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Musings and Observations by Vernon Caston

Musings and Observations                 by Vernon Caston

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Trust Me with every fiber of your being ! !

29 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by stertin in Advice along the way, Biblical personages / passage, Clear and logical thinking, Other authors, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Quotes, Theology - God

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constant trust, Jesus is calling us to . . ., jolted into awareness!, the Eternal Rock, with every fiber of your being

Trust Me with every fiber of your being!!

What I can, and do, accomplish in and through you is proportionate to how much you depend on Me.

One aspect of this is the degree to which you trust Me in a crisis or major decision. Whereas some people fail miserably at this point. others are at their best in tough times.

Another aspect is even more telling: the constancy of your trust in Me. People who rely on Me in the midst of adversity may forget about Me when life is flowing smoothly. On the other hand, difficult times can jolt you into awareness of your need for Me. But, smooth sailing can lull you into the stupor of self-sufficiency.

I care as much about your tiny trust-step through daily life. But, I also care as much about your dramatic leaps of faith. You may think that no one notices, but never, never forget that the One who is always beside, seeing you and accompanying you, rejoices with you. Consistently trusting in Me is vital to flourishing in My presence

Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, not looking to the proud for support, nor turning to false gods. (Psalm 40.4)

When afraid, I will trust in You, Oh God. With Your word I praise You and express my trust in You. What can mortals do to me? Nothing!! (Psalm 56.3-4)

Trust God at every moment. Pour out your heart to Him. He is, after all, our refuge!! (Psalm 62.8)

God, You will keep in complete peace all those mind is mind steadfastly fixed in You. Thus, we acknowledge that You are the eternal Rock. (Isaiah 26.3-4)

Paraphrased from Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling, pg. 380

“Dogma and the Universe”, by C S Lewis (from GOD IN THE DOCK)

27 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by stertin in Advice along the way, Clear and logical thinking, Other authors, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Theology - God

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C S Lewis, provocative theology

 

“Dogma and the Universe”, by C S Lewis  . . . (from GOD IN THE DOCK (God on Trial))

It is a common reproach against Christianity that its dogmas are unchanging, while human knowledge is in continual growth.  Hence, to unbelievers, we seem to be always engaged in the hopeless task of trying to force the new knowledge into molds which it has outgrown.  I think this feeling alienates the outsider much more than any particular discrepancies between this or that doctrine and this or that scientific theory.  We may, as we say, ‘get over’ dozens of isolated ‘difficulties’, but that does not alter his sense that the endeavor as a whole is doomed to failure and perverse: indeed, the more ingenious, the more perverse.  For it seems to him clear that if our ancestors had known what we know about the universe, Christianity would never have existed at all.  And, however we patch and mend, no system of thought which claims to be immutable can, in the long run, adjust itself to our growing knowledge.

That is the position I am going to try to answer.  But before I go on to what I regard as the fundamental answer, I would like to clear up certain points about the actual relations between Christian doctrine and the scientific knowledge we already have.  That is a different matter from the continuing growth of knowledge we imagine, whether rightly or wrongly, in the future and which, as some think, is bound to defeat us in the end.

In one respect, as many Christians have noticed, contemporary science has recently come into line with Christian doctrine, and parted company with the classical forms of materialism.  If anything emerges clearly from modern physics, it is that nature is not everlasting.  The universe had a beginning, and will have an end.  But the great materialistic systems of the past all believed in the eternity, and thence in the self-existence of matter.  As Professor Whittaker said in the Riddell Lectures of 1942, “It was never possible to oppose seriously the dogma of the Creation except by maintaining that the world has existed from all eternity in more or less its present state. (1)   This fundamental ground for materialism has now been withdrawn.  We should not lean too heavily on this, for scientific theories change. But at the moment it appears that the burden of proof rests, not on us, but on those who deny that nature has some cause beyond herself.

In popular thought, however, the origin of the universe has counted (I think) for less than its character—its immense size and its apparent indifference, if not hostility, to human life.  And very often this impresses people all the more because it is supposed  to be  a  modern  discovery — an  excellent  example of those things which our ancestors did not know and which, if they had known them, would have prevented the very beginnings of Christianity.  Here there is a simple historical falsehood.  Ptolemy knew just as well as Eddington (2) that the earth was infinitesimal in comparison with the whole content of space.(3)  There is no question here of knowledge having grown until the frame of archaic thought is no longer able to contain it. The real question is why the spatial insignificance of the earth, after being known for centuries, should suddenly in the last century have become an argument against Christianity.  I do not know why this has happened; but I am sure it does not mark an increased clarity of thought, for the argument from size is, in my opinion, very feeble.

When the doctor at a post-mortem diagnoses poison, pointing to the state of the dead man’s organs, his argument is rational because he has a clear idea of that opposite state in which the organs would have been found if no poison were present.  In the same way, if we use the vastness of space and the smallness of earth to disprove the existence of God, we ought to have a clear idea of the sort of universe we should expect if God did exist.  But have we?  Whatever space may be in itself — and, of course, some moderns think it finite — we certainly perceive it as three-dimensional, and to three-dimensional space we can conceive no boundaries.  By the very forms of our perceptions, therefore, we must feel as if we lived somewhere in infinite space.  If we discovered no objects in this infinite space except those which  are of use to man  (our own sun and moon), then this vast emptiness would certainly be used as a strong argument against the existence of God.  If we discover other bodies, they must be habitable or uninhabitable: and the odd thing is that both these hypotheses are used as grounds for rejecting Christianity.  If the universe is teeming with life, this, we are told, reduces to absurdity the Christian claim — or what is thought to be the Christian claim — that man is unique, and the Christian doctrine that to this one planet God came down and was incarnate for us men and our salvation.  If, on the other hand, the earth is really unique, then that proves that life is only an accidental by-product in the universe, and so again disproves our religion.  Really, we are hard to please.  We treat God as the police treat a man when he is arrested; whatever He does will be used in evidence against Him.  I do not think this is due to our wickedness. I suspect there is something in our very mode of thought which makes it inevitable that we should always be baffled by actual existence, whatever character actual existence may have.  Perhaps a finite and contingent creature — a creature that might not have existed — will always find it hard to acquiesce in the brute fact that it is, here and now, attached to an actual order of things.

However that may be, it is certain that the whole argument from size rests on the assumption that differences of size ought to coincide with differences of value: for unless they do, there is, of course, no reason why the minute earth and the yet smaller human creatures upon it should not be the most important things in a universe that contains the spiral nebulae.  Now, is this assumption rational or emotional?  I feel, as well as anyone else, the absurdity of supposing that the galaxy could be of less moment in God’s eyes than such an atom as a human being.  But I notice that I feel no similar absurdity in supposing that a man of five-feet high may be more important than another man who is five-feet three and a half—nor that a man may matter more than a tree, or a brain more than a leg.  In other words, the feeling of absurdity arises only if the differences of size are very great.  But where a relation is perceived by reason it holds good universally.  If size and value had any real connection, small differences in size would accompany small differences in value as surely as large differences in size accompany large differences in value.  But no sane man could suppose that this is so.  I don’t think the taller man slightly more valuable than the shorter one.  I don’t allow a slight superiority to trees over men, and then neglect it because it is too small to bother about. I perceive, as long as I am dealing with the small differences of size, that they have no connection with value whatsoever.  I therefore conclude that the importance attached to the great differences of size is an affair, not of reason but of emotion — of that peculiar emotion which superiorities in size produce only after a certain point of absolute size has been reached.

