaves me in awe. Inside this little girl was true nobility. Inside that little chest beat the heart of a lion!

I am also in awe of the forgiveness that the Amish people have shown. They have consigned themselves to the will of God and are content to turn all over to Him. I can’t say I’ve ever met an Amish person, or even seen one in the flesh, but I am moved by their light to the world. That’s one good thing that’s already come from this.

I know that some goodness will come from this and touch other lives too. I know that little Marian and the girls that died with her in are asleep awaiting the return of Jesus the Christ. They will be awakened one day to everlasting life. In that day our very nature will be changed and the darkness in the human heart will be banished forever by the light of God. The suffering of Marian and her schoolmates is over. For now I pray for God to heal the broken hearts left behind.

Marian Fisher is a name that will be remembered long after the name of the man who butchered her is forgotten. This little girl will be a jewel in the crown of God one day. Of that I have no doubt.

Sin and Christs' Sacrifice

2006-10-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

We, Christians, should be ashamed of ourselves. Instead of pointing our fingers at the splinters in the eyes of other people we should be concerned with the beams in our own eyes.

The Bible wasn’t revealed to us for us to tell other people how to live…it was written to us to tell us how to live. We, collectively, believe that Christ died for us to pay the penalty for our sins. He did so with His life’s blood. Too many of us accept that sacrifice and continue to live in sin like we now have a license to do so.

Imagine for a moment that you owed a credit card debt of thousands of dollars. If someone stepped in and offered to pay off your debt and bring your balance back to zero…would you continue to rack up more debt on your credit cards because you knew you had a benefactor to square the debt? Most of us wouldn’t. We would understand the value of what had been done for us and we would endeavor to not go into such debt again.

Too many Christians treat the debt that Christ paid for us like it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card and continue to, not just live in sin, but embrace it! There are stories of ministers, those who believe that they are doing God’s work, that have somehow come to believe they are exempt from obeying God because they are so useful to Him? What a distortion of the Gospel!

Too many Christians, or at least those claiming the title, are busy condemning other people…not just their sins. They have set themselves up as judges over their fellow man. Instead of using Gods word to make themselves better people…they have used it to bring more evil into the world. Instead of using their energies to be a light to the world they add to the darkness. Not ONE of them lives a life without sin. Not ONE of them. They have used the Gospel of Christ to do evil. That is an abomination!

The way Christians are supposed to influence the world is by the example of their lives…not by picketing, or blowing up abortion clinics or bringing shame to the name of God. We are called to a better way. By obeying Gods word in our own lives we publish the Gospel in a more significant way than through anything we say or write. We have forgotten that…

Most Christians don’t even look to the scriptures to come to a better understanding of what sin is and how to live to please God. Our faith doesn’t end with accepting Christ as our sacrifice… we have to then act on our faith to keep it alive; to allow it to grow.

We have turned the sacrifice of our savior into a joke by our behavior. It is no wonder the world is so skeptical of the message of Christ. They see the followers of Christ acting no differently than anyone else, so why should they embrace it?

We need to remember the very first words of Christ’s ministry…Repent (return to obediance), for the Kingdom of God is at hand. That was written to us…not for us to hit others over the head with!

What has happened to us?

2006-10-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

October 2, 2006 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

A man walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse with 27 students. He allowed the boys and adults to leave and kept the little girls, ages six to thirteen, hostage. When surrounded by police he murdered five young Amish girls and wounded five more by attempting to shoot them all in the backs of their heads...execution style.

...He put a gun to the back of the heads of little girls and attempted to murder them all...

This was a story that came and went in the news for most of us. It didn’t affect us so we paid little attention to it. The children of ten families attended that school, seven of them had daughters that were murdered or wounded in this evil, senseless attack.

The tranquility of one of the most peaceful, non-violent, communities on earth was shaken to its core for no reason other than the demented machinations of one man.

There was a time when the entire nation would have mourned for the loss of these families. That time is no more. The land is full of senseless, bloody crimes these days. We hear about them while having our morning coffee or while sitting down to dinner. Many of us then change the channel to listen to the latest sports scores or some other distraction.

The Amish have already forgiven this man and reached out to his family. They've set us an example of how Christians are supposed to be a light to the world. It's an example our world needs more than ever. We are surely cloaked in darkness. Dear God, how have our hearts become so hardened?

Like Rain from Heaven

2006-09-26T08:39:00.000-07:00

I have often pondered the billion, billion tears that have been cried by human beings in our time here on earth. I have seen tears of joy, tears of sadness, tears of despair, tears of relief and tears of exhaustion to name a only a few. My heart has been touched by many of them. As I have written before, there is something pure in the tears of honest emotion.

It was a recent encounter with tears of faith that got me to thinking. They were evidence of the conflict going on inside my friend. Their appearance was almost if to say, “I believe, please help my unbelief”. The thought occurred to me that each tear represented hope…hope of the way things could be, the way things should be. Maybe that’s what most tears represent, the difference between the way things are and the way we wish they were.

We wish our children never experienced any pain; that they never died before their time. We wish our faith was pure and without conflict. We wish ours was a better world. We wish that we were better people. Our tears are evidence of the difference between our dreams and our reality.

I believe that our tears keep us healthy. They preserve something vital in us. They may be all that does sometimes. Our tears preserve our humanity. Human tears have flowed like a river down through history. They’ve opened human hearts like a river opens dried seedlings. They’ve nourished new growth and kept us from drying up and blowing away. I have seen those who were no longer able to shed tears and it was as if something had died in them. I know in some of them something had died…their spirit.

There was a time not so long ago when men considered it ‘unmanly’ to shed tears except in the darkest moments of life. They paid a price for that... Men believed the world was hard and they needed to be hard to meet it head on. I believe that still…but I don’t believe there is anything unmanly in shedding tears. Sometimes it’s even a sign of real strength, the strength of an open heart. Hopefully more men in my generation are learning that. The women and children in their lives need them to have open hearts as much as they need them to be strong.

As I have written before, tears can represent moments of grace. It is a truth that a broken heart is an open heart. In the tears of a broken heart can be found moments of grace. While they cloud our eyes they can clear the vision of our hearts. Such tears can be like magnifying glasses that allow us to see the evidence of God the most clearly.

In my search for the evidence of Gods hand I am constantly amazed where I find it. Tears, too, are a blessing and a miracle from the Most High. The day is coming when He will dry them all and they will no longer be necessary.

Till that day…

Socialism...or something like it

2006-09-24T18:24:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking about the formula for socialism lately. It goes: “From each according to their ability to each according to their need”. It sounds simple enough. When it’s applied to the world of economics it has proven not to work very well. Human nature and our proclivity towards greed and self-aggrandizement make it a pipe dream. In some cases where it’s been applied the results have been disastrous. Capitalistic reforms have proven to be the best efforts in tempering socialism.

Capitalism takes into account human nature and even encourages greed. By itself capitalism also has its evils, greed being the major one. In a wise society it’s tempered with social welfare reforms. No government in history has pulled off a socio-economic system flawlessly, but the United States and some of the other Western democracies have made a valiant effort. They've done so by seeing the value of individuals.

What struck me recently was the thought that the socialist formula can be applied to other, less tangible, things in life with some success. Plug ‘goodness’ into that formula for example. “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” Now, that sounds like a wise equation to me. Each of us has gifts we can offer the world. In some they may be a small thing, but even the smallest things have value in the world of goodness. We all have the need for goodness in our lives. Even the worst of us, in some cases especially the worst of us, need goodness. Just imagine a world where each of us contributed to our fellow man what we have of goodness. That’s a dream too, but a nice one. The difference is, paradoxically, when we give away our goodness we lose nothing. In fact, when we give away our goodness, we find that it actually increases in us. If money did that…we’d all be devout socialists!

Instead, too many of us practice capitalism in our goodness too. We are only concerned with what we can get for ourselves. That usually proves to be disastrous. You see, if we all only work to amass goodness only for ourselves we usually end up losing it. There’s that paradox again! The scriptures say to not lay up treasures for ourselves on earth where moths and rust corrupt, but rather to lay it up for ourselves in heaven. We can only do that by giving away our goodness…

I’m convinced that people who are drawn to socialism are drawn to it because, in their hearts, they plug goodness into the equation instead of money. They mean well but don’t seem to get that that’s not how it works…unless everyone ponies up. They see human nature as basically good. Capitalists too, often see human nature as basically good. We might like to believe that, but what it turns out to be is FAILURE TO READ THE BIG PRINT in history and psychology. That’s a subject for another time.

For now I only want to add that the world I’m describing here is a dream too, because our very nature would have to change to achieve it. The good news is that the essential part of the equation is within our power. Each of us has the power to choose to give away our goodness. Each of us can choose to live the way of get or the way of give. We create the world we live in by the choices we make. Choosing to live the way of give will begin to change the world…because that will change us.

May God Bless Mothers

2006-09-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I admit, I get to feeling a little jaded, a little cynical, about my species. It seems we, human beings, are capable of the lowest forms of debauchery and the vilest forms of evil against one another. If an alien species were to listen only to our news broadcasts they would probably steer clear of this little blue planet all together. It can be very disheartening if that’s all one sees. But, if one takes the time to look there is also beauty in our species; there is a nobility in human beings that can’t be denied. Often, it’s only as far away as the person next to us.

I recently made a new friend. I met a young mother in a sculpting class that single handedly has restored some feeling in me for the human race. She has two small children and when she speaks about them her eyes light up and a smile almost involuntarily crosses her face. She begins to glow. Listening to her, it’s hard not to hear the love that she can’t contain. Her heart is completely open because of the love of her husband and those two little human beings God has entrusted to her care.

I recently told her the story of another friend and how he lost his little girl when she was only an infant. Her eyes began to well up with tears. I found myself being touched by her open heart. That simple thing was evidence of the hope for all humanity to me. If we are capable of that feeling, that empathy, then there is something worth preserving in us. This new mother became an ambassador for all that’s good in us. For just a moment I saw us the way God sees us.

Most of us love our mothers. Even the most hardened criminals have a soft spot in their hearts for the woman that gave them birth and their first glimpse of love. If we can hang on to those first lessons of love we learned, those from our mothers, they can strengthen us against the hardships ahead of us in life. Other things in life can harden us and twist our views of the world, but having a mother like this one…that’s a blessing, one that can see us through some very dark times.

I have no doubt that God has specially blessed the children of my young friend. What they will learn from their mother will give them a strength of spirit that will last them for a lifetime. Her light will shine on all those around her…like it has on me. And, that light will shine on through her children. I only hope that something of the light that shines through my mother shines on through me.

Therein lays the seed of hope for humanity.

May God bless all mothers…

The Idea...

2006-09-11T19:12:00.000-07:00

When you look at the flags of the countries of the world you can see some hint of their values and their histories. The governments of most countries of the world were built on history. Unlike most others, the government of the United States of America was built on a philosophy. Our flag represents an Idea. That Idea is that all human beings have value.

In our ‘sacred writings’ we declare that all men are created with equal rights under the law. All people have God-given rights and among them are the right to life, to liberty and the right to pursue their own happiness. That’s a radical break from most governments in history! The divine right of kings in European history, for example, assumed their citizens were at the disposal of their monarchies. Most countries have treated their citizens like they existed for the sake of the country. Many countries still treat their citizens that way. The Idea of the United States is that the government exists for individuals. The purpose of our government is to ensure and protect the God-given rights of every human being…even from itself.

We Americans are often ridiculed around the world for our up-start ways. We have one of the youngest cultures on earth. We’re barely over two hundred years old…a mere youngster in the eyes of history! What many of our detractors fail to realize is that we also have one of the oldest governments on earth. That’s because most of us believe The Idea. We hold the truths of it so dearly that we want to share it with the rest of the world. We’re excited about that…and rightfully so!

We believe in The Idea that our flag represents so strongly that our people have shed their own blood in every country on earth to spread the message! Men and women in the service of arms for our country have laid down their lives for over two centuries to spread The Idea that all human beings have value. They gave their life’s blood for the freedom of their fellow human beings. They shed their own blood for The Idea! They are still doing so today…

We have detractors among us that have never worn the uniform of our military. They have never faced the possibility of death for The Idea. They are content to exercise the rights that other people have sacrificed their lives for. That’s OK. The men and women who died to give them those rights ensured that they, too, have the right to be heard. We don’t begrudge them that. The right of individuals to speak with dissenting voices keeps our republic strong and vital! That’s a part of The Idea.

