Perspective
July 27, 2010 Leave a comment
Watch this video if you need some perspective.
Faith Is A Time Machine
July 25, 2010 Leave a comment
By faith:
-Abel offered God a better sacrifice
Abel was commended as a righteous man;
Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
-Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death.
-Noah built an ark to save his family; Noah condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
-Abraham obeyed and went; he made his home in the promised land. Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father.
(Now all these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised)
Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice.
-Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
-Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons.
-Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.
-Moses’ parents …were not afraid of the king’s edict. Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Moses chose to be mistreated. Moses regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt. Moses left Egypt; he persevered because he saw Him who is invisible. Moses kept the Passover.
-The people passed through the Red Sea.
-The walls of Jericho fell.
-The prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.
-Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised;
-There are those who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; Their weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.
-Women received back their dead, raised to life again.
-Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.
-Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.
-They were stoned;
-They were sawed in two;
-They were put to death by the sword.
-They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them.
-They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.
God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
Faith is a time machine…I am a time traveler. There is a great cloud of witnesses to these facts.
Your Parallel Thoughts?
July 23, 2010 Leave a comment
Last night there happened to be an interesting show on TV: The History Channel’s The Universe. I learned that parallel universes were categorized as Level 1, 2, 3 or 4. I am now beginning to see why I tend to multi-task while I overbook and then appear cross-eyed.
On the show, a physicist from nearby Fermi-Lab explained that since we live in parallel universes, things may be happening around us that we are unaware of, like dinosaurs walking through our living room while we watch the History Channel (If I were married, I could use that line somehow!). Or, in another parallel universe, the Cubs would win a World Series (That must be a level five universe!). These things would be perfectly para-normal! I suppose that in another universe I could be from Mars and not from Venus. That’s a significant para-digm shift!!
During the show it was proposed that the basic composition of things was not tiny points or dots of matter but more in the nature of strings and membranes, much like the human brain.
This got me thinking: what if I exist only in God’s mind, only in God’s imagination?
Tender is the Night, These Days
July 22, 2010 Leave a comment
“One of the tendencies of this age is to use the suffering of children to discredit the goodness of God, and once you have discredited his goodness, you are done with him. The *Alymers whom (Nathaniel) Hawthorne saw as a menace have multiplied. Busy cutting down human imperfection, they are making headway also on the raw material of good. Ivan Karamazov cannot believe, as long as one child is in torment; Camus’ hero cannot accept the divinity of Christ, because of the massacre of innocents. In this popular pity, we mark our gain with sensibility and our loss in vision. If other ages felt less, they saw more, even though they saw with the blind, prophetical, unsentimental eye of acceptance, which is to say, of faith. In the absence of this faith now, we govern by tenderness. It is a tenderness which, long since cut off from the person of Christ, is wrapped in theory. When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber.” Flannery O’Connor, Introduction to A Memoir of Mary Ann, 1961
*The Alymers is a generic reference to the husband/scientist in a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Birthmark.
‘Tis A Gift To Be Simple
July 21, 2010 Leave a comment
In recent years I reduced the clutter of my life. Some of this reduction is due to moving from a four bedroom home to a two bedroom apartment five years ago. All lot of things went in the garbage when that happened. Since then I have continued to simplify my life even more and I am finding that I am gaining more peace in return.
I have a land phone line but I don’t use it. I only use the DSL for my laptop. I have a pay-per-go phone. This is much cheaper and simpler for me. I don’t text or tweet. I don’t own a Blackberry or an Ipod. I am tech savvy but I don’t need the bells and whistles. If I have something to say you’ll be the first to know. (Should a Christian spend his money on phone bills and downloads?)
I have an old boxy analog TV. I don’t watch much TV anyway. There’s isn’t much to watch. (I can’t believe what is shown on TV during the early evening hours when children are watching.) I have a DVD player in case a good movie is found to exist somewhere in the biosphere. (OK, I do like Princess Bride, Gladiator, Gran Torino, The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof…)
Financially: I have a debit card and a very small limit credit card. And cash. I pay my regular bills through an automated bill paying system and use cash for my weekly budget items.
Emotionally: I have thrown away sentimentality with most of its baggage. The past holds nothing for me. Nothing. I am presently a composite of everything good and bad that has happened in my life. I don’t need to carry any baggage. This is absolutely freeing for me (I stay away from people who want to throw me under their bus of anger. I avoid those routes.).
Spiritually: as I have posted a while back, I remind myself of these three simple action items from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: When you fast…; when you pray…; when you give… These three activities combined in my daily life bring me closer to God, closer to my neighbor and closer to my true self in a very simple, uncomplicated way.
One of the characteristics of God is Simplicity. HE IS.