We are inveterate poets. Our imaginations awake. Instead of mere quantity, we now have a quality — the sublime. Unless this were so, the merely arithmetical greatness of the galaxy would be no more impressive than the figures in a telephone directory.  It is thus, in a sense, from ourselves that the material universe derives its power to over-awe us.  To a mind which did not share our emotions, and lacked our imaginative energies, the argument from size would be sheer meaningless.  Men look on the starry heavens with reverence: monkeys do not.  The silence of the eternal spaces terrified Pascal, (4) but it was the greatness of Pascal that enabled them to do so.  When we are frightened by the greatness of the universe, we are (almost literally) frightened by our own shadows: for these light years and billions of centuries are mere arithmetic until the shadow of man, the poet, the maker of myth, falls upon them.  I do not say we are wrong to tremble at his shadow; it is a shadow of an image  of God.  But if ever the vastness of matter threatens to overcome our spirits, one must remember that it is matter spiritualized which does so. To puny man, the great nebula in Andromeda owes in a sense its greatness.

And this drives me to say yet again that we are hard to please.  If the world in which we found ourselves were not vast and strange enough to give us Pascal’s terror, what poor creatures we should be! Being what we are, rational but also animate, amphibians who start from the world of sense and proceed through myth and metaphor to the world of spirit, I do not see how we could have come to know the greatness of God without that hint furnished by the greatness of the material universe.  Once again, what sort of universe do we demand?  If it were small enough to be cozy, it would not be big enough to be sublime.  If it is large enough for us to stretch our spiritual limbs in, it must be large enough to baffle us. Cramped or terrified, we must, in any conceivable world, be one or the other. I prefer terror. I should be suffocated in a universe that I could see to the end of.  Have you never, when walking in a wood, turned back deliberately for fear you should come out at the other side and thus make it ever after in your imagination a mere beggarly strip of trees?

I hope you do not think I am suggesting that God made the spiral nebulae solely or chiefly in order to give me the experience of awe and bewilderment.  I have not the faintest idea why He made them; on the whole, I think it would be rather surprising if I had.  As far as I understand the latter, Christianity is not wedded to an anthropocentric view of the universe as a whole.  The first chapters of Genesis, no doubt, give the story of creation in the form of a folk-tale — a fact recognized as early as the time of St Jerome — and if you take them alone you might get that impression. But it is not confirmed by the Bible as a whole.  There are few places in literature where we are more sternly warned against making man the measure of all things than in the Book of Job: ‘Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?  Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant?  Shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him?’ (5)

In St Paul, the powers of the skies seem usually to be hostile to man.  It is, of course, the essence of Christianity that God loves man and for his sake became man and died.  But that does not prove that man is the sole end of nature.  In the parable, it was the one lost sheep that the shepherd went in search of:” it was not the only sheep in the flock, and we are not told that it was the most valuable — save in so far as the most desperately in need has, while the need lasts, a peculiar value in the eyes of Love.  The doctrine of the Incarnation would conflict with what we know of this vast universe only if we knew also that there were other rational species in it who had, like us, fallen, and who needed redemption in the same mode, and that they had not been vouchsafed it.  But we know none of these things.  It may be full of life that needs no redemption.  It may be full of life that has been redeemed. It may be full of things quite other than life which satisfy the Divine Wisdom in fashions one cannot conceive. We are in no position to draw up maps of God’s psychology, and prescribe limits to His interests.  We would not do so even for a man whom we knew to be greater than ourselves.  The doctrines that God is love and that He delights in men, are positive doctrines, not limiting doctrines.  He is not less than this. What more He may be, we do not know; we know only that He must be more than we can conceive.  It is to be expected that His creation should be, in the main, unintelligible to us.

Christians themselves have been much to blame for the misunderstanding on these matters. They have a bad habit of talking as if revelation existed to gratify curiosity by illuminating all creation so that it becomes self-explanatory and all questions are answered. But revelation appears to me to be purely practical, to be addressed to the particular animal, Fallen Man, for the relief of his urgent necessities —- not to the spirit of inquiry in man for the gratification of his liberal curiosity.  We know that God has visited and redeemed His people, and that tells us just as much about the general character of the creation as a dose given to one sick hen on a big farm tells it about the general character of farming in England.  What we must do, which road we must take to the fountain of life, we know, and none who has seriously followed the directions complains that he has been deceived.  But whether there are other creatures like ourselves, and how they are dealt with whether inanimate matter exists only to serve living creatures or for some other reason whether the immensity of space is a means to some end, or an illusion, or simply the natural mode in which infinite energy might be expected to create — on all these points I think we are left to our own speculations.

No. It is not Christianity which need fear the giant universe.  It is those systems which place the whole meaning of existence in biological or social evolution on our own planet.  It is the creative evolutionist, the Bergsonian or Shavian, or the Communist, who should tremble when he looks up at the night sky.  For he really is committed to a sinking ship. He really is attempting to ignore the discovered nature of things, as though by concentrating on the possibly upward trend in a single planet he could make himself forget the inevitable downward trend in the universe as a whole, the trend to low temperatures and irrevocable disorganization.  For entrophy is the real cosmic wave, and evolution only a momentary tellurian ripple within it.

On these grounds, then, I submit that we Christians have as little to fear as anyone from the knowledge actually acquired.  But, as I said at the beginning, that is not the fundamental answer. The endless fluctuations of scientific theory which seem today so much friendlier to us than in the last century may turn against us tomorrow. The basic answer lies elsewhere.

Let me remind you of the question we are trying to answer.  It is this:  How can an unchanging system survive the continual increase of knowledge? Now, in certain cases we know very well how it can.  A mature scholar reading a great passage in Plato, and taking in at one glance the metaphysics, the literary beauty, and the place of both in the history of Europe, is in a very different position from a boy learning the Greek alphabet. Yet through that unchanging system of the alphabet all this vast mental and emotional activity is operating.  It has not been broken by the new knowledge.  It is not outworn.  If it changed, all would be chaos.  A great Christian statesman, considering the morality of a measure which will affect millions of lives, and which involves economic, geographical and political considerations of the utmost complexity, is in a different position from a boy first learning that one must not cheat or tell lies, or hurt innocent people. But only in so far as that first knowledge of the great moral platitudes survives unimpaired in the statesman will his deliberation be moral at all.  If that goes, then there has been no progress, but only mere change. For change is not progress unless the core remains unchanged.  A small oak grows into a big oak: if it became a beech tree, that would not be growth, but mere change.  And thirdly, there is a great difference between counting apples and arriving at the mathematical formulae of modern physics.  But the multiplication table is used in both and does not grow out of date.