Our citizens have come to these shores from every country on earth because of The Idea. Many of the countries, that are our loudest detractors, sent us the dregs of their societies. We took them in…happily. Together we have built the greatest country in the history of the world!

We built it on The Idea…

The Religion of Peace?...The Facts:

2006-09-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

(Originally Posted 12-31-04)

Sept.5, 1972...International Olympics...Munich, Germany...11 Israeli athletes murdered

Oct.23, 1983...United States Marine Corps barracks. Beruit, Lebonon...241 murdered...80 wounded

Oct.1985...Achille Lauro hijacked...69 year old American tourist in a wheelchair murdered...because he is Jewish

Dec.21, 1988...Pan Am flight 103...Lockerbie, Scotland...270 murdered

Feb.26, 1993...World Trade Center...New York, New York...6 murdered...1000 injured

June 25, 1996...Kobar Towers...Riyad, Saudi Arabia...19 murdered...372 injured

Aug. 7, 1998...U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania...224 murdered...hundreds injured

Oct. 12, 2000...Navel Vessel USS Cole in Persian Gulf...17 murdered...39 injured

Sept. 11, 2001...World Trade Center/ Pentagon...New York, New York/ Washington D.C....3030 murdered...2337 injured

In Israel since the second Intifadah there have been 425 terrorist attacks... 377 Israelis murdered...2076 injured

52 were suicide bombings...murdering 288 people...

(This information is dated and far from complete).

March 11, 2004…Spain, 10 bombs exploded on four commuter trains at three railstations, murdering 191 people, more than 1,800 injured

Sept.1-3, 2004…Beslan, Russia…1200 plus people in an elementary school taken hostage by 32 terrorists, 330 murdered…176 of them children (They were not allowed to eat, drink or go to the bathroom for three days while they were held hostage. Bombs killed many of them, many more were shot in the backs as they tried to escape)…over 500 injured...24 children orphaned.

All of these crimes against humainty were committed by Muslim terrorists.... And where was the outcry against these mass murders in the Muslim world? Not one major Muslim organization has condemned them...

America has put its sons and daughters in the service of arms in harms way to protect Muslim lives many times…to liberate them from Fascists in North Africa in WWII, to protect them from Serbs in the former Yugoslavia and to liberate them from one of the most brutal dictators in the history of the world in Kuwait. Now American soldiers and marines shed blood in Afghanistan and Iraq...to set Muslims free from oppressive governments.

Cynics will say that Americans are only interested in the oil the Middle East has to offer. That is one interest. The fact is that America and Europe have made Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern oil producers some of the richest countries on earth because the land they live on lies atop rich oil reserves. That has raised the living standards of millions of Muslims and it has served to give them a voice in the world…one they would not have otherwise.

While Arabs cried foul when the United Nations created the nation of Israel in 1948, because that act displaced the Palestinians and left them without a homeland, they have been silent about the plight of the Kurds, the largest ethnic population without a homeland...because the Kurds live in Muslim lands. Arab Muslims have ignored the will of the United Nations and tried on more than one occassion to wipe Israel out of existence. Arab Muslims claim that Israeli Zionists seek to take over the world because Israel, in it’s own defense, conquered some of the land of the Muslim nations that have attacked them. No mention is made of the fact that the Koran dictates Muslims try to conquer the world for Islam. Muslim history is a history of conquest and bloodshed and is there to read for anyone who cares to. Many Muslims today openly proclaim that world conquest for Islam is still their goal.

There are some two dozen Arab Muslim nations that all share the same language, culture, religion and ethnicity…and they are all ruled by dictators. In many of those lands women are treated like property; non-believers are only barely tolerated and the freedoms that the Constitution of the United States of America declares are the God-given inalienable rights of every human being...are non-existent.

Where, exactly, is the 'peaceful' part again?

The Spice of Love

2006-09-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

I think romance is the nicest dimension of a relationship between a man and a woman. When I was younger I used to wonder why, in the movies at least, the town always cheered when two lovers got together? It wasn’t happening to them so what were they so happy about? I finally understand why the town cheers. I find myself these days silently cheering for lovers that look happy together. Just to know that it’s possible between two people gives me a good feeling. In a way, I think it is somewhat akin to seeing ballet dancers or gymnasts move in amazing and graceful ways. It can give us pleasure just to know it’s possible for members of our own species to do such things…even if we can’t. That is the faith of love.

Some people think romance is dead. It seems like too many people are cynical from having been burned. Too many people are content to selfishly use each other to fill one need or another. Men use women for sex. Women use men for money. And it goes on and on. It’s too bad. I came to realize late in life that this life is supposed to be a blessing. A big part of that blessing is finding someone to share it with. People that don’t let themselves experience romance only scratch the surface of life’s blessings. People that are only in relationships for sex or whatever they can ‘get’ out of them never really mature. Some are destined to be ‘deeply superficial’ it seems. That is the pain of love.

Some people let the romance in their relationships die. They become so fixed on the day to day that they forget that love can lift them above it. It’s a shame to see the romance die in lovers. Sometimes it seems to die but in reality it has only matured. Romance is different at different times in a relationship. It can be roses and wine in front of a fireplace or walking along the beach in the moonlight in the beginning. It can always be that way for some, for others, after so many years, it may just be a your eyes meeting across a crowded room or the little knowing glances and comments that no one else is privy to. Romance is the spice of love.

A mature relationship is one that allows two people to grow together, to explore the depths of what it means to be human together. When two people know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, when they know the raw truth of each other and still love each other it uplifts them. They become more than the sum of their parts. When two people have laughed and cried together, when they have experienced life’s joy and life’s pain together it creates something new and unique in the universe. It creates a bond that’s beyond anything physical. That is the dream of love.

These are, of course, observations from the outside looking in. This kind of blessing only happens to two hearts that are open to each other at the same time. Its rarity makes it seem like it only happens to the lucky few. I’m just happy that it happens at all…that it’s possible for a human heart to find another that fits it and they are content to grow old together. That is the hope of love.

King Solomon once wrote: There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four, which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent on a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid…

Romance is one of Gods true miracles. That is the blessing of love…

The Old Ways

2006-08-23T21:02:00.000-07:00

I got a call recently from an old friend who said he needed the help of a blacksmith. What struck me as funny about it was that my friend is a very ‘High Tech’ guy. He’s the first person I thought of when I thought my computer might have crashed not long ago.

My friend brought another high tech guy with him when he came over. They came in a state-of-the-art van outfitted for a wheel chair. The ramp had failed to work as designed and its owner needed a low-tech device that would enable him to secure it. After some discussion and experimentation we came up with a device that filled the need. It only amounted to a piece of tool steel with a little heat applied in a few spots. That was nothing for a smith, except a chance to get rid of another piece of scrap steel lying around. For some reason it impressed these two high tech guys? I got a chuckle out of it… You see, with a few exceptions, my PC being the most obvious, I’m a very low-tech kind of guy. While everyone else I know has started studying high tech systems etc., I started studying blacksmithing. I guess I’ve always been out-of-step with most people around me.

The episode got me to thinking. I love the old ways of doing things. Making ice cream in an old hand-cranked bucket, cooking on cast iron, and hammering hot steel are only a few of the old ways I cherish. I collect antique and vintage tools along with a few pieces of antique stoneware and furniture that have struck my fancy. I’ve never really tried to explain why the old ways appeal to me so much. The thought came to me last night that I don’t want for those things to be lost in our rush to the future. When my tools were new some of them represented the culmination of hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of years technological development. It seems a shame to me to simply discard them in favor of a new way of doing something. They had value once in helping men to manipulate the world around them. They still have value in representing an old way of doing things. There are, of course, other ways of remembering.

I don’t re-enact any particular period of history the way some do, but I respect it as a way to remember, and learn from, those that came before. I have a stepfather that collects and restores old military vehicles. It’s his way of honoring those that came before and the sacrifices they made to get us here. These, too, are putting value on the way things were once done. It puts value on the contributions of our ancestors. I don’t think those things should ever be forgotten. I don’t want the past to be forgotten. The past is where we came from. It’s who we are. What we’re doing now will belong to the future.

As my friend and his buddy left they joked; “when civilization breaks down, high tech guys will be out of jobs and we’ll need blacksmiths, otherwise who will make our swords and knives for us?”

Such things do need to be considered after all!

The Gift of Laughter

2006-08-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

I think laughter is one of Gods great gifts to us. Laughter can help break the ice in dealing with other people. Laughter can diffuse anger and lighten our mood. Laughter can relieve stress. We tend to remember things better when we laugh while learning them. To be able to laugh at ourselves can lighten our load. It is no wonder it is called the best medicine, it has a healing effect to be sure.

Even the thought of an infant smiling and laughing brings a smile to my face. The laughter of children is especially contagious. The laughter of little children can fill us with joy. (Just watch their faces when the muppets are on!) It's not only contagious, it's without guile. It can remind us of our own innocence lost.

There are those who make a living out of making others laugh. That’s not a bad calling…if it’s used in a way to uplift us and not tear us down. I remember Red Skelton and his TV show when I was a child. He was decent man who never tried to make us laugh as the expense of others. He would make us laugh at him. He was the consummate clown. At the close of every one of his shows he asked for God to bless his audience. In a way, we were blessed just from watching. There aren’t many like him around these days.

Like all of Gods gifts to us, laughter can be misused. To laugh about some injustice or dark deed can make us take them a little less seriously too. Jokes about death can help us deal with the subject more easily…but jokes about killing can take away from the seriousness of the subject. Jokes about ourselves can help us not to take ourselves too seriously…but jokes about others can be hurtful.

Unfortunately too many comedians these days appeal to our basest nature. Comedians that make a reputation out of belittling others or using foul language may make us laugh but they don’t uplift us…they debase us. As a society we seem to have an unfocused anger that comes out in our humor. It doesn’t diffuse anger or relieve stress it just fuels our cynicism. Much of the humor that’s popular these days is cynical and hateful.

I think what we laugh at is a good gauge of who we are as a people. It can be like the water we bath in. It can leave us feeling clean and refreshed or, like bathing in muddy water, it can leave us feeling unclean. I’m afraid that today too much of our humor is inclined to pull us down instead of building us up.

To have become so jaded as to take one of Gods gifts to us and use to tear down and debase ourselves…shame on us! Consider what we've lost.

We could learn a lot from the laughter of children. It's not called 'the best medicine' for nothing!

What is Beauty?

2006-08-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

I’ve been doing some further reflection on art. I’ve asked in an earlier piece: What is Art? I’ve come to a working answer at least. I don’t believe reflecting the ugliness in the world is art. I believe art should be uplifting. It should be timeless. Art should be beautiful. The question then arises: What is beauty? I’ve read some of what various philosophers have had to say on the subject, but I choose to address the question by how it makes me feel and what I learn from it.

First, I think beauty evokes a physical reaction. It pleases us. There is, perhaps, nothing more beautiful in the universe to me than a beautiful woman. The beauty of a woman isn’t ‘one’ thing…it can be several. There is the kind of beauty that evokes a hormonal reaction. We can sexually desire a woman. That is, I think, the lowest form of feminine beauty. There is a kind of beauty some women have that captivates us in our minds. Something about them makes us want to just ‘be around’ them. These women are interesting. We want to see what they’ll do next. We want to hear what they have to say. We like these women! Then there is the, almost transcendent, kind of beauty that we idealize. These women are the goddesses. We put them on pedestals. Just looking at them can cause a stillness in us. I think this is the kind of beauty that romance begins with.

The first kind of beauty women have, the sexual attractiveness, is fleeting. It fades over time. The second and third kinds of beauty can grow with time. These are kinds of beauty that only some men will perceive and respond to. Not all men will be drawn to any one woman in the same way. We can all see something different. All women have something beautiful about them if one will only take the time to notice.