Sticks and Stones
July 20, 2010 Leave a comment
Here is a short list of terms that describe me. Opposite the list is what someone like me has been called by liberals, progressives and intellectual elitists:
Tea Party member—————-“Racist”
Entrepreneur———————-“Capitalist pig”
Christian—————————“Hypocrite”
Conservative———————-“Radical Right Wingnut”
Fiscally responsible————–“Uncaring”
Traditional————————-“Homophobe”
Grass root ideologue————-“Astroturf”
A white woman——————-“Cracker”
A staunch Constitutionalist——“Old school”
As always in these matters, one must consider the source: Think Progress, NAACP, the snobbish Salon and many more. Thankfully, I don’t base my self-image on what other people say about me.
Ground Zero Minus Islamic Jihad
July 19, 2010 Leave a comment
Mosque not what this country can do for you…
Eugenics To Go, Please!
July 19, 2010 Leave a comment
Calling NAACP? Where are You?
Where’s Jesse Jackson, Where’s Al Sharpton? Where are the Black Panthers? Where’s the EMT – the Egregious Message team?
Oh, I know. They are all out accusing Tea Party members of being racists!
Charles P. Pierce – Idiot America
July 19, 2010 Leave a comment
Here is are some excerpts from an on-line Review of a book written by Charles P. Pierce, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free
“…Someone with the ability to see America with a critical eye is an impossibility for them (Idiot Americans). They believe in American exceptionalism above all else. They thought a C student President was a genius. These are the roughly 30% of Americans who still believe that Iraq had something to do with 9-11. You cannot mock them enough, but that’s about it. Self awareness is not their forte. These people don’t do nuance.”
“…Idiots stay idiotic — continuing to push at the pull sign on the door to reason. Idiot America is the land of willful ignorance; facts do not matter. Idiot America (like the Bush Administration) constructs its own reality every day. They watch Fox News and read the latest pundit screed from the right; they listen to Rush, and they watch the skies for black helicopters. When Obama spoke of people clinging to guns and religion when they are upset with the world, he was talking about Idiot America. Gun sales are up since he became president. He’s the scary black man they fear.”
“…Idiot America is the place where people believe in “The Gut,” otherwise known as George W. Bush’s favorite organ and/or appendage. Cable television and talk radio are the two biggest media organs that feed The Gut (The Gut does not read much).”
“Once on television . . . you are speaking to The Gut, and The Gut is a moron … The Gut is the roiling depository of dark and ancient fears. It knows what it knows because it knows how it feels. It pits intellect against feeling. It can be thought as “common sense,” but it is the kind that is rarely common and rarely makes sense.” [pages 34-35]
…”We must reject the simplistic view of The Gut and return to Our Brain.”
****
As you can gather from the above review, the elitist liberal journalist Mr. Pierce knows better than the rest of us or at least the ones he looks down on. This is a book that liberals and progressives love to revel in: it is haughty, non-redemptive, polarizing, snobbish, arrogant and jaded. It provides liberals and progressives succor in a world filled with the “idiots” who are all around them. Sadly, those who read this liberal dribble will become more ensconced in their ivory towers while the rest of us “morons” must ‘feel’ our way down below.
I am a conservative woman. I am well read in many areas of politics, finance, literature and morals (or as he calls it “The Gut”, something Mr. Pierce gives little credence to). I base my understanding of the world not on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh or the media. I am a thinking intellectual who has traveled to many parts of the world. Long ago I was diagnosed with a brain. Since I am a woman I also use my intuition (Maybe Mr. Pierce, as revealed in his pointed attacks on Sarah Palin, is a simply a misogynist.). I use this “gut” feeling to make decisions. I use every thing available to me in order to make wise decisions. Finally, I pray and ask for wisdom. Does the enlightened Mr. Pierce pray to himself, “The Brain”?
As a writer I know how easy it is to pen self-serving trash. The writing of Idiot America must have been a no-brainer for Mr. Pierce
Insider Information
July 17, 2010 Leave a comment
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are
in Christ Jesus
God sending his own Son
in the likeness of sinful man
He condemned sin
in sinful man
So that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met
in us.
Those who live
in accordance
with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature
but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives
in you.
But if Christ is
in you,
Your body is dead because of sin,
Yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living
in you
He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life
to your mortal bodies
Through his Spirit, who lives
in you.
We share
in his sufferings
in order that we may also share
in his glory.
The whole creation waits
in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.
For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice,
But by the will of the one who subjected it,
in hope that the creation itself will be liberated
from its bondage to decay.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as
in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us
in our weakness
The Spirit intercedes for the saints
in accordance with God’s will
And we know that
in all things God works for the good of those who love him.
What, then, shall we say
in response to this?
Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?
Who is he that condemns?
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
No,
in all these things we are more than conquerors
Through him who loved us.
I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future,
nor any powers, neither height nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God that is
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Cindy Wity 