In other words, wherever there is real progress in knowledge, there is some knowledge that is not superseded. Indeed, the very possibility of progress demands that there should be an unchanging element.  New bottles for new wine, by all means: but not new palates, throats and stomachs, or it would not be, for us, ‘wine’ at all. I take it we should all agree to find this sort of unchanging element in the simple rules of mathematics.  I would add to these the primary principles of morality.  And I would also add the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.  To put it in rather more technical language, I claim that the positive historical statements made by Christianity have the power, elsewhere found chiefly in formal principles, of receiving, without intrinsic change, the increasing complexity of meaning which increasing knowledge puts into them.

For example, it may be true (though I don’t for a moment suppose it is) that when the Nicene Creed said ‘He came down from Heaven’, the writers had in mind a local movement from a local heaven to the surface of the earth — like a parachute descent. Others since may have dismissed the idea of a spatial heaven altogether.  But neither the significance nor the credibility of what is asserted seems to be in the  least affected by the change.  On either view, the thing is miraculous: on either view, the mental images which attend the act of belief are inessential.  When a Central African convert and a Harley Street specialist both affirm that Christ rose from the dead, there is, no doubt, a very great difference between their thoughts.  To one, the simple picture of a dead body getting up is sufficient; the other may think of a whole series of biochemical and even physical processes beginning to work backwards. The Doctor knows that, in his experience, they never have worked backwards; but the negro knows that dead bodies don’t get up and walk. Both are faced with miracle, and both know it.  If both think miracle impossible, the only difference is that the Doctor will expound the impossibility in much greater detail, will give an elaborate gloss on the simple statement that dead men don’t walk about.  If both believe, all the Doctor says will merely analyze and explicate the words ‘He rose.’  When the author of Genesis says that God made man in His own image, he may have pictured a vaguely corporeal God making man as a child makes a figure out of plasticine (playdough).  A modern Christian philosopher may think of a process lasting from the first creation of matter to the final appearance on this planet of an organism fit to receive spiritual as well as biological life. But both mean essentially the same thing. Both are denying the same thing — the doctrine that matter by some blind power inherent in itself has produced spirituality.

Does this mean that Christians on different levels of general education conceal radically different beliefs under an identical form of words?  Certainly not.  For what they agree on is the substance, and what they differ about is the shadow.  When one imagines his God seated in a local heaven above a flat earth, where another sees God and creation in terms of Professor Whitehead’s philosophy, (7) this difference touches precisely what does not matter.  Perhaps this seems to you an exaggeration.

But is it?  As regards material reality, we are now being forced to the conclusion that we know nothing about it save its mathematics.  The tangible beach and pebbles of our first calculators, the imaginable atoms of Democritus, the plain man’s picture of space, turn out to be the shadow: numbers are the substance of our knowledge, the sole liaison between mind and things.  What nature is in herself evades us; what seem to naive perception to be the evident things about her, turn out to be the most phantasmal. It is something the same with our knowledge of spiritual reality. What God is in Himself, how He is to be conceived by philosophers, retreats continually  from  our  knowledge.  The  elaborate  world-pictures which accompany religion and which look each so solid while they last, turn out to be only shadows. It is religion itself— prayer and sacrament and repentance and adoration — which is here, in the long run, our sole avenue to the real.  Like mathematics, religion can grow from within, or decay.  The Jew knows more than the Pagan, the Christian more than the Jew, the modern vaguely religious man less than any of the three.  But, like mathematics, it remains simply itself, capable of be applied to any new theory of the material universe and outmoded by none.

When any man comes into the presence of God he will find, whether he wishes it or not, that all those things which seemed to make him so different from the men of other times, or even from his earlier self, have fallen off him.  He is back where he always was, where every man always is. Eadem si omnia semper. (8)  

Do not let us deceive ourselves.  No possible complexity which we can give to our picture of the universe can hide us from God; there is no copse, no forest, no jungle thick enough to provide cover. We read in Revelation of Him that sat on the throne ‘from whose face the earth and heaven fled away’. (9)  It may happen to any of us at any moment, the twinkling of an eye, in a time too small to be measure, and in any place, all that seems to divide us from God can flee away, vanish leaving us naked before Him, like the first man, like the only man, as if nothing but He and I existed.  And since that contact cannot be avoided for long, and since it means either bliss or horror, the business of life is to learn to like it. That is the first and great commandment.

Notes

(1) Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker, The Beginning and End of the World Riddell Memorial Lectures, Fourteenth Series (Oxford, 1942), p. 40.

(2) Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944) who wrote The Expanding Universe (1933)

(3) Ptolemy lived at Alexandria in the 2nd century A.D. The reference is to his Almagest, Book 1, chapter 5.

(4) Blaise Pascal, Pensees, No. 206

(5) Job 41.1,4,9.

(6) Matthew 18. 12; Luke 15.4

(7) Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), who wrote, among other works, Science and the Modern World (1925) and Religion in the Making (1926).

(8)  ‘Everything is always the same.’

(9) Revelation 20. 11

 

 

Walk with Me on Paths of Trust

09 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by stertin in Advice along the way, Biblical personages / passage, Clear and logical thinking, Other authors, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Proverbs, Sayings, Quotes, Refrains, Theology - God

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anxious thoughts go in all directions, paths of trust, Sarah Young, walk with Me in trust

WALK WITH ME ON PATHS OF TRUST

From Sarah Young’s JESUS CALLING: Enjoying peace in His presence

“Walk with Me along paths of trust. The most direct route before point A and point B on your life-journey is the path of unwavering trust in Me. When your faith falters, you choose a trail that meanders and takes you well out of our way. You will get to point B eventually, but you will have lost precious time and energy.

“As soon as you realize you have wandered from your trust-path, look to Me and whisper, “I trust You, Jesus.” This affirmation will help you get back on track.

“The farther you roam along paths of unbelief, the harder it is to remember that I am with you. Anxious thoughts branch off in all directions, taking you farther and farther from awareness of My Presence. You need to voice your trust in Me frequently. This simple act of faith will keep you walking along straight paths with me.

“Trust in Me with all your heart, and I will make your paths straight.”

Isaiah 26.4   Psalm 9.10   Psalm 25.4-5   Proverbs 3.5-6

Published by Thomas Nelson, 2004, page 265

 

Accept each day exactly as it comes to you

08 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by stertin in Advice along the way, Biblical personages / passage, Clear and logical thinking, Other authors, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Theology - God

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Jesus speaks, Sarah Young's "Jesus Calling" - Exploring peace in His Presence"

from Sarah Young’s JESUS CALLING Enjoying peace in His presence

“Accept each day exactly as it comes to you.