Beauty in other forms can evoke physical reactions in us as well. I have seen sunsets and mountains, among other sights, that caused me to well up with tears they were so beautiful to me. These were forms of beauty beyond possession. To appreciate their beauty, I had to stop and take it in. I am reminded here of the saying: Life is not about the number of breaths you take, it’s about the moments that take your breath away. Some of these are the moments that take our breath away. This is a transcendent beauty. It’s both fleeting and new with every moment. This is the kind of beauty that makes something in us say: “Thank You…”

Beauty can be a teacher, or so it seems to me. Beauty can teach us about how fleeting life is. We have to stop and appreciate it to really ‘get’ it. Afterwards it fades. Something in the view, or in us, changes and the moment is gone. Beauty can teach us to fully participate with life in each moment. In each moment there is something of beauty to be perceived. We can hold it, but only for a moment, then we have to let it go. Maybe this is why women possess the most captivating kind of beauty. We can physically hold them. We can possess them. But, that’s only fleeting too. All of these kinds of beauty can teach us something about love. A part of love is stopping to appreciate something special outside of ourselves. Love is opening our hearts to it to take it in and become one with it, if only for a moment.

Sometimes I don’t even realize, when I sit down to write, where it will take me. Something inside pushes out to express itself and then I learn something more about what’s going on inside me. I didn’t know where contemplating beauty would take me. I’ve learned something from listening…to me. Beautiful…

Suffer the little children

2006-08-18T16:05:00.000-07:00

I just watched the Ron Clark story on TV. It’s a movie based on the life of an elementary school teacher from North Carolina who moved to Harlem, New York to teach sixth grade students. He chose the remedial class because everyone else had given up on them. The students tried everything they could to get him to quit and give up on them…but that would only have reinforced their view of themselves. Mr. Clark stayed. He showed them that he believed in them and that helped them begin to believe in themselves. They went from being the lowest testing class in the school to the highest in the district. Mr. Clark’s students caught his love of learning and it began to burn in them. He uplifted them by setting them an example of someone who not only loved learning but who was able to show them something of value in themselves.

To let a child see something of value in themselves through the eyes of an adult…I think that is the greatest thing an adult can give a child. Kids need more than just three squares a day and a roof over their head, they need to know someone believes in them. When a child learns to value him or herself they can easily learn the value of others…when they don’t value themselves they won’t value anything or anyone else.

I’m reminded of the story of a king in a small country who wanted to adopt a child raised by a village. He told the village about his plan but he wouldn’t tell them whom the child was. So the village raised every child there with love and affection. They were all praised and encouraged. They were instructed with patience and nurtured because of who they might become. As a result the whole generation was uplifted. They prospered as a peaceful people and raised a wise leader for the next generation.

Children need food, clothing, a safe and peaceful home, an education and the example of honest, upright adults, especially their parents. Every child needs a mother and a father who love each other living in their home. Little boys need the example of a man to learn to become a man. Little girls need a father to teach them how a man should treat a woman. Every child needs a mother to learn how to love.

Children don’t belong to their parents. They only come through them. They belong to God. Children are only entrusted to their parents for their parents to teach them to become decent human beings. That’s more important than being rich or famous. Our character is what we take with us after we draw our last breath. Everything else is just for training purposes…

People often wonder what's going on here on earth. Why are we here? The answer is that God is creating His family here. We are raising the Children of God in every generation. We should take that to heart because it’s THE most important thing happening in the universe! What we do in our homes will echo for an eternity…

Love your children.

Anti-Semitism

2006-08-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

The world powers are, once again, focused on the Middle East. Throughout history it’s been a political hotspot. It was once a coveted overland trade route between Asia, Africa and Europe that was regularly fought over. We all know the area is the birthplace of the three great Western religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It's home to some of the holiest places of those faiths. And, most relevant to most of the modern world, the area is the richest source of oil on earth. Anything that disrupts the peace there has the power to interfere with the flow of oil to a power-hungry world. That’s a reality.

Jewish history is such that, when the Romans occupied their homeland, the Romans drove them out in the Diaspora. After nearly two thousand years, and WWII, when Hitler made a concerted effort to murder an entire people, the world recognized that the Jews needed a homeland. The United Nations was responsible for the formation of the modern state of Israel in 1948. The Jews were given their ancestral homeland back by the world. The only people that have consistently refused to recognize that official decision by the United Nations are the Arabs.

Arabs will say that they fear Zionism, the idea that Israel will expand…but that’s only a story for the naive. The fact is the Arabs want to eradicate Israel. They do not believe it has the right to exist…period. Their arguments about the Palestinians being a people without a homeland ring hollow when one realizes the largest population on earth without their own homeland are the Kurds. Arabs don’t care much about them because they live in Arabic countries.

Without their oil, the world would probably pay little attention to the Arabs. But, their oil has given them financial power and a voice in the world. Muslim theology demands that they spread Islam throughout the world with it. The history of Islam is a bloody one. If people didn't convert with the word they were converted with the sword. Additionally, Muslim eschatology, or end time theology, says that Islam must wipe out the children of Israel before Gods final judgment. That translates into a hatred of the Jews. True Muslim believers are never going to make peace with Israel…and that’s a reality.

Many people want to blame the Jews for the violence in the Middle East. While anti-Semitism is on the rise around the world, especially in the Middle East and in Europe, the facts of history are plain. The Jews have only wanted to live peacefully in their homeland. They don't proselytize their faith. They don’t start wars. They don’t invade other countries to take territory. When modern Israel has taken territory it was because they were attacked and they took it to form a buffer zone between themselves and their enemies. They've offered to return those lands in return for peace. The Jews have contributed to the arts and sciences of civilization far out of proportion to their small numbers. They've set a standard of morality, as a people, that has been a light to the world.

In the dark ages of Europe, when the black plague ravaged the population, much of the Jewish population was spared. Many of the Europeans came to believe that was because the Jews had cursed the Christian population. The fact was, the Jews kept Gods laws of quarantine and sanitation revealed in the Bible. Obeying those laws kept them from falling prey to the disease. Sanitation and quarantine practices are now common among modern nations, thanks in part to the example of the Jews.

They have kept Gods revealed law to mankind alive and well...despite all the efforts that have been made to wipe them out of existence. It's for that reason that Satan has attempted to destroy them throughout history. Satan has used the Persians, the Romans, the Spanish Inquisition and the Nazis...but the Jews have always survived while their enemies have been destroyed. God has protected His people.

Some may claim a hatred of Jews based on individuals they've known, but to hate an entire people based on a few individuals is irrational. There are bad apples in every basket. Anti-Semitism comes from one source and it has nothing to do with God. For those that believe in God but give no thought to Satan…you need to reconsider. Hate is the work of Satan. He is alive and well. He wants to destroy the Jews because they have kept the knowledge of the One True God. Practicing Christians are on that list too...

There is a reason why terrorists have targeted our nation along side the Jews. The United States and Israel are two of the most moral nations on earth, despite our many flaws. But Jews and Christians need to realize who the Real enemy is here. It's not one of flesh and blood. Ultimately the way our enemies will be defeated is in our obedience to God. A part of that obedience is found in where our loyalty and our sympathies lay. There is NO such thing as an Anti-Semitic Christian. A person can be one or the other, but not both. Our savior was born into the tribe of Judah. Jews didn’t kill Christ…our sins did. That is the very heart of the Christian message. That makes every human being culpable.

Once again hate is mounting against the tribe of Judah. Islam has become the right hand of Satan. Muslims are rearing up against the people of the One True God. Like all of the others that have done so…they will ultimately be destroyed. There won’t be peace in the Middle East until they are. That too is a reality.

Ramblings from an Old Guy! Pt.2

2006-08-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

When we’re young we can act like we’re indestructible. It’s a time when the life force in us is moving faster than our bodies decline. We can also act like life will go on forever, despite all evidence to the contrary. Age comes as a surprise for many people just like a failing body does. The fundamental truth of our existence comes to all of us eventually.

The truth is that life is a one-way ticket. We can only spend time…we can’t save it or trade it. How we spend our time, like how we spend our money, is a measure of what we value. We may not realize it at the time but what we do in the present determines our future. The choices we make determine the quality of our lives. We can choose to act with integrity. We can choose to deal honorably with each other or we can choose to treat life like it’s our own little game and concern ourselves only with “I, me, my and mine”.

We can treasure the companions that have made the journey with us, but ultimately we go through life alone. That is to say that what happens inside our own skin is unique to us. God, in His eternity, is always with us…only a breath away. But, sometimes we just need someone with skin to touch and to talk with. It is not good for man to be alone after all. We are social creatures. We need each other. We can treasure each other but we can’t really hold on to each other. We can’t keep sickness, old age and death from claiming those we love. We can only fully participate with them while they are here…while there is time. We can make the leap and realize that we are all connected. We are all a part of each other. In that way we are never alone...

We can spend our lives uplifting each other and in the process be uplifted. That’s what God reveals to us. He gave us free will so we can choose…then He tells us to choose life! We’re here to learn that…and to teach it. What we do here will ripple throughout humanity and beyond. What we do here on earth in our mortal form can echo an eternity. It’s well to ponder these things while young. It is wise to ponder them before acting...

My Dad, his bottle, and what he left behind...

2006-08-10T16:59:00.000-07:00

My father was an alcoholic. There was a time when I believed that the only effect that had on me was to keep me from getting drunk. I’ve never been drunk or used illegal drugs. Being from my generation, many people find that amazing, but most of them have never seen the things I’ve seen. In an off-handed way I can thank my father for my aversion to brain altering chemicals, it’s true. As I grew older I realized that my fathers alcoholism affected me in many ways and most of them were not so positive.

When you live with an alcoholic you can never predict what will happen from one day to the next. One day my father would come home in a good mood, smiling and patient. The next day he might be in a rage and decide to knock my mother around while yelling and threatening to kill her. When you live with that day in and day out, you begin to live with a knot in your stomach. You prepare for the yelling and screaming and, because you’re prepared for that, you can’t really appreciate the good days. The knot eventually stays with you all the time. The innocent child in you hides behind the walls you build up for yourself deep inside. Everything in your life is met with a defensive reaction. You begin to wonder: “How is this going to hurt me?” about everything. You never really relax or let your guard down. Life becomes one traumatic event after another and the moments in between are spent trying to prepare for the next one. It alters everything in your life.

If it happens to you when you’re very young, you develop the constant fear of having your mother killed and losing your father to prison. When you’re too young to control anything in your life, you’re completely at the mercy of someone controlled by alcohol. No kid should ever have to live like that. No kid should ever have to get a butcher knife for his mother to keep his father from killing her. No kid should ever have to see his father hit his mother at all. It’s no way to live…believe me.

In my life, my experiences as a child living with an alcoholic have made me pray for peace more than anything else in life. Since it’s most peaceful when I’m alone…I’ve spent most of my life alone. I’ve had relationships with women but I’ve never let them get too close. The child still hiding behind the walls remembers too well that when you let someone into your heart they can really hurt you. Even close friends aren’t allowed too close. It’s hard trying to explain to a child living behind walls that things have changed…

It’s hard for me to accept weakness in others, but it’s really hard to accept it in myself. Weakness invites attack so you have to always be strong. It is really hard for me to forgive. I have found that I just can’t too many times. God, in His grace, has shown me that He can do it through me if I’ll just step aside and let Him. I’m still learning…slowly.

Never letting anyone too close, wanting to be inside where it looks warm and inviting but always staying outside looking in…and living with the remnants of a knot in my stomach. It can be exhausting.

I can thank my father, and his weakness for alcohol, for all of this. He taught me to live in fear. He forced me to be strong when I just wanted to be a kid. He left me with the legacy of never being able to be too close to anyone. He made sure by his example that I would never want to get drunk…or be like him in any way. My father taught me how to be a man by teaching me how not to be a man. He threw away the chance to get to know a neat little kid. But, he was my father…

Bobby Gene Perkins (Born: 8-19-1937, Died: 4-10-1991)

I forgive you Dad…

Ramblings from an old guy! Pt.1

2006-08-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

Aging is a funny thing. We all have to come to peace with the fact that our existence as mortals is temporary, one day we will die. We have to accept that as the central truth of our lives. But, what is even harder to come to grips with is getting older or, I should say, getting old. When you’re young you never really ‘get’ that you will get older, it only seems to happen to other people. Then one day you wake up and twenty or thirty years have past and you’re not quite sure where they went?

Coming to peace with the fact that we will get older, that our bodies will, one day, fail us is even harder than coming to peace with death. Death is an event…one day it just happens. Getting older, that’s gradual. It takes no effort. It happens while we’re thinking of other things! It can seem unfair I suppose, especially to those who haven’t made peace with it.