“By that, I mean not only the circumstances of your day, but also the condition of your body. You assignment is to trust Me absolutely, resting in My sovereignty and faithfulness.

“On some days, your circumstances and your physical condition feel out of balance. The demands on you seem far greater than your strength. Days like that present a choice between two alternatives – giving up or relying on Me. Even if you wrongly choose the first alternative, I will not reject you.

“You can turn to Me at any point, and I will help you crawl out of the mire of discouragement. I will infuse My strength into you moment by moment, giving you all that you need for this day.

“Trust Me by relying on My empowering Presence.”

(Psalm 42.5,  2 Corinthians 13.4,  Jeremiah 31.25)

 

Published by Thomas Nelson, 2004, page 263

 

I want to know what love is! Thanks, Celtic Thunder

03 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by stertin in Aesthetics - Beauty, Change, Music related, Other authors, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Quotes, Sayings, Stories

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Celtic Thunder, I want to know what love is, learning from each other, love takes time, mountain peaks, the life of love is a process, while running

I want to know what love is – Thanks, Celtic Thunder

This morning while I was running, the Celtic Thunder’s version of “I want to know what love is” started playing in my ear buds.   Having heard other artists’ renditions, was familiar with the lyrics; my mind went naturally with the music’s flow.  Do you want to listen also while reading the lyrics?  Click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4vqSfRQ8G4&list=PLoemii1jXdeCOvYG3zUPyyy_ss1rAcsoQ&index=6

Gonna take a little time, a little time to think things over.
I better read between the lines in case I need it when I’m older

Now this mountain I must climb. . feels like a world upon my shoulders.
Through the clouds I see love shine; it keeps me warm as life grows colder

In my life there’s been heartache and pain . . I don’t know if I can face it again
Can’t stop now, I’ve travelled so far to change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is, and I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is, and I know you can show me

I’m gonna take a little time. . .A little time to look around me
cause I’ve got nowhere left to hide

It looks like love has finally found me
In my life there’s been heartache and pain. I don’t know if I can face it again
I can’t stop now, I’ve traveled so far to change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is
And I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
And I know you can show me

bis

The lyrics are provocative.  They convey, depending on the listener, a variety of sentiments, hopes, and dreams.  And, that is fine.

In my case, and even more so as I listen again and again to “I want to know what love is”, I continue confirming that the life of love is a process, a dynamic and joyful process.  Changes and new experiences don’t merely happen.  They also offer opportunities of what love is, and what love can be.

As the song declares, love takes time.  Love also offers us the heights of mountain peaks to glimpse both how far we have come and what can still be ahead.  We take joy in learning from each other, giving to each other, and receiving from each other.  That joy, that sense of completeness, that opportunity to not only be loved, but to give love, stands behind the deep desire of wanting to know what love is

And, Margaret Cameron also knows.

Dennis, Elvis, and Jesus (thanks, Ray Stedman)

27 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by stertin in Advice along the way, Biblical personages / passage, Change, Other authors, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Quotes, Stories, Theology - God

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clamoring for his attention, contoured hair, Elvis Presley - the King, if Jesus were on earth today!!, Ray Stedman, sent to the office, surgically lifted face

“Dennis, Elvis, and Jesus” (thanks, Ray) 

When Elvis Presley died, people all over the United States and the world were shocked at the passing of one they called “the King.” Following his death, there surfaced a great number of young men who gave evidence of how they had idolized Elvis Presley and sought to imitate him. One young man, Dennis Wise, actually had his face surgically lifted and his hair contoured to look exactly like his idol. Dennis had learned to play the guitar and had even made a few dollars by appearing as a Presley look-alike. In a newspaper interviewed about his passion to be like Elvis Presley, this is what Dennis said:

  • “Yes, sir, Presley has been an idol of mine ever since I was five years old. I have every record he ever made — twice over. I have pictures in the thousands. I have books, magazines, pillows — I even have a couple of books in German and Japanese about him. I even have tree leaves from the front of his house. It was embarrassing to me when I was in school for the kids were always teasing me. When Elvis was wearing white boots I went out and bought white boots. The kids called them “fruit boots.” Teachers would always send me to the office because my two top buttons were unbuttoned. I’d button them and then, when no one was looking, I’d unbutton them again.
  • “But I never got to meet Elvis Presley. I saw him on the stage four times. Once I tried to run up to the stage and once I stood on the wall of Graceland [the Presley mansion] and tried to see him. For 12 hours I stood there trying to get a glimpse of him. But he had so many people around him that I could never get close.”

Dennis’ words describe sheer idolatry, the longing to be intimate with some great person. This is widely contemporary today. Young people are doing the same thing with their rock starts, and with other figures in the music, the movie, and the sports world. But the tragic element in the story of Dennis Wise is captured by his words, “I could never get close to him.”

Imagine how difficult it would be to see Jesus if he were on earth today. Think of the press of people you would have to get through to even look at him, let alone talk with him. Millions would be clamoring for his attention so that you wouldn’t stand a chance to get close to him. But the good news of Easter is, not only can you know him, but he can be close to you all the time, through every situation.

The risen Lord offers to share his victory with you, to take you through whatever you must face as your close and competent Companion who will never, never leave you.

 

( An edited excerpt from “The Incredible Hope” by Ray Stedman [http://www.raystedman.org/new-testament/john/the-incredible-hope] )

 

Joe and Nick – mostly unknown, but certainly important on Good Friday

26 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by stertin in Biblical personages / passage, Other authors, Pain - Evil - Suffering, Stories

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hearing "it is finished", identifying with Jesus when He seemed like a failure, Joseph and Nicodemus, someone else's grave, the two in the background

Joe and Nick – mostly unknown, but certainly important on Good Friday

They weren’t part of Jesus’ band of apostles.  They aren’t mentioned much in the Biblical story of Jesus. Nonetheless, they had a critical role in Jesus’ history.  Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were the men who buried Jesus.  Warren Wiersbe, in his comments on Jesus’ death and burial (1), explains the situation this way:

  –   –   –   –   –   –   –

How did Joseph and Nicodemus know to prepare for His burial? What follows is only conjecture on my part, but, to me, it seems reasonable.

When Nicodemus first visited Jesus, he was impressed with His miracles and His teaching. After that interview, Nicodemus searched the Scriptures and asked God for guidance concerning the important spiritual matters he had talked about with Jesus.

At the critical council meeting recorded in John 7.45-53, Nicodemus boldly stood up and defended His Savior. His associates ridiculed him for thinking that a prophet could come out of Galilee. “Search and look” they said, and that is exactly what Nicodemus did. It is likely that Joseph quietly joined him and revealed the fact that he too was more and more convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed Israel’s Messiah, the Son of God.

As Nicodemus and Joseph searched the Old Testament, they found the Messianic prophecies and discovered that many of them had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Certainly they would have seen Him as the Lamb of God and concluded that He would be sacrificed at Passover. Jesus had already told Nicodemus that He would be lifted up (John 3.14), and this meant crucifixion. Since the Passover lambs were slain about 3 pm, the two men could know almost the exact time when God’s Lamb would die on the cross. Surely they would have read Isaiah 53 and noticed verse 9, “And He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death.” Jesus would be buried in a rich man’s tomb!

Joseph arranged to have the tomb hewn out, and the men assembled the clothes and spices needed for the burial. They may have been hiding in the tomb all during the 6 hours of our Lord’s agony on the cross. When they heard, “It is finished. Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” they went to work. They boldly identified with Jesus Christ at a time when He seemed like a failure and His cause hopelessly defeated.

–   –   –   –   –   –   –

(1)  The Bible Exposition Commentary, Volume 1, p. 386 (Wheaton, IL: Scripture Press, 1989)

The New Testament in ONLY 39 days, 30 minutes a day

28 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by stertin in Biblical personages / passage, Change, Other authors, Quotes, Sayings, Stories, Theology - God

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39 day X 30 minutes, Audio New Testament, Chronological presentation, Max McLean, Reading the New Testament

The New Testament in ONLY 39 days (30 minutes a day)

An invigorating experience!! It brought the New Testament alive to me like never before !! . . . Costs – not a penny. . . .  Entirely flexible schedule. . . . Read by the superb Max McLean. . . . The text – the New International Version (NIV). . . . No references to verse or chapter separations . . . .Access the day you choose with a click.

  • Day 01: Luke-Acts
  • Day 02: Luke-Acts
  • Day 03: Luke-Acts
  • Day 04: Luke-Acts
  • Day 05: Luke-Acts
  • Day 06: Luke-Acts
  • Day 07: Luke-Acts
  • Day 08: Luke-Acts
  • Day 09: Luke-Acts
  • Day 10: 1-2 Thessalonians
  • Day 11: 1 Corinthians
  • Day 12: 1 Corinthians
  • Day 13: 2 Corinthians
  • Day 14: Galatians
  • Day 15: Romans
  • Day 16: Romans
  • Day 17: Colossians
  • Day 18: Ephesians, Philemon
  • Day 19: Philippians, 1 Timothy
  • Day 20: Titus, 2 Timothy
  • Day 21: Matthew
  • Day 22: Matthew
  • Day 23: Matthew
  • Day 24: Matthew
  • Day 25: Matthew
  • Day 26: Hebrews
  • Day 27: Hebrews
  • Day 28: James
  • Day 29: Mark
  • Day 30: Mark
  • Day 31: 1 Peter
  • Day 32: 2 Peter, Jude
  • Day 33: John
  • Day 34: John
  • Day 35: John
  • Day 36: 1-3 John
  • Day 37: Revelation
  • Day 38: Revelation
  • Day 39: Revelation

Christmas, John Stuart Mill, and Jesus

20 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by stertin in Biblical personages / passage, Clear and logical thinking, Other authors, Pain - Evil - Suffering, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Quotes, Stories, Theology - God, Uncategorized

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"God and evil", being morally worse, Christmas, cross, death, freedom, it was a war, John Stuart Mill quote, pointers

Christmas, John Stuart Mill, and Jesus

While reviewing some personal items, I read again several lines by John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).  In his work “The Contest in America”, published in the Harper’s New Monthly Magazine of April 1862, Mill addressed some of the public thinking during the Civil War in the United Sates.  Mill’s article included his famous lines:

“. . .war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer.  War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.. . . A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

Perhaps you wonder what Mill’s statement has to do with Christmas.  It has much to do with Christmas – the real “why?” of Christmas, not the syrupy reasons that barely even touch the edges of the real reason.

Christmas celebrations over the past 2000 years, and in a multitude of social contexts, have taken many forms and practices.  We are far removed from the first Christmas!!  We will do well to ponder why celebrate the birth of Jesus.  We will do harm to ourselves if we fail to ask the deep question, “Why did the Son of God take on flesh in the first place? And why, in the second place, did Jesus die?  Mill points to the answer, even if what he said was in the context of the deadly War between the States in the 1860’s.

Jesus, the incarnated Son of God, came to earth to take part in a war.  It is true that He held infants in his arms. Yes, He gave a hungry multitude their fill of fish and bread.   But, His reason for being on the Earth in the first place was related to the war between good (God) and evil (Satan).  It was a war “in a good cause”, that of freeing humanity from the bonds of moral evil and restoring humanity to God’s family.  This war ultimately cost the innocent Jesus his life, as he bore the “ugly” murder of crucifixion.

Jesus, born to die – it is, admittedly, ugly.  But, as Mill states, it would have been even more ugly if Jesus would have thought that nothing was worth His death!!!  Although not referring to Jesus when he wrote it, Mill’s point is appropriate.  If Jesus would have cared more for His personal safety than the spiritual freedom of His murderers and their sympathizers, Jesus would have been a miserable creature “with no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

But, Jesus was free.  He was noble.  He knew that there was something worse than dying in the war for humans’ salvation – It would have been morally worse for Him to not die!!

This, my friends, is taking us deeply into the Why of Christmas.  The original Christmas was the necessary first step to His victory over what is even worse than dying for the sins of others. That worse thing? to not die for the sins of others!!!

 

Christmas, John Stuart Mill, and Jesus

20 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by stertin in Biblical personages / passage, Change, Clear and logical thinking, Other authors, Pain - Evil - Suffering, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Quotes, Stories, Theology - God

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"John Stuart Mill", Harper's Magazine - 1862, the moral decay of thinking that nothing is worth a war, the ugliness of being born to die, the war for humanity, what is worse than dying?, Why take on the flesh of humanity?

Christmas, John Stuart Mill, and Jesus

While reviewing some personal items, I read again several lines by John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).  In his work “The Contest in America”, published in the Harper’s New Monthly Magazine of April 1862, Mill addressed some of the public thinking during the Civil War in the United Sates.  Mill’s article included his famous lines:

“. . .war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer.  War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.. . . A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

Perhaps you wonder what Mill’s statement has to do with Christmas.  It has much to do with Christmas – the real “why?” of Christmas, not the syrupy reasons that barely even touch the edges of the real reason.

Christmas celebrations over the past 2000 years, and in a multitude of social contexts, have taken many forms and practices.  We are far removed from the first Christmas!!  We will do well to ponder why celebrate the birth of Jesus.  We will do harm to ourselves if we fail to ask the deep question, “Why did the Son of God take on flesh in the first place? And why, in the second place, did Jesus die?  Mill points to the answer, even if what he said was in the context of the deadly War between the States in the 1860’s.