It seems unfair that we are expected to make most of the big decisions in our lives while we are in our teens and twenties. Most of us will choose our mates, our educations and our careers in that time. When we’re older we realize how little experience those grand decisions in our lives were based on. I know, at my advanced age, that I would hesitate to trust most twenty-something’s to make the big decisions for themselves. They just don’t have the experience or the wisdom to do so. Maybe that’s why arranged marriages are so popular in older cultures? In many older cultures it’s quite common for parents to choose the careers of their children too. I can see wisdom in that.

Those ideas rub against the grain of our American culture. Ours is a culture of youth. We believe in allowing every individual to make their own decisions and mistakes. There is a wisdom in our way too. We just have to be prepared to make quite a few mistakes. (When I hear some people seem surprised that they made a mistake in their life my response is usually: “Welcome to Earth!”)

Though, it’s clear, it doesn’t happen to everyone, hopefully most of us grow up as we grow older. In growing up some of even become wiser. It seems the only way to do that is to pay attention to the mistakes and the successes in our lives and connect the dots that got us there. When we’re older we are not as driven by our hormones and other bodily chemicals so we can think more clearly…at least for a while. That must lend itself to wisdom too.

I think growing older is somewhat like climbing a mountain. At the base it doesn’t look as high as it does from the top. As we get higher, we can see farther. At forty you can understand 20…but at 20 you don’t get 40 at all! I guess that means some part of wisdom is in perspective too.

As we grow older, and hopefully somewhat wiser, we also have the opportunity to grow in character. We can put that wisdom to use in our own lives by becoming better people. It doesn’t matter how old we become, we can still grow. With character we can be good examples for those farther back on the path.

It just seems that, right about the time you really start understanding a few things, you’re too old to be able to do anything about them! Our desire then moves to wanting to share the things we’ve learned with younger people. The problem with that, in our culture of youth anyway, is that not many are inclined to listen. The young too often ignore the advice of the mature and then set about to make all the same mistakes in their own lives. Clearly, something is wrong somewhere!!!

Life is about growth. In growing we're going to make mistakes. In fact, if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough! Hopefully we live long enough to find some redemption and some inner peace. Life is not just some ‘thing’ we can hold on to…it's a process we participate in. It’s like a song or a book, it will end, but it can cause ripples that last for generations. Most of us are so wrapped up in our own lives that we sometimes forget that.

As we get older, we often forget many things…I can’t even remember how I wanted to end this just now?!?!

Oh well…Welcome to earth everyone!

Coming Soon...OneWorld, One Faith.

2006-08-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

As the Roman Empire was on its last leg, the emperor Constantine sought something that would give it cohesion, something that would unify his crumbling empire. He chose a relatively new, small religion that had made a name in the empire because of the dedication of its members. Constantine made Christianity the state religion. He didn’t much care exactly what it taught, as long as that teaching was universal. He ordered church leaders together to sit down and codify it doctrines. This ‘new’ faith, being as much political as it was religious adopted many of the ancient practices of the peoples in the empire. It picked them up, dusted them off, and gave them ‘Christian’ names. When in Rome one must do as the Romans do after all. Thus, Saturnalius became Christmas and the first day of the week became the official Christian day of worship. A partnership between this newly formed church and the state was born. In the centuries that followed the power of the Catholic church grew as the political leaders, and alliances, in Europe and elsewhere came and went.

To be sure, the formation of this faith provided some stability for the various peoples it came to dominate. It kept the people in line by owning their ‘immortal souls’ while the state owned their bodies. It proved to be a useful tool to the state and vice versa. This is only one manifestation of a state religion in history.

Political leaders have often come to understand that it’s easier to govern a people when most of them maintain the same beliefs. Emperors have especially found it useful. In an empire many countries come under the umbrella of one government or leader. With many different peoples and many different cultures it is necessary for social cohesion that the people share some common vision. Religion has been used to provide that cohesion far more often in history than political philosophies.

We are at a time in history again where differences in worldviews are at the core of conflicts between nations all over the globe. The difference is, in our age, modern technologies and the modern weapons of war have gotten so deadly that we are now able to annihilate our race many times over. If we don’t find a way to solve our differences we are headed that way. History teaches us that the time is ripe for another state religion, one to give people a common vision for the sake of political stability and cohesion. It looks like things are shaping up to move that way. To be effective this time it will have to be global in its scope. The world is a much smaller place than it was in Constantine’s time.

As it happens the Bible, too, predicts a coming global faith that is in alliance with its ruling nations. The leader of that faith will bring peace to the world. He will make the world believe that Christ has returned. He will bring Peace, peace…finally. Or so it will seem…because that leader will be the very antithesis of Christ. The peace he will usher in will be short lived.

Every generation of Christians has predicted the coming of the Anti-Christ followed by the coming of the Real Christ. They have all been wrong… But this time…this time is the first time in human history that we have the capacity to destroy all life on earth. Doomsday predictors have always been with us, and they will be…until doomsday. Now it’s a real possibility.

The real message of the Gospel, the Good News, of Jesus the Christ is that this is a time of hope. Jesus the Christ is coming back! The heart of the gospel is that the Kingdom of God is coming. There will be one world, and one faith. God will dwell with men. He will wipe away all tears from our eyes. There will be no more death, no sorrow, no more crying. There will be no more pain because the former things will have all passed away. All things will be made anew! (Rev. 21: 3-5)

As Christians we have all reason to hope for the future because these words are true and faithful. It’s time to renew our faith and hold fast to it. The darkest hour of human history is before us…just before the dawn!

What is Art?

2006-07-27T18:01:00.000-07:00

Our ‘conscious’ selves are only a part of who we are. The unconscious is programmed by what we sense and perceive and it can be programmed intentionally by our conscious mind…it then runs most of our lives. The unconscious will assert itself when it’s ignored or repressed. It manifests itself in our dreams, in our language and in our movements. But perhaps it’s greatest manifestation is in our art.

The art of a civilization is often all that remains when it’s people are gone. Their art can tell us what was important to them, what they valued.

I’ve spent hours pondering the questions: ‘What is art?’ and ‘Why is it important to us?’ I have come to the conclusion that art expresses something in us that’s beyond our conscious mind, it's beyond logic. Sometimes it represents what we see, sometimes what we dream, and sometimes it represents the moments in between. Art can take the daily and mundane and uplift it to the eternal and the ideal. Art represents our inner self, pressing itself out. At its best, it is the evidence of our striving for perfection. Just like our conscious and unconscious minds together make us complete, I believe we need art to feel whole.

Art is what flows out of us when we’ve wrestled with ourselves to understand something. When an artist feels love, pain, beauty, redemption, or any of the feelings common to man, in coming to understand what those feelings are, and if he or she has the tools, the answer can flow out of their unconscious in color or form, music or movement.

It takes a great deal of discipline to let something flow, unobstructed, out of you. It takes mastery. Some people take shortcuts, thinking they’re doing the same thing because it looks or sounds the same. To the untrained eye or ear they can appear similar, but they’re not… Anyone can scribble ink on a page, throw globs of mud together, squirt paint on a canvas, bang the keys of a piano, or move to music. But to truly be an artist takes discipline. After learning the skills and techniques of past masters to the point where they become a part of us, we can let them go and let our unconscious use them to express what we feel. Our creative impulse needs the tools to express itself just like we need language to communicate. To simply grunt and hope to be understood isn’t the same as having the tools of language at our command. Like language, the goal of art is to communicate what an artist sees or feels to others.

Art isn’t just one thing, it's many. There is a kind of art even in a daily routine. There is beauty even in the mundane. But it is the the art that transcends the daily and mundane that I'm speaking of...great art. Great art is beautiful and uplifting. Great art has a timeless quality, one that can be sensed centuries after it's produced. It comes from within us and helps us to understand something about ourselves and each other. Great art can be figurative or it can be abstract.

I didn’t used to like abstract visual art. I thought it was just, random meaningless shapes and colors thrown together. I didn’t see any logic or skill in it. Then I walked into a Mark Rothko exhibition. I had never heard of him and, had someone described his work to me, would not have expected to be impressed. Would I have been so wrong! Rothko found a way to use color without form to express emotion and he did it in such a way that a very deep part of me ‘gets it’.

While I believe that much, maybe even most abstract art, is produced by artists with no discipline, I have found in the last few years that some of it is the essence of discipline. I’ve come to love some of it. It occurs to me that, while it doesn’t necessarily represent something in my logical, conscious mind, it seems to be more akin to what goes on in my unconscious mind. Those images that float across the screen when nothing else is in focus. They represent being at ease, being comfortable, to me. I’ve decided they don’t have to make any logical sense, they just have to be allowed to ‘be’ a part of me.

We, human beings often hear several inner voices. Those that we ignore will just get louder until they’re heard. Those that are allowed to express themselves can be uplifting in many ways. They can help us to come to inner peace. If we listen to ourselves and to each other we can all be uplifted. Art can be one such voice…

Politically Correct Faith?

2006-07-16T08:11:00.000-07:00

Ever since the Supreme Court decided that the phrase in the Bill of Rights, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" meant the complete ‘separation between church and state’. (A phrase first written by Thomas Jefferson and later reiterated by James Madison and Ulysses S. Grant..) People have used it to push any mention of God out public discourse. [Never mind that those men all publicly endorsed a belief in God, or that ‘The Creator’, and ‘natures God’ are referred to in The Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution.]

What the Bill of Rights referred to was the government not favoring any particular sect or faith. God has always been above any particular religion. But, human nature being what it is, people don’t want to be reminded that they will ultimately be held responsible for their actions so they choose to put God out of their minds for the most part.

On some level we still sense a spiritual aspect of our existence but, instead of acknowledging God in it, we ‘clean it up’…for politically correct reasons of course! Now instead of God, we have a ‘higher power’. Instead of God answering prayers, we send them out into the universe and somehow the universe answers them. Instead of angels sent from God, angels just come and go by their own initiative apart from any god. We still need to feel good about ourselves, after all, and this watered down, meaningless pseudo-faith allows us to be ‘spiritual but not religious’…

I had a conversation recently with two older women, one a former social worker and one a semi-retired clinical psychologist. I told them I used to work in the field as a Clinical Psychologist but now only use my education for writing. I sometimes still counsel but I only do so as a Christian service, not for profit. They balked when I mentioned the word ‘Christian’? I later asked one why.

She first said that a counselor shouldn’t limit their approach to Freudian, Rogerian, Jungian or other approaches and that a ‘Christian’ approach was limited in a similar way. I told her it wasn’t an approach to how I counseled, it was a moral guide to what I counseled. She knew that I had worked for the state, when I was counseling, and was very quick to tell me she hoped I left the ‘Christian’ part of me away from the office. Church and state were supposed to be separate after all! I first said: Of course I did. Then I thought about it…I’m not at all sure what she meant? Now this was a lady that would be quick to tell you she is ‘spiritual but not religious’ but she made a point of saying she was not a Christian several times. It became clear in the conversation that she thought somewhat less of me for my personal convictions.

Her comments were, of course, the politically correct thing to say. But, I consider that somewhere between naïve and moronic… How a counselor is supposed to leave a big part of themself out of a counseling session is beyond me? I have never, and would never, try to convert anyone. I am always ready to answer any questions I’m asked about my faith but that’s different.

What, exactly, people like this lady have against Christianity is beyond me. But, it is a common thing to hear these days. The ‘politically correct’ would rarely say such things about, say, Islam. I wonder what part of my personal beliefs I’m ‘supposed’ to leave out of my counseling? For that matter I wonder what part of their personal beliefs our founding fathers would be expected to leave out of our sacred documents if they were framing them today?

I believe it’s better to be honest than to lie. I believe it’s right to keep ones word. I believe adultery is wrong. I also believe intentionally hurting others is wrong. I could list a page or two of what I believe is right and wrong, and I believe most people would agree with my list. Well, newsflash here, my moral code comes from my faith as a Christian!

This is yet another attack on faith by people who don’t want to be reminded there is a God and He is the only true source of morality for His creation. The politically correct have run amok. They think of themselves as much more ‘enlightened’ than someone who would believe such outdated myths as the Bible! But I think they are a far greater threat to our society than any people of faith! They are working feverishly to save a society that they are slowly destroying!

Now that I think of it…the comment was much closer to moronic than naïve. And, it’s people like her that run our social systems! If that passes for wisdom these days, may God help us!

Reproduction, Sex and a Stable Society

2006-07-15T13:21:00.000-07:00

A part of morality consists of controlling and channeling sexual energy into a positive, uplifting, and stable force. Societies that have been unable to do so have historically never risen to become great nations or they've become unstable and collapsed. Our society is in a transitional period wherein the traditional values that have controlled and channeled sexual energy into a stable social structure have become unfocused for lack of a moral code to guide us. This is a time of decadence or moral decay. If we are to come through it and survive as a viable culture we need to make some radical changes, first in our spiritual values, then in our cultural institutions and legal system.

Recently making the national news was the next legal argument resulting from the legalization of abortion. Now, it seems there are men that want to divorce themselves from any responsibility for fathering children. Their argument is that they didn’t ‘set out’ to produce a child, they only set out to have sex…and what that produced isn’t a baby, it’s only a cluster of cells. In the terms of our law that was the next logical step.

The blanket legalization of abortion based on a woman’s right to control her body was a bad ruling. It has been responsible for the killing of millions of the most innocent lives simply because they were inconvenient for their irresponsible mothers. Now, men (and I hate to use that words ‘mothers’ and ‘men’ in describing these people..) want to be released from any responsibility from their sexual actions too.

An unborn child is a child, just ask any mother waiting to meet her new son or daughter. Why ‘right to lifers’ feel the need to defend them is completely understandable to me. While I don’t agree with some of their tactics, or all of their platform, I respect the fact that they revere the lives of God’s children. Fighting for the rights of unborn children is a noble fight. It is a legal and a cultural fight and it should be fought on those grounds. Those that kill doctors or blow up abortion clinics only damage the positions of honest, sincere people when they commit murder themselves. These extremists see the struggle as a war and framing it in those terms only inflames a legitimate struggle in very damaging ways. Terrorism is terrorism no matter who engages in it.

There are two other areas involving the sexual aspects of our nature where legal arguments have been made that could potentially change the landscape of our society. The first is more philosophical than legal, but could have profound legal ramifications on the fabric of our society. The argument that homosexual behavior is determined genetically or bio-chemically before birth is a precursor to arguments involving pedophiles and those who engage in sexual acts with animals. The homosexual community is intent on making the argument that their sexual orientation is predetermined to remove any personal responsibility from their behavior. Once the legal precedent has been established that sexual orientation is based on these grounds it will only be a matter of time before it is used as a defense for any deviant sexual act.

The second area involving the sexual and reproductive aspects of our nature is in changing the definition of a marriage from being one man and one woman to being open ended. A legal argument, proposed on constitutional grounds, is being simultaneously attempted in many states by groups wanting to give homosexuals the right to marry. Once a legal precedent has been established here it would open the door to ‘group marriages’ like polygamy and other social experiments.

All of these are moral arguments that have crossed over into the legal realm. All of them have the potential to destabilize and weaken the fabric of our society. None of them are rights originally guaranteed by the constitution but, given the overstepping of authority that the Supreme Court has engaged in the last few years, the court could very well interpret them to be constitutional rights as it has in the case of abortion.

The law is logical, if not moral, in its application. Once a legal precedent has been established it can be used in any case where a similar argument may be made. That’s why it is important to have thoughtful and moral men and women on the bench. It’s also why the legal ramifications of every decision a court makes should be thoroughly considered before a ruling is handed down.

With no moral compass, like the Ten Commandments, to guide us there is no social cohesion and no telling what kind of free-for-all society we could end up with. Because its’ citizens aren’t self-policing, the only force that can keep such a society in place is physical force. Where there is no moral code that guides its citizens, the void is usually filled by a strong, over-reaching government to bring external stability where none exists internally. That’s a lesson of history…

In many ways, we are already on that ‘slippery slope’ that we hear so much about. The irony of all of this is that every time the court guarantees another ‘freedom’ it relaxes the concept of personal responsibility; it chips away at the moral code that has held our society together and it takes us one step closer to a totalitarian state.

An Eye for an Eye...

2006-07-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

While I believe strongly in the dignity of human beings and it in the sanctity of human life, I also very strongly believe in the death penalty. Some people see that as a contradiction. My answer to that is that human life is so important that if someone takes it unlawfully they should pay for it with their own life. That’s recognition of the sanctity of human life, not a contradiction.

I am always surprised to see Jewish and Christian clergy among those gathered at death penalty protests. Judaism and Christianity are based on the Bible. They should be true to the teachings of it. The Bible is Gods revelation to mankind. It says that the death penalty is necessary for justice and for a stable society. The first five books of the scriptures, the ‘Torah’ in Hebrew, are the books laying down God’s law. The one law that is found in all five books is the injunction to take the life of someone who has taken human life unlawfully.

While the legal system laid out in the Torah bears little resemblance to our form of government, there are some aspects of it that our founding fathers incorporated into our law. A study of the history of our founding fathers will reveal that they believed in the moral code laid down in the Bible. They considered it so final that they didn’t feel the need to reiterate it in our law. Our constitutional law nowhere says: “You will not commit murder”, like the sixth commandment, what it says is: ‘If you do commit murder, the government has the right to try you and to punish you’.

The principles of justice in the Bible are clear. Justice should be universally applied, there is to be no special treatment for those with rank or position. The penalties should be applied swiftly and with full knowledge, and in many cases the participation, of the public.

Unfortunately the death penalty is not universally or swiftly applied in our system. It has often unfairly been administered along racial or other lines. And, perhaps worst of all, it only happens after years of legal wrangling. It seems like every year there is some new legal defense that allows someone to get away with murder. The length of time between the crime and the punishment is usually so long that the death penalty is often, correctly, cited as not being an effective deterrent to murder. For it to be an effective deterrent it must be applied swiftly, and to all murderers.

People should be held responsible for their own actions. Provisions are made in the law for negligence, accidental killing and self-defense where they are appropriate. But, if anyone commits murder…they should be put to death. The issue is not about rehabilitation, as some would have us believe. And it’s not about revenge. That's why the death penalty isn't carried out by vigilantes...it's only carried out by lawfully constituted governments. It’s about punishment and about justice. The issue is about the sanctity of human life.

It is never a joyous occasion for the government to exercise its authority and take a human life. The death penalty should never be carried out in a carnival-like, or lighthearted fashion. It should be carried out with the appropriate amount of sobriety. The issues of justice and punishment should always give us pause. They are issues that are important to every member of society. They apply to us all. The death penalty reminds us all that to find justice we have to apply a firm, and unwavering, hand.

That's how important human life is…

Stem Cells and Human Dignity

2006-07-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

The current debate over the use of embryonic stem cells is yet one more battle in the fight for human dignity. The legal issues surrounding abortion, the most readily available source of embryos that could be used in research, are complex and thoughtful people, of good conscience, will sometimes disagree. But, they should at least seriously ask the questions. Also complex are the issues surrounding the use of cloned embryos as a source not involving abortion. The argument over whether or not an embryo is indeed a human life lies at the heart of the battle. That is THE question that should weigh on all our minds.

What we know is this: a human embryo doesn’t grow up to be a palm tree, an armadillo or a chimpanzee…it grows up to be a human being.

We know too that the founding fathers considered the right to life to be the first right mentioned in our sacred documents. A legal argument can be made that, if we had a constitutional right to make a journey of, say, a thousand miles, that to keep someone from taking the first step would be to deny them that right. In the same way, to deny a child from being born is to deny the right to life to a human being.

The two sides involved in the debate talk at each other and rarely to each other. They won’t even agree to a set of terms. The ‘right to life’ and ‘the right of choice’ are not opposites, they address different aspects of the issue. I will state here that I believe some abortions should be legal. If abortion is indeed a sin in the eyes of God, then it is no more a sin than adultery. And adultery, like most other sins, is legal. The real issue to me is whether a right in the eyes of the law is handled with responsibility or it becomes a license to corrupt behavior.

The latter is what worries me about abortion and stem cell research. Terminating a life should be seriously and responsibly considered. Instead, making it legal was the first step in giving many people license to abuse the right. The right to have an abortion has become a license to use it as a means of birth control for many women. If a pregnancy is inconvenient for some women, they simply kill the embryo.

I believe in the dignity of every human being and I believe in the right to life of every innocent human being. Stem cell research requires the use of potential human beings and that’s a very dangerous area to me. I know, from being an observer of human behavior that, if science finds that stem cell research can indeed cure some of the ailments and diseases of our age, the demand for embryos will drastically increase. And it is a fact, borne out by history, that the supply will be met some way. Some women will be encouraged to abort their babies to supply the demand. They may even be encouraged to become pregnant and then abort to supply the demand. That would clearly be unethical. For that reason, I believe it's an area of research that shouldn’t even be considered. Just because something can be done, doesn't mean it should be done. Even cloning embryos to use for research cheapens the life of the innocent. Cloning human beings denies human dignity. The kind of society that would do so is not the kind of society I want to live in.

We all have the right to life. And we all have the right to choose. We don’t have the right to use each other. We especially don’t have the right to end someone else’s life for our own use…

A human embryo is a baby human being, just ask any mom or dad waiting to meet their new child.

Symbols over Substance

2006-07-09T22:45:00.000-07:00

There was a time in America when, though our citizens held different faiths and came from different cultures, we were bound by a set of ideas that defined America. Those ideas are stated in our sacred writings: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the Gettysburg Address among others. Increasingly, our nation finds its citizens at odds with the ideas and ideals of those writings. They no longer bind us like they once did. For example, it was once a common value that we believed in God, the Creator mentioned in those documents. That’s not to say that every individual believed in God, or that everyone believed in the same god, but we commonly held that there was a God watching over the affairs of men, one that we would answer to one day. It was important to hold that as a common value because it meant that ultimately we would be held accountable for our actions.

Since a common set of ideals no longer binds Americans, about the only thing we have in common, the only thing that now binds us as a culture, is exposure to the same media that enters our homes every day. Every day in America we are bombarded with images of the Hollywood elite and Washington ‘beltway’ politicians…and those that make their living watching and commenting on them. Slowly, and with an almost imperceptible intent, these images have altered the values that we once held in common as a culture.

The enemies of moral standards, the enemies of decency, know that to affect change in our culture they must affect a change in the hearts and minds of its citizens. To accomplish that, they must utilize the popular media. It’s no longer as important that our public figures actually are decent people, so much as it’s important that they ‘appear to be’ decent people. Real agendas have become hidden. Everything has become about appearances. We’ve developed a culture of symbols over substance.

Our symbols mean what we want them to mean. We infuse them with power like we infuse them with meaning. We wear symbols to signify our affiliations. We fly our symbols on flagpoles. We wear symbols to identify with our religious beliefs. Simply wearing a cross, or Star of David is more important to some people than actually living the principles those symbols represent. We represent wealth with the symbol of money. Never mind that real wealth can’t be measured in money. Many have come to see it as an end in itself instead of a means towards an end. Criminals steal our symbols then attack the symbols that maintain order in our society, the police, because they cease to see them as people. Our enemies have attacked the symbols of our system of economics and military might, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, because they know the power of our symbols and they see the decadence that hides behind them.

Make no mistake, we are in a cultural war. On one side are those who see freedom as only existing when there are no moral standards except the ones handed down from Hollywood, or some other phony, pretentious source at the moment. You can be a person of absolutely no moral values as long as you jump on the bandwagon and appear to be for ‘saving the trees’, or whatever the cause of the day is. These people believe freedom exists apart from responsibility. Personal responsibility is something they want to eradicate. They’ve distorted the freedoms that our country was built on into a license to engage in any form of decadence that one can imagine. The very acts of decadence themselves have become symbols of freedom…symbols without substance.

Prostitution is illegal in most parts of our country, unless it’s being filmed, then we call it pornography and it becomes a symbol for freedom of expression. We’ve let murderers go free when they’ve become symbols of racism. We allow the most base, vile language to fill our airwaves because it’s a symbol of our freedom of speech.