Jesus, the incarnated Son of God, came to earth to take part in a war.  It is true that He held infants in his arms. Yes, He gave a hungry multitude their fill of fish and bread.  But, His reason for being on the Earth in the first place was related to the war between good (God) and evil (Satan).  It was a war “in a good cause”, that of freeing humanity from the bonds of moral evil and restoring humanity to God’s family.  This war ultimately cost the innocent Jesus his life, as he bore the “ugly” murder of crucifixion.

Jesus, born to die – it is, admittedly, ugly.  But, as Mill states, it would have been even more ugly if Jesus would have thought that nothing was worth His death!!!  Although not referring to Jesus when he wrote it, Mill’s point is appropriate.  If Jesus would have cared more for His personal safety than the spiritual freedom of His murderers and their sympathizers, Jesus would have been a miserable creature “with no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

But, Jesus was free.  He was noble.  He knew that there was something worse than dying in the war for humans’ salvation – It would have been morally worse for Him to not die!!

This, my friends, is taking us deeply into the Why of Christmas.  The original Christmas was the necessary first step to Jesus’ victory over what is even worse than dying for the sins of others. That worse thing???  to not die for the sins of others!!!

.

.

 

Can It Get More Futile? Really, Now !

23 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by stertin in Advice along the way, Other authors, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Stories

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futility, in-laws, wake me up, wife and husband

Can it Get More Futile?. . . Really, now!

(anonymous author)

– – ‘Cash, check or charge?’ I asked, after folding items the woman wished to purchase. As she fumbled for her wallet, I noticed a remote control for a television set in her purse.
– – ‘So, do you always carry your TV remote?’ I asked.
– – ‘No,’ she replied, ‘but my husband refused to come shopping with me, and I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him legally.’

* * * *

– – While attending a Marriage Seminar dealing with communication, Tom and his wife Grace listened to the instructor, ‘It is essential that husbands and wives know each other’s likes and dislikes.’
– – He addressed the man, ‘Can you name your wife’s favorite flower?’
– – Tom leaned over, touched his wife’s arm gently and whispered, ‘It’s Pillsbury, isn’t it?

* * * *

– – A man walks into a pharmacy and wanders up and down the aisles.
– – The sales girl notices him and asks him if she can help him. He answers that he is looking for a box of tampons for his wife. She directs him down the correct aisle.
– – A few minutes later, he deposits a huge bag of cotton balls and a ball of string on the counter. She says, confused, ‘Sir, I thought you were looking for some tampons for your wife?
– – He answers, ‘You see, it’s like this, yesterday, I sent my wife to the store to get me a carton of cigarettes, and she came back with a tin of tobacco and some rolling papers; cause it’s sooo-ooo–oo- ooo much cheaper. So, I figure if I have to roll my own, so ……….”.

* * * *

– – A couple drove down a country road for several miles, not saying a word. An earlier discussion had led to an argument and neither of them wanted to concede their position.
– – As they passed a barnyard of mules, goats, and pigs, the husband asked sarcastically, ‘Relatives of yours?’
– – ‘Yep,’ the wife replied, ‘in-laws.’

* * * *

– – A man said to his wife one day, ‘I don’t know how you can be so stupid and so beautiful all at the same time.
– – ‘The wife responded, ‘Allow me to explain. God made me beautiful so you would be attracted to me; God made me stupid so I would be attracted to you !
– – A man and his wife were having an argument about who should brew the coffee each morning.

* * * *

– – The wife said, ‘You should do it because you get up first, and then we don’t have to wait as long to get our coffee.
– – The husband said, ‘You are in charge of cooking around here and you should do it, because that is your job, and I can just wait for my coffee.’
– – Wife replies, ‘No, you should do it, and besides, it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee.’
– – Husband replies, ‘I can’t believe that, show me.’
– – So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New Testament and showed him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says ‘HEBREWS’

* * * *

– – A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. Suddenly, the man realized that the next day, he would need his wife to wake him at 5:0 0 AM for an early morning business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper, “Please wake me at 5:00 AM.’ He left it where he knew she would find it.
– – The next morning, the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn’t wakened him, when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed. The paper said, – — ‘It is 5:00 AM. Wake up.’

“Wild Horses” – Thank you, Susan

15 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by stertin in Advice along the way, Aesthetics - Beauty, Biblical personages / passage, Music related, Other authors, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Unforgettables

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Looking over the past, misunderstandings, Susan Boyle, taken for granted, Wild Horses

“Wild Horses” – Thank you, Susan

Looking over our past can bring peals of laughter, tears of great sorrow, spells of melancholy, the recall of mistakes (some very damaging, and some that were simply expressions of childhood foolishness).  Perhaps gazing into the past resurrects the pain of misunderstandings (some that have been resolved by now, others that never were), or expectations that we thought were legitimate (only to find out that they were illusionary).

For some of us looking back may take us to the pain of having trusted a “friend” (only to finally realize that we were being “used”).  We remember insults (both ours and those of others directed our way).  Then there are the memories of being taken for granted (and also taking someone else for granted).  Do you recall not being able to escape the presence of someone with an air of condescending superiority?  Perhaps our minds will not let go of the times we caused someone to weep uncontrollably because of our failure.  Perhaps the he or she gave up because of our lack of trust.  Maybe they became bitter because we created disheartening disillusion.

I have heard it said that, with time, we forget the bad times of the past and exaggerate the good (like in “the good old days”).  But, I also know that such a verdict on what time does is not universally the case; life is not that simple. So, what do we do when our past is so checkered, and still makes itself felt in our present moments?

What I have been describing is the mental construct I brought to hearing Susan Boyle’s rendition, sung with great feeling, of “Wild Horses”- (click here for You Tube).  “Wild Horses” encouraged me to not allow the wild horses (the disillusions, failures, and perhaps betrayals of the past – both mine and those of others’) to drag me away from the present and future opportunities that the Lord has granted to me.

If anyone ever had a reason to be disillusioned with people, certainly Jesus did.  But, He did not let the uncontrolled forces of evil or the demons on wild horses to drag Him from His goals.  And furthermore, if anyone had reason to be discouraged with their past performances, certainly Jesus’ disciples did.  But, God gave them His Spirit before whom the Wild Horses are converted to living vehicles into the future.

Childhood living it’s easy to do
The things that you wanted, well I bought them for you
Graceless lady, you know who I am
You know I can’t let you just slide through my hands

Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldn’t drag me away

I watched you suffer, a dull aching pain
Now you’ve decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or offstage lines
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind

Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
Wild horses couldn’t drag me away

I don’t know I dreamt you, a sin and a lie
And I have my freedom but I don’t have much time
Fate has been suffered, and tears must be cried
Let’s do some living. . .  after we die

Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
Wild horses wouldn’t drag me away

Away.