On the other side are those who recognize that freedoms demand responsibility if they are to have real substance. Responsibility demands a strong sense of right and wrong. For our culture to produce anything of real value…it must have values. For our culture to last it has to nourish its citizens and give them a sense of real values. There is no freedom apart from a strong moral standard…there’s only debauchery. If men and women of good conscience don’t act now that’s where we’re headed…

The founding fathers of this nation understood the need for personal responsibility. When they wrote: ‘You have the right to freedom of speech’ what they saw in the statement was ‘You have the right to responsible freedom of speech’. A study of the history of our sacred documents will bear that out. I doubt they could even envision a time when the freedoms they ensured for us would be turned into the license for decadence that we’ve made them.

It’s time to stop our decline into moral decay. It’s time to repent as a nation and turn back to God who made us strong. He is watching. It’s time to put His Ten Commandments in every public square, every church, every school building and every courtroom in the land. If we are to survive as a positive force in the world we need to write them into our hearts. They too are symbols…symbols that have been ignored because of what they represent…real values. And real freedom only lies within real values.

Honest Tears

2006-07-04T13:52:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine and I were talking about the subject of grace recently. It was fresh on my mind, having written a blog on the subject. I shared with him how I experienced grace in the death of a friend last year. He shared with me how he experienced a true moment of grace in the death of his newborn child. His eyes welled with tears while he smiled and told me how he was given the gift of being able to hold his daughter in his arms while she drew her last breath... There is something pure in the tears of honest emotion.

Everything in our nature tells us that it's contrary to the way the universe should work to experience the death of ones child. We expect our children to outlive us. That is the way. But, this is earth and life is sometimes a veil of tears. Human tears have fallen like rain in our history. Like rain, they have nourished new growth in human hearts. They may be all that preserve us sometimes.

If there is anything positive in the death of a child, anything redeeming at all, it is that it strips away everything unnecessary in life. For those with the eyes to see, it allows them to glimpse the essence of what is important in life. No ego exists in that moment; no pride; no pettiness, only the simple, pure feeling of love for a life cut short. And, while it breaks our hearts to see our children, the most innocent among us, suffer and die...we can remember that a broken heart is also an open heart. Open hearts are the hope for our race; they preserve it. In the tears of a broken heart are true moments of grace. Often it is through such tears that we can see God the most clearly. Blessed are those with a broken spirit...

My faith calls on me to open my heart. It calls on me to realize the connection that exists between all of us. My friends' tears touched my heart and it went out to him. The death of his daughter was my loss too...it was a loss to all of us. We are all family.

Never have I’ve seen it more beautifully put than in the prose of the poet John Donne: (Excerpts from: Meditation #17, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623), XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris)

“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Amen.

How we play The Game

2006-06-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

Did you ever sit down to play a game, like Monopoly, with other people and get so caught up in the game that you forgot about everything else? Did you, or any of the people you played with, take it just a little too seriously? How about this…did anyone you ever played with surprise you by revealing a side you hadn't seen before, like being greedy or perhaps cheating?

It’s easy to get caught up in such things for some people. The game becomes their reality. It becomes a reflection of their ego. They seem to forget that it’s not ‘real’ life; that the stakes don’t really matter. What matters is how we play the game.

As a Christian, I have come to see life like that kind of game. I have come to believe that the ultimate reality is what we are being prepared for. I don’t mean to say that what goes on in this life is unimportant at all. I just mean that 25 million years from now the details of what happened in this life will be meaningless. Just think of our board game again. Chances are you may not remember any details of a particular game, but you may well remember if someone showed a greedy or cheating nature. This life is a kind a game, one that reveals our character. Some positions we land in are just luck of the draw or the throw of the dice. What we do once we're there is entirely a matter of our choice; a reflection of our character. It is the character that we develop here that will have lasting value in that ultimate reality.

It is a fact of our existence that our days on earth as mortals are numbered. We are all going to die some day. How one can really know that and still get worked up over how much stuff they’ve accumulated is beyond me? A popular bumper sticker declares that: “He who dies with the most toys wins!” Wins what??? It is a well-known truth that we can’t ‘take it with us’!

What we do take with us is the kind of people we have become. We take our character with us. If we’ve lived as honorable people or liars and cheats, it will go in our ‘permanent files’! If we have lived as people of faith or people who believed in nothing, I believe it will matter.

I’ve heard some non-believers declare that Christians just ‘must not be that bright’ for believing in something that’s little more than a fairy tale. None of it can be proven they say. They’re right, I can’t ‘prove’ what I believe is true. But, I’ve decided that, even if what I believe turns out to be completely meaningless, I still think it is the very best kind of life! I will have lived a life of faith, a life believing in something bigger than myself. I will have spent my life to try and become a better person and to help others become better people. I will have spent my energies learning to love. That’s surely a better life than one without purpose. And what good is a life devoted only to oneself??

I choose faith in God. I see proof of Him every time I open my eyes! And, I pity those that don’t. I try to see the big picture of what is going on here on earth. I realize that I'm nobody and nothing in the grandness of the universe. But, I believe, the very Creator of the universe knows my name. I feel humbled and exalted at the same time because of that. The older I get the more I realize just how short this existence really is. An inner voice declares that it all means something more; that what’s going on here will have lasting value.

What I believe is that Jesus the Christ conquered death by His resurrection and God holds out the promise of eternal life to me through His sacrifice. That is the hope that I live with.

To live a life of faith and hope and love…what could have more value than that?

Save the Baby Humans!

2006-06-19T20:47:00.000-07:00

I’ve often heard it said that mankind must survive as a species, by colonizing other planets for example, otherwise what has all of human history been for? The achievements of our species, they say, would come to nothing if we ceased to exist.

To be sure, the accomplishments of our race have value. We’ve spent thousands of years climbing out of the darkness of ignorance. The arts, the literature, the technologies and the culture that we've striven so hard to develop…all of these have contributed to the betterment of human life. To see value only in what we have accomplished as a species, however, is to ignore the value of individuals. I think that’s the wrong way to view what’s going on here on earth.

Traditional human wisdom from many cultures recognizes that it is not the man who conquers a thousand cities that is superior, it is the man who has conquered himself. That’s a recognition of what has real value.

Every human life has value. Every human being is a child of God. What God values isn’t what we’ve accomplished as a species, it’s how we have grown as His children. The true value of mankind is not what we have accomplished as a race, it’s what we’ve accomplished as individuals.

Virtually every religion on earth has some concept of laws that the universe runs by. If we live in harmony with those laws we are in harmony with the creation. If we choose to disobey those laws…we are outside of that harmony and we risk harm to ourselves and each other.

Eastern philosophies, like Buddhism, teach that consciousness is a fundamental energy in the universe. What we choose to do affects the world around us. The scriptures teach us that our obedience to Gods law, or lack thereof, is connected to the fabric of time and space in a similar way. If we sin, disobey the laws of God, even the world around us suffers. Every human life is connected to the universe. Every human life is woven into the fabric of time and space.

The universe exists to create life. The purpose of life is growth, in consciousness and in character. To grow, we must make the right choices. We, as sentient beings, have free will. We have choice. The message of the scriptures is that we can live any way we choose. But, if we want to grow into healthy and happy individuals, and live in a healthy, happy society, we need to choose the way our Creator instructs. If we are to be deemed worthy of eternal life we must yeild to His will. God revealed His laws to us for our own good. He doesn’t send and angel down to slam us into the ground if we choose to jump off a high building. If we ignore the law gravity, our disregard of that law harms us. Spiritual laws work the same way. If we choose to disobey them, it is our own disobedience that is out of harmony with creation and that harms us.

Ultimately our growth comes from the choices we make. It is within our power to decide what is most important to us and what we will devote our energies to. Every sentient being has that right. God gave us free will so we can choose. He then asks us to choose life... That makes every human life important.

The Pull of Islam

2006-06-03T19:42:00.000-07:00

Even after all the acts of terrorism committed by Muslims in the last few decades, Islam is still the fastest growing religion in the world. Our knee-jerk response to a terrorist attack might be to condemn all Muslims. That would be wrong. Many Muslims are decent, upstanding people that try to make their corner of the world a better place. I know Muslims that I respect as decent people. What they have maintained is something too many Christians have forgotten...a strong sense of right and wrong.

Individuals most often are the face of a religion to non-believers. Christian martyrs were responsible for the world taking notice of the faith, and for the conversion of many, many people. Unfortunately, in our time, Christianity has become so filled with paganism and so watered down as to bear little resemblance to the faith once delivered. Christian churches and their ministers have adopted so many of the worlds values that the church is almost indistinguishable from the world. They've made the faith appear to be a joke to many non-believers. Modern Christianity has failed to do what ‘the faith once delivered’ did. There are people calling themselves ‘Christians’ with little to no moral values. The message this sends the world is that the faith is no better than a collection of myths filled with hypocrisy. That's far from the light to the world it was intended to be.

In our modern world we have adopted a kind of ‘anything goes’ philosophy. Moral relativism, the ‘buzz word’ of the day, says there is no ultimate right and wrong. It says that those are relative values determined by time and place; every culture is different. This can leave honest people, who sincerely seek the right way to live, feeling empty and without purpose. This attitude has even crept into Christian churches, infecting them with a sense of moral ambiguity. They removed the Ten Commandments from their pulpits long before the ACLU began removing them from government buildings.

Islam appeals to many people because of the failure of Christianity to live up to its true purpose. The very first words Christ is recorded to have uttered when He began His ministry are: “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand!” Repentance is to return to obedience to God. That’s a message that has been lost by Christians trying to fit in to a world without a moral center.

Islam has some measure of righteousness, where much of the Western world has none. Islam often appears to be uncompromising in its moral code in many ways. The way of Islam is submission to 'The God'. (Al = the, Lah = god) The faithful of Islam live by a strict religious code that demands that submission. Right and wrong are moral certainties. To a world without a moral code, that certainty can be very appealing.

Unfortunately many ‘Christian’ churches that offer some kind of moral certainty are actually cults. Cults tend to focus on their leaders and their own agendas more so than Gods. They tend to pick and choose their list of do’s and don’ts from the Biblical tradition and strictly enforce them, while missing the bigger picture of the message of the Gospel.

Many mainstream ‘ministries’ have removed the less palatable parts of the Gospel to try and appeal to more people. The result is a gospel devoid of any real meaning other than some ambiguous emotional appeal. The message of Jesus the Christ was meant to bring people back to the knowledge of, and obedience to the one true God.

When looking for the reason why Islam’s growth is on the rise…Christians should look first to their own failures. The world needs the Gospel of Jesus the Christ now more than ever. We’ve lost our way because we follow our own desires and deny that there is an ultimate code of right and wrong…and it’s found in the pages of the Bible.

Instead of putting the Ten Commandments out of public view in more and more places, we should be putting them in every public square, every school, every church and every government office in the land.

We should be writing them on the tables of our hearts….

Reaching out...

2006-06-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

An interesting thing sometimes happens to people who work in the healing professions. They often find themselves attuned to people’s pain. It’s a kind of empathy that allows them to enter into the feelings other people have to find the best way to help them. When it happens to those in the mental health field another thing sometimes happens as well. They start to see pain everywhere…

Most of us have some level of empathy towards others in physical pain. If we were to encounter someone who say, had a motorcycle accident and had an open leg wound a femur was sticking out of, the sight would be so horrific to us that we would experience a level of shock ourselves. Those of us so inclined might try to stop the bleeding and treat for shock. Most people would certainly call for help. In the mental health field things aren’t quite so clear.

We encounter people every day who have open wounds to their psyches. Instead of ‘stopping the bleeding’, treating for shock or even calling for help, we most often just expect them to straighten up! Wounds go unnoticed and untreated, they scar over and they continue to cause pain. Such pain is everywhere.

The sad fact is that often the only thing needed to treat such pain is the simple recognition of it. If we could see the pain that others are in we might not be so quick to expect them to simply straighten up. We might begin to develop a level of empathy towards them. That empathy can be just the recognition of someone else’s pain that they need to begin to heal. Unlike physical pain, sometimes just the witness…the testimony of our troubles to another human being can be all that it takes to begin the healing process.

We often refer to some unseen pain as ‘emotional baggage’. We sense it sometimes in the form of defense mechanisms or rationalizations. Sometimes no one sees it until it manifests itself in the form suicide or violence towards others. There are all kinds of wounds to the psyche. They manifest themselves in all kinds of ways. And they are all around us.

Perhaps, if we could take some time in our lives to put our own problems and concerns aside and begin to notice the wounds other people carry, our world would begin to change. Forgetting our own problems and helping someone else with theirs can begin the healing in two people. It's called outgoing concern, and it has the power to heal wounds there aren't even words for.

Christians will know it by another name...Love.

In the Company of Saints....

2006-05-31T16:58:00.000-07:00

As a Christian, I am heir to a religious tradition wherein thousands of my fellow believers have died, sometimes violently, for our faith. While, unlike Islam, the Bible nowhere encourages some kind of violent martyrdom, it does record the lives of many who willingly died as martyrs.

What they believed to be the truth was more important to them than their own lives, and they held that truth until their last breath. They found something worth living and dieing for. Christianity, for the first centuries of its existence was a minor religion of little importance to the societies around it. Early believers were easy targets for political or religious leaders who needed a scapegoat. Persecution of early Christians was quite common. It was partially the example of some of these extraordinary individuals that caused the world to take notice of this small new faith.

In one story of the ‘purges’ of Christians in early Rome, believers were rounded up and killed for sport in the colosseum. One 19-year old young woman was led out into the floor of the colosseum where wild lions were to be released. The thousands of spectators laughed and jeered in anticipation of her ‘punishment’. She remained calm...she held her faith in God. Her lack of fear quieted some of the laughter. She began to sing hymns as the lions were released. While the lions tore her apart, the laughter and jeers fell silent. She believed. After witnessing her courage and faith it is reported that thousands of people converted. In the chapter on faith, Hebrews 11, the writer says the world is not worthy of such people. He was right.

In our time, we Christians have it very easy…at least in America. While we endure some criticism of our faith, we are allowed to worship any way we see fit. There are no Christians being rounded up to be tortured or put into prisons. Perhaps because of that, many of us have become complacent. We believe…because it’s easy. The biggest threat we face is not people intent on killing us. The biggest threat we face today is non-Christians we like and want to be accepted by. Many of us compromise our faith to be accepted. We don’t want to be ‘un-cool’ after all! That’s an even more deadly threat to our spiritual lives than facing death for what we believe… Sometimes finding something worth dieing for is easier than living for it.

We all know stories of people who say they believe certain things only to find out when push comes to shove that they really believed them only while it was convenient. How many of us have something that we believe so completely that we are prepared to die for that belief? How many of us believe so completely that we are prepared to live an uncompromising life? How many of us are prepared to be ridiculed for what we believe? To live a life of faith, a life of hope in Christ’s return may one day call on us to sacrifice our lives. What it calls on us to do now is to be the salt of the earth, the light on top of the hill. We can’t do that if we’re doing what everyone else is doing just to fit in.

How many of us, I wonder, really believe enough to lay down our lives? How many of us believe enough to commit our lives to living it? What's worth dying for...is well worth living for.

Religion or Faith?

2006-05-12T17:17:00.000-07:00

It’s common these days, when you ask someone if they’re religious, for many of them to tell you they’re ‘spiritual, but not religious’. That most people can’t even define what ‘spiritual’ means makes this response virtually meaningless. But the point should be taken that organized religion has failed so many people that it has been rejected by many of them.

So much evil has been done in the name of religion throughout the centuries that the very concept is distasteful to many people. Fanatics in the name of every religion have rationalized and justified their lunacy as being “the will of god”, even when their actions have been pure evil by any standard.

Typically two things exist in a religion, the body of beliefs that individuals adopt as their faith, and the culture that develops among its believers. The first, the body of beliefs is the idealistic part of a religion. The second, the culture of a religious community, often goes unstated in its official beliefs. It is the culture that develops in a religious community that usually comes to dominate it. A particular religion can give one a community wherein one is supported and strengthened when it is working like it should. When it has gone wrong…it ceases to be idealistic and can become oppressive, even dangerous, to its members.

Religions should exist for individuals and families…individuals don’t exist for the religion. When the focus of a religion becomes the organization and not it’s individuals, it has lost its way. When a religion becomes about itself or about it’s human leader(s)…it becomes a cult. A religion should never be about the personalities of its leaders…it should be about the beliefs that define it. Those beliefs should make its members better human beings. That is the ‘why’ of religion and faith. Human beings can and do often corrupt religion…but they can’t touch a deeply held faith.

Faith and religion are not the same thing. Faith is what guides us in what we do; it’s what we expect from ourselves. Religion is what we expect other people to do. Faith is within individuals, religion is in organizations. Faith gives people purpose. Religion gives them ceremony. Faith gives individuals a connection with something unseen and much bigger than themselves. Religion gives them affiliation to other people. Faith gives you power. Religion gives others power over you. Religions usually become static bodies of beliefs. Faith is a living thing wherein beliefs may changes as one grows and matures. Religion, at its worst, has served to divide people and to fuel hatred. Faith has quietly gone about changing the world one individual at a time.

Religion can be a true force for good in the world but only by doing good. Religion must be guided by, honest people of good will…people of faith.

By definition, since there is only one truth, there is only one true faith…one truth that we can hold and have hope in. As a Christian, I am convinced that the Christian world-view is the true one. That doesn’t mean that all, or even most, people calling themselves Christians would agree with it…and they certainly don’t live by it. Most are divided by their respective religions. Imagine that...people who claim the same faith divided by their religions? The only people who benefit from that are the religious leaders. This serves to do the very opposite of what Christ taught. When a ‘Christian leader’ teaches something different than what Christ taught…he, or she, has left the faith once delivered and they should be left behind.

It is not a human leaders place to live a Christ-like life for their followers…it is every believers place to do so. What the world needs is fewer religions and more faith.

Still, it is not what we believe that makes us decent human beings…it’s what we do. Religion, all too often, makes us complacent. Simply belonging to a religion doesn’t make us better people. We must act. Faith prompts us to action. And, faith without works is dead.

These three abide…Faith and Hope and Love. (Religion isn’t even in the running…)

Casual Sex

2006-04-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

“If it feels good do it”... That’s the unofficial motto of my generation. Casual sex was just one expression of that when it began (as a movement) in the sixties. It’s one that we are paying a heavy price for now. Divorce and it’s effects on all the members of a family, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, unwed and unwanted pregnancies and the resulting war over abortion, emotional pain…and even murder, these are just a part of the resulting problems from treating sex like a casual, recreational activity.

The most fundamental drive in living beings is to reproduce. It is the most powerful force among living things. Call it Libido, Ki, Chi, Prana, Orgone, L-fields or whatever you like. The sexual impulse is the life force expressing itself.

We, human beings, seem to go from one side of the road to the other, from trying to completely suppress the sex drive to letting it run unchecked. Sex is, without question, one of the greatest things in life. It has the power to heal and the power to destroy. Sexual energy has the power to bind two hearts together and the power to drive them to hate each other like no other hatred on earth. Sexual energy can build stable families and it can destroy entire civilizations. Sexual energy can cause us to love one another and it can cause us to use one another in the vilest ways. The sexual impulse can produce everything from jealousy to suicide to serial killers. There is nothing casual about sex. Those who treat it casually ultimately harm themselves.

For those who choose a faith based life like Judaism or Christianity the very heart of that faith is that our Creator knows what is best for us…His creation. Only He can dictate how we should live our lives. The ultimate authority for many people of faith is the Bible, the revealed Word of God. Just as God has laws governing His physical creation, He has laws governing His spiritual creation. Sexuality spans both realms. What goes on in the bedroom affects all of us ultimately, so our Creator has revealed His guidelines for how sexual energy should be used and directed.

It rankles many people that there is a moral code that would presume to dictate how sexual energy should be used and directed. What goes on in the bedroom is no one else’s business, they say. Human beings are a stubborn lot. We don’t like to be told what to do. For something so personal and so powerful as our sex drives we like it even less.

But the Judeo-Christian moral standard is clear…what goes on in the bedroom IS the business of everyone in a society. It ultimately affects all of society.

One can argue their case for personal freedoms. God certainly allows personal freedoms. We have the right to choose how we want to live. What God tells us is that if we want happy and healthy families and a happy, healthy society we need to obey Him. His laws are for our good. A young child may rebel against his parents’ rule that he not go out into a busy street. He may not be old enough to see the danger that his parents do. The message of the Bible is very much the same. God sees the end result of our behaviors and has given us guidelines for avoiding the dangers…if we’ll only listen.

There is no point in restating God’s laws governing sexuality here. They’re well known, even among non-believers… Suffice it to say that IF God’s laws were obeyed by mankind there would be no sexually transmitted diseases, there would be no children born out of wedlock, there would be fewer divorces and fewer genetic diseases, and there would be far fewer abortions. The gospel, the good news, of God is that such a world is coming.

Sex is a beautiful gift from our Creator. It shouldn’t be completely repressed or allowed to simply run unchecked. There is a right way to direct sexual impulses just like there is a right way to eat and to exercise. It’s time mankind grew up and began listening to our Creator.

Right here, right now…we can make our world better if we’ll only choose to obey Him.

A Real American hero

2006-03-28T18:11:00.000-08:00

I have always been a fan of boxing as a truly American sport…like baseball. I actually like boxing and baseball movies more than the actual sports…go figure! I had never heard of ‘Bulldog’ Jim Braddock until I recently saw the movie: Cinderella Man. Braddock was a heavy weight boxer in New York in the late twenties and thirties. The movie tried to stay true to the events in Braddock’s life and, I have to say, made Braddock one of my heroes. A hero is someone who inspires you to hold on just a little longer.

In Braddock’s case he was a strong contender in his career until the infamous stock market crash of 1929. He, like so many other Americans, lost everything including his boxing license, and ended up in a soup line. Braddock had a wife and three small children. He didn’t walk out on them because things were too tough. He swallowed his pride and did what he had to do to feed his family. He resisted going on public assistance until he was forced to.

Braddock was given a second chance in his boxing career…and he came out fighting! He fought his way to the heavy weight championship of the world. He went back to pubic assistance and paid back every penny. He went on to serve honorably in WWII and then into building his own business. I won’t try to retell his story here. It can be found at his official site: http://www.jamesjbraddock.com/ It is well worth reading and remembering.

Braddock was a father, a husband, a fighter and a man of honor. Jim Braddock was a hero to his generation…he inspired them to hold on just a little longer. The values this man exemplified to a generation of Americans are sorely needed today. His story should be told and remembered, and his values taken to heart.

There is nobility in the human spirit. Men like James J. Braddock shine the light on it...

The Big Screen

2006-03-16T14:27:00.000-08:00

I love movies. Not all of them. Many aren’t worth the cellulose they are printed on, but the well-crafted ones can truly be works of art. They’re not just meant to entertain, they explore what it means to be human. They have the power to show us that we are not alone no matter what we struggle with. They can reveal where our culture is and where it’s going. They draw from the well that is humanity and show us ourselves. Old movies, new ones…they all tell our stories. Movies are the novels of our age.

While I love the stories about the broad sweeps of history with famous people, sometimes the very best movies, the best stories, are about unknown people. Most of us will never be included in any history books. Most of us are just ordinary people who live our lives affecting the people around us and not much else. Movies can give us glimpses into the lives of ordinary people who make up the vast majority of humanity.

There are stories of love and compassion. There are stories of courage and commitment. There are stories of failure and redemption. The thing is, these things happen all around us every day. The man across the street, the woman who sits in back of you at work, the old man you pass on the street corner. They all have their struggles. They all have their stories.

We see so much of the worst humanity has to offer every day. Just turn on the evening news or pick a newspaper. As a species we have so many flaws. But, we have nobility in us too. There are stories that deserve to be told.

It’s not the actions we take at a crucial moment in history that define who we are, it’s the little things we do every day. It’s in lending a helping hand to another human being when no one else is watching. It’s in giving a cup of water to someone who’s thirsty. It’s in giving up your seat on the bus to someone who needs it more. There is nobility in the human spirit and it shows itself most often in the quiet, little actions that go unnoticed everyday all around us.

Movies have the power to shine the light on our actions. They point out the weaknesses that we’re all prone to for sure. They can glorify sex and violence to titillate us. They can also show us something of the heights we can strive for. The good stuff in us may not make the evening news very often, but it’s alive and well. The places where it thrives are in the people whose stories we wouldn’t know if books and movies didn’t bring them to us.