Our Quirky Language – Episode # 3

10 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by stertin in Other authors, Sayings, Uncategorized

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English muffins, odds and ends, out and visible - - out and invisible, play - recite, slim chance - fat chance, up and down, writers and fingers

Our Quirky Language – Episode # 3

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren’t invented in England, nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

Quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

Writers write, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham. If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth?  It’s one goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese?  We can make amends, but can we make an amend?

If we have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do we call it?

If teachers taught, did preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?    People recite at a play and play at a recital. Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

Your house can burn up as it burns down. We fill out a form by filling in the information.

An alarm goes off by going on.

English reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. . . That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

Having fun yet????????

 

Our Quirky Language – Episode # 2

05 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by stertin in Clear and logical thinking, Other authors, Quotes

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confusing language, dry grass, fix the old car, Now it is up to you, open the drain, the chairman's decision, Up

Our Quirky language – Episode # 2

It’s easy to understand UP, isn’t it. It means toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

It looks like we are pretty mixed UP about UP! Perhaps we should look UP UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.

When it rains, it may mess UP the schedule. When it doesn’t rain for a while, the grass may dry UP.

That’s enough for now. I’ll wrap it UP. Time’s UP.  Now it’s UP to you.

 

Eve, I can’t believe that you could mean what you just said (Thanks, Karen Carpenter)

30 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by stertin in Aesthetics - Beauty, Biblical personages / passage, Change, Music related, Other authors, Pain - Evil - Suffering, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Stories, Theology - God

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a nanosecond, before the winter comes, convoluted situations, Eve, Karen Carpenter, Richard Carpenter and John Bettis, short stories, The Carpenters, You are a rose now living with thorns

“Eve, I can’t believe that you could mean what you just said” (Thanks, Karen Carpenter)

There once was a time when everything that happened could be condensed into one short story. That time didn’t last for long, as you can imagine. Was it only a nanosecond long? Perhaps. Maybe it was even shorter than that!

In any case, and eventually, the story would expand. Characters, and more characters would be introduced. A plot of some nature would form. A dilemma would develop. If-then scenarios would shape up. These latter elements were not noticeable at the very beginning of the story of “What Was”.

This brief description is what happens in life, doesn’t it.   Think of the entire life of a child who has, up until this moment, lived only 12-18 hours outside of mother’s womb – independent existence. It would be a pretty “short” story, wouldn’t it?   But, as the child adds days, weeks, months, years, and decades, the story expands. New people are introduced, some being relatives, siblings, friends, neighbors, classmates, etc.. Challenges enter the story. And, then even more complicated challenges populate the narrative. New decisions are made, new conflicts arise, new sorrows strike as the story unfolds in a variety of nuances.

But, the story began without all those additions that came with time. Reading the initial draft of the story of an 18 hour old infant might be interesting, depending on the detail provided. I can imagine that the medical narrative of the first 18 hours of human life could fascinate some folk (if they could even understand it!!).

But, our individual stories take time to develop. We all know that, don’t we?

We also know, by this point in our life, that the story of our lives is a combination of convoluted situations along side of un-convoluted decisions we make, or perhaps un-convoluted decisions that others have made for us.   Because of this scenario, well written biographies fascinate us. Truly, fact can be more fascinating that fiction.

Allow me now to transition.

The paragraphs above were running around my mind, just shortly ago. Earlier today, I was listening to Karen Carpenter sing the song “Eve”. Karen’s brother, Richard Carpenter, later explained that he and John Bettis, in 1969, composed “Eve” after watching an episode of a British suspense anthology. In the story, a fellow becomes enamored with a female mannequin, who in turn is to be destroyed with other discarded mannequins. The mannequin is Eve.

While listening to the song, several times, I was not aware of the back story provided by Richard Carpenter. My mind, while listening, went back to the Biblical story of Eve, who was not a mannequin, but the first named woman in the Bible. Eve, along with Adam, were the human protagonists in the Creation Narrative as provided in the Biblical book of Genesis.

Now, I invite you to take a moment and listen to Eve, as sung by Karen Carpenter. (click here ) Here are the lyrics:

Eve, I can’t believe that you could mean what you just said

Think of what you are; how very far you are from being real.

Look into the mirror, nothing there to see.

Eve, I can’t believe you’d really leave him.

 

Notice how her image saddens, how lonely she’s become

Just once I’d like to see her happy before the winter comes.

 

Eve, I wouldn’t lie; the open sky is not your home

Wide as it may be, reality is here among the stones.

Thorns among the roses add to what is real.

Eve, you are a rose among the thorns here.

 

I wish her only good times before the winter comes.

Eve, and Adam, are presented in the Creation story as having no childhood experiences. They had not learned anything from anyone else until they learned things from each other and from God. In the case of Adam, he entered history as entirely innocent and unaccompanied. Eve’s entry was slightly different; her environment included a person who was already in the process of learning about life. They, then, learned from their own experiences, the experiences of each other, and from what God communicated to them. Their companion was God Himself.

At some point, Eve decided to embrace the words and “description of reality” from someone other than God and Adam. This “someone” is defined as The Serpent, commonly known as Satan.   Eve, by eating fruit that God had prohibited, expressed a newly embraced belief that someone other than God knew what was “best”, what was “most advantageous”, what was “most productive”, what was “most fitting and adequate” for human existence. In her acquiescence to Satan’s temptation, Eve walked away from her created reality of communion with the Creator God. And, rather than live as defined by God and His loving presence, she ended up with loneliness. Adam was then faced with a choice – Eve or God. He chose the former. For Adam, companionship with Eve trumped companionship with God. He ate the fruit that God had prohibited. He broke the only rule they had!!

I can appreciate the sentiment of the vocalists (Karen Carpenter), “I’d like to see her happy before the winter comes. . . . Eve, you are a rose, now living with thorns. I wish her well, but the winter is coming.!!!”

The music is hauntingly beautiful. The lyrics are provocatively warning the listener that our decisions have consequences. (Well written stories don’t have to be long. . . although some are.)

God, by nature, is good. We, by nature, aren’t, until we are created again. Thanks be to the Lord Jesus for making possible our re-creation.

 

COMMENTS ARE WELCOME

 

 

The Wisdom of an Unknown Believer who believes that . . .

25 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by stertin in Advice along the way, Change, Other authors, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Prayer, Proverbs, Quotes

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eager to find out a secret???, it's taking a long time, the act of an instant, the happiest of people, the wisdom of an unknown believer

Although I know not who this believer is, I wish I did; I don’t like not being able to express my thanks ! !

The Wisdom of an Unknown Believer who believes that . . .

  • no matter how good a friend is, they’re going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
  • true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love.
  • you can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life.
  • it’s taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.
  • you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
  • you can keep going long after you think you can’t.
  • we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.
  • either you control your attitude or it controls you.
  • heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.
  • my best friend and I can do anything or nothing, and have the best time.
  • sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you’re down will be the ones to help you get back up.
  • sometimes when I’m angry I have the right to be angry,  but that doesn’t give me the right to be cruel.
  • maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you’ve had and what you’ve learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you’ve celebrated.
  • it isn’t always enough, to be forgiven by others, but to truly forgive others is what will set you free.
  • no matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn’t stop for your grief.
  • our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but, we are responsible for who we become.
  • you shouldn’t be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever.
  • people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.
  • your life can be changed in a matter of hours by people who don’t even know you.
  • when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you – you will find the strength to help.
  • the happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they make the most of everything they have.