Movies have the power to teach us we can all be better than we are. We don’t have to go to war or travel to distant lands to do so. We can all be a hero to someone we know. We can uphold what is the best and the noblest among us in our everyday actions. Those are what fill most of our lives after all, everyday actions.

Most of us go to movies simply to be entertained but, with a true work of art, we can take away much more than that. We can come to see life through someone else’s eyes. We can learn to appreciate what is common to all of us. Best of all, I think, we can come to understand that most of our struggles and our triumphs don’t make the history books. It’s the little stories that give history its context. Great deeds ultimately come from great hearts and those aren’t born, they’re grown. Those stories too, are worth being told…

Finding Grace...

2006-03-15T18:25:00.000-08:00

I love the concept of grace. I even love the word. Without Gods grace I wouldn’t be here writing this. It is His absolutely unmerited love. Dervishes will sometimes say: “the Baraka is with me”. That is to say the very presence of God is with me, blessing me. Some say things like: “I feel the breath of God” or “the hand of God”. And, one of my favorites: “I feel God smiling on me.” These are those moments in life when we feel connected to the Creator of the universe Himself in our actions. These are moments of grace.

To say that an athlete is graceful might be to say that they are so connected to some universal force that they move in complete harmony with it. You might say grace is to ‘Dance with God’. In those special moments we can feel our connection, our place, in the grand design of the universe. In those moments all is as it should be.

I have found Gods grace in His forgiveness. I have felt His grace in the sunlight on my face. I’ve seen it in the smiling faces of little children. I've even felt Gods grace in the death of a good friend.

I began to write this about getting older and all I that came to mind was grace. We know from the time we’re children that we’ll get older. We know, though most of us do our best not to think about it, that we will die someday. We know those things but they don’t really ‘sink in’ until after about 40. Then, the reality of aging and our mortality, the inevitability of death, begin to change the way we see things.

It is depressing at first, realizing that we have fewer years ahead of us than behind us. To grow as human beings we have to come to peace with that fact. We have to find the grace in it. God won’t abandon us in this either.

As they grow older, some people find new ways to see life through the eyes of their children and grandchildren. Those of us that don’t have children can still see life through the eyes of children. Children are such a blessing in so many ways! Children are full of grace.

I have found a kind of grace in creating too. Bringing something new and beautiful into the universe is so exhilarating! I have an art professor that says it is ‘expressing’ or pressing something out of our hearts. That’s where creating comes from. I’m new to the art world and I’m still searching for exactly what it means to me, but I certainly appreciate his thoughtful perspective on it. He’s a remarkably creative man and a brilliant sculptor. When I first saw his art I was convinced that that was why he is on earth! Such grace!

I only know of one way to feel more like God than in creating and that’s in forgiving. Forgiving involves knowing someone’s worst, and still loving them. What could give us more insight into God than forgiveness? In forgiving and in being forgiven we experience real grace.

I’m only beginning to understand how all these aspects of grace are connected. My heart only knows that grace is at the core of their connection. Grace flows from Love. And Love flows from God...

The Gates of Paradise

2006-03-08T18:12:00.000-08:00

It’s been an age-old dream of mankind to find, or create, the perfect society. The word Utopia, used by Thomas Moore for his book of the same name, has become a part of our language for the ideal society. The myths of Shangri-la and Atlantis, wherein all the inhabitants live, or have lived, in harmony have filled us with the dream. Ironically, some of the most horrific events in the history of our race have been committed in the name of the search for Utopia. The search has always begun with a false premise. Perhaps, we reason, if we just find the right set of laws and the perfect economic system, or eradicate the genetic flaws in humanity, we’ll finally find peace and reach our true potential. In fact two of the greatest myths in modern thinking have been responsible for untold suffering and misery in the last century. One is that economics can change our nature, the other is that race can. Both ignore the fact that human nature is common to all who have ever lived. We all draw from the well that is humanity. Utopia is a nice dream…but it will never happen while human beings have human nature.

We human beings are a fundamentally flawed species. Wherever we go we take our built-in flaws. If you’ve ever felt jealousy, envy, lust, greed, hate, revenge or any other of the darker qualities common to mankind you would take those things with you no matter where you chose to go. Sooner or later those darker qualities would show themselves again and Utopia would cease to be Utopia. There will never be an ideal society run by man unless, or until, the fundamental nature of human beings is changed.

Some philosophies and religions teach that we’re OK just the way we are. Those that do so flatly ignore the facts of history and live in denial. Some teach that the nature of our race will change if enough individuals do. We will all be ‘uplifted’ when the number of people who have become enlightened reaches a ‘critical mass’. Those that claim this kind of enlightenment say that they perceive the world differently...otherwise they don’t appear any different from anyone else. The number of individuals becoming personally enlightened would have to outpace the birth rate if their claim were true. In what is one of the greatest ironies in the world of religion, the folks that seek ‘enlightenment’ for themselves often ignore the suffering of other human beings. One need look no farther than the countries where those beliefs thrive to see the effects of their ‘enlightenment’. These people practice their own self-centered, versions of ‘spirituality’. Any enlightenment they claim to achieve doesn’t seem to produce any real change. They certainly haven’t made the world a better place to live in.

The reality is that races don’t become enlightened, only individuals do. The only ‘real’ enlightenment is exercising the will that is guided by wisdom. (In short, true enlightenment is in actually doing what is right…) Every human being has the potential to do that. That’s just as much a part of us as our baser nature. Real enlightenment can’t be achieved by hiding on some mountaintop meditating. It can’t be done for us by someone else. Even with real enlightenment our nature doesn’t change…it’s only controlled. Cease to exercise the will guided by wisdom and anyone can slip back.

Think of the scenes you’ve seen of third world villages for example. Those that are the most memorable have had trash and raw sewage in the streets. The people in them are often sickly as a result of disease caused by living among garbage. You may think, “If only these people could be moved to a place where it’s clean, they would be disease free”. Did you ever wonder who put the trash and raw sewage in the middle of the street? If the people of the village were moved they’d soon be turning the new place into an open sewage pit too. Even if they are educated to understand the laws of sanitation and quarantine the people must still exercise their wills to observe those laws. If they don’t…they revert back into the condition from whence they came. That is the history of our race…

Knowledge and technology accumulate with every generation and are passed on to the next generation, but wisdom always begins at square one. The birth of every human being is a starting over at the beginning. That’s both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because with every newborn child there’s a chance to start over and do it right. It’s a curse because every newborn child must start where every human being who has ever lived started.

We are not OK just the way we are. That’s obvious to anyone who takes an honest look at our race. We need divine guidance and divine help. We need divine intervention. We need to obey God and His laws. Where some other religions and philosophies would have us focus only on ourselves, Judeo Christian values make us focus on both growing ourselves and in aiding our fellow man to do so. We are to always struggle with what is right and wrong. We are never to forget that God is in control and that we are all His children.

The promise of Judaism and Christianity is that a Messiah will come and save us from ourselves. Eventually our very nature will be changed. Even the nature of predatory animals will change. “The lion will lie down with the lamb…” That is the promise of scripture…that is the hope of our faith. We will be rescued from ourselves.

In the meantime, we are to do all we can to obey the laws of God, to grow and aid our fellow man. A true religion doesn’t tell us that we’re OK. A true religion causes us to focus on our Creator and His will for us. It is God’s will that we ultimately inherit a Utopia beyond our dreams. We will only do so by our willingness to put God first in our lives…and by His grace.

Looking into the Abyss...

2006-02-11T09:22:00.000-08:00

I found out a few days ago that the wife of a good friend committed suicide. It was like being kicked in the stomach for me. I can only imagine what it’s been like for my friend. His wife was the central point of his life. I don’t know any words that would comfort him…but my heart is with my friend.

Having been a counselor, I’ve known others who came see death as the only way out of their pain. They came to see life as a burden instead of a blessing. I can’t shake the feeling that I somehow failed those who came to me for help and went on to take their own lives. I live with their faces in my memory.

To someone without a sense of purpose in life, without a sense of meaning, life can seem unbearably empty. Clinical depression, an imbalance in brain chemistry, can cause us to perceive life that way, even if we do believe in a higher purpose. It can seem like an endless abyss.

My friend’s wife looked into the abyss and all she saw was darkness and despair. The pain and the emptiness became too much for her. It’s a scary thing to do…looking into the abyss. I once looked into it and saw only darkness and despair too. I know what it is to lose hope and fall into the emptiness. Without a firm footing it’s easy to lose one’s way. Depression affects so many of us and yet it remains undiagnosed so often. Many people feel like they should be able to simply shake it off. When it's true clinical depression that’s just not the case. The light at the end of the tunnel seems just too far away.

As a Christian, I know God as my rock and my foundation, He is where my footing is and I know it’s sure. Knowing God as my foundation has changed my perspective of the abyss. I now see it as full of hope and possibility. The thing that helped me the most was a simple ‘Thank You’. I just began to say 'Thank You' to God for this life, this gift that He’s given me. In that simple act my perception began to change. I began to see life as a blessing. I wish I knew a better way to share that with others.

Having been in the light it’s hard to see people wander aimlessly in the darkness. I just want to call out and tell them the light is all around them…if they’ll only open their hearts to see it. We can only do what we can do…we can’t live someone else’s life for them. We can’t make someone else’s decisions for them.

What we can do is be there for them. Sometimes just ones presense or the sound of a familiar voice nearby is a comfort. To learn to love one another is why we’re here. Love reaches out into the darkness and points the way towards the light. It’s too late for my friends wife. Maybe I can help point the way for my friend now.

May we all move onward and upward into the light.

Hoka Hey!

2006-02-04T12:45:00.000-08:00

It is somewhat of a puzzle to me that so many people live their lives like they will live forever. It is the central fact of our existence that our lives are temporary…we will die someday. So many people push that fact out of their consciousness and go about their lives “eating and drinking and being merry” that they lose sight of any real meaning in life. It’s not, ‘He who dies with the most toys wins!’ It really isn’t whether you win or lose anything…it’s how you play the game that matters. How we 'play the game' is everything.

In every culture on earth throughout human history, every religion practiced by man has described an ultimate destiny for our race. We intuitively know that there is more going on here than meets the eye. Every religion has given voice to some form of the belief that man needs to live in harmony with the ‘rules of the universe.’ If we live in harmony with the rules, our destiny is greater. We sense that life is a kind of...proving ground. It’s not an end of itself. Whatever we may believe the purpose of life is, it clearly has something to do with growth. One has only to observe nature to see that all living things have a growth cycle. Acorns push up sidewalks to become oak trees!

We can choose to grow in life or choose to flitter it away in empty pursuits. There are myriad traps and blind alleys that can sap our energies in life. Alcohol and drugs, sexual promiscuity, amassing material possessions, and seeking power over others are only some of the empty pursuits that can lead us away from our real purpose. Every major religion on earth has produced men and women of wisdom, and they have universally come to the same conclusions.

While it can serve us well to always remember life is temporary, it doesn’t do to focus all the time on the fact that we’ll die. There can be something of a psychological trap in dwelling on that. We can lose hope and become depressed if our focus is a dark one. If, on the other hand, we embrace the fact of our mortality, it can help us to embrace life. We learn that we can’t hold on to it, so we learn to appreciate the moments of it all the more.

The old Lakota battle cry: “Hoka Hey” (It’s a good day to die!) offers one such example. Though it has often been misunderstood, it's message is actually a positive one. It can teach us to embrace life by not to trying to hold on to what is fleeting. Life is not a thing to hold on to, it’s a process that we experience. It's like a song in which we have the opportunity to embrace each note...but only while they are being played. One can enjoy a good song, a book, or a movie but they’ll end. They, like life, are processes that we experience. We can let the experiences slip by with only the barest awareness or we can embrace them and fully participate in each moment.

What life does offer us is a choice. We have it in our power to choose how we meet life at every moment. We can be there fully for the experience or to let it slip by while we’re in a fog. We can choose to grow or we can choose to do nothing and remain the same. Death comes to all either way…

The only things that really matter are the ones we can take with us when the lids of our coffins are closed. The only thing that we can take with us then is the character we’ve developed.

Life reveals the story of who we really are. Death closes the book. What is written on each page is entirely up to us...