.

.

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Sowing Subversion in the Field of Relativism (thanks, Dr. Chan)

20 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by stertin in Advice along the way, Change, Clear and logical thinking, Other authors, Theology - God

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clear thinking about pluralism, Commending the truth, From Pluralism to Relativism, Mark L Y Chan, religious pluralism moves to the West, Sowing subversion, Truth and Moral Choice

“Sowing Subversion in the field of Relativism”

Mark L Y Chan, PhD (University of Nottingham)

Due to globalization and the migration of peoples across national boundaries, religious pluralism has become more pronounced in the so-called Christian West. A shrinking world has brought religions and their adherents closer to each other.

We meet people of other races. We learn about their cultures and beliefs through television and the Internet. The growing presence of mosques and temples—not to mention ethnic (i.e., non-Western) restaurants—reflects the increasingly multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of Western societies.

This pluralism may be relatively new in the West, but it has always been the order of the day in the lands of Asia. Virtually all the major world religions have their roots in Asian history, and they continue to command the allegiance of billions.

The majority of Christians today live alongside people of other faiths. In this, they are not unlike the earliest Christians, who proclaimed Jesus as Savior and Lord in the face of the many gods and lords of Greco-Roman society.

Like them, we are called to embrace, embody, and declare the truth that God has revealed himself definitively and finally in Jesus Christ. Through his death and resurrection, sinners find forgiveness of sin and are reconciled to God. How then shall we proclaim the finality of Christ, given the fact of religious pluralism and the relativizing of absolute truth claims that often comes with it?

Living in a racially and religiously diverse society, Singapore’s Christians have had to learn not only how to live with adherents of other religions, but also how to work with them for the common good. And they are to do this without compromising their faith. Some argue that social harmony can only be achieved and maintained if religionists desist from making exclusive truth claims. The church’s challenge is to demonstrate the fallacy of this way of thinking. 

From Pluralism to Relativism

Some Christian thinkers have jettisoned the uniqueness of Christ and embraced pluralism. They maintain that all religions are equally valid paths to God or an ultimate divine reality, and that no single religion can claim to have the final word on truth.

They move beyond a descriptive and social pluralism, which allows for a diversity of religious expressions, to a metaphysical pluralism. Such pluralistic ideas (in both the West and Asia) unwittingly sound like Vedanta Hinduism, which teaches that, just as all rivers flow into the same ocean, so all religions lead to the same ultimate reality. Jesus is but one among many ways to that reality.

Some professing Christians in Asia regard Christ as but one avatar among many possible manifestations of the divine. Their relativizing of the truth of Christ owes much to the monistic assumptions of their culture. To be sure, followers of Christ in Asia need to embody the truth within their cultural contexts, but never at the expense of God’s truth.

To pluralists, religions are historically contingent expressions of an underlying ultimate spiritual reality. They argue that one should look beyond creedal distinctions to the life transformation that comes from an experiential encounter with that basic reality that all religions point to and mediate.

This decoupling of spirituality from religion not only carries the aroma of political correctness, it also sits well with the postmodern tenor of our time.

Postmodernism defies easy characterization. It means different things to different people, and Christians are not uniform in their attitude about it. What concerns us are the more deconstructive and radical aspects of postmodernism, particularly its incredulity toward absolute truth, its rejection of all overarching stories that explain life and give it meaning, and its relativization of all truth claims. These aspects have major ramifications for the whole church in her efforts to embody the whole gospel and bring it to the whole world.

The postmodern mindset is allergic to universal and absolute truth. We simply do not have access to the absolute truth, the postmodernist says; all we have are truths—social constructs fashioned from raw materials drawn from historical and social contexts. In place of truth as an overarching metanarrative, postmodernists offer community-specific stories that have no truth-validity outside the communities in which they function.

Postmodernism tribalizes truth. If truth is a matter of perspective, then everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Postmodernists celebrate a diversity of viewpoints and embrace differences. Since there is no neutral or trans-contextual platform from which to judge competing claims, one simply has to put up with a multiplicity of viewpoints jostling for supremacy and acceptance.

To the postmodern pluralist, truth is whatever emerges at the end of the struggle between claims. Truth is defined by power, because all claims to truth are simply manipulative attempts by the powerful, or those with vested interests, to impose their will.

To postmodern pluralists, to assert that Jesus is Truth Incarnate may well be a front for colonial imperialism, cultural chauvinism, or religious intolerance. Here’s a hermeneutic of suspicion in the service of political correctness!

Truth and Moral Choices

The same suspicion applies to morality. Questions of right and wrong are attempts by others to impose their will on us. Why should one accept other people’s definitions of right and wrong? Postmodern thinking soon leads to the kind of moral relativism where judging between right and wrong is a matter of private interpretation.

Without a universal framework of right and wrong, the claims of the terrorists who detonate themselves and take innocent lives have as much validity as those who dispatch troops to forcefully stop them.

On what basis can a postmodernist oppose others’ choices? Whether people are experimenting with embryos or making money off corrupt regimes or providing financial shelter for crooked business corporations, there’s no basis for saying they are wrong. Only expediency and economic pragmatism have the final say.

The same goes for decisions at the individual level. Right and wrong are most often determined on the basis of what is useful or what best fulfills a person’s aspirations.

Such decisive individualism is ironic, given the importance that postmodern thought places on community and tradition. Suspicious of authority and bereft of any transcendent and objective standard by which to offer guidance, individuals fall back on their own authority and decide what is true and right on pragmatic grounds. Postmodernism not only tribalizes truth, it privatizes it as well. We see this, for instance, in the way sexual behavior is considered a private matter, left for the individual to decide.

This individualistic orientation fits neatly with the de-centered, anti-authoritarian, and egalitarian character of our Internet age. Its impact is evident in the way spirituality is often understood. Those who sign up for a pluralistic view of ultimate spiritual reality—one that is ineffable, amorphous, and independent of religious truth claims—can be spiritual without getting mixed up in institutional religion. They are free to pick and choose from the wide array of religious ideas and fashion a mix-and-match spirituality after their own image. So we find those today who in one breath affirm the incarnation of Christ and in another preach reincarnation.

Such freedom is attractive. Adding to its appeal is the oft-repeated contention that exclusivists are naive, arrogant, disrespectful of other cultures, and intolerant of other faiths. Their absolutist views serve only to heighten interreligious tension, exacerbate intercommunal conflict, and in some cases, even incite violence. To avoid further polarizing our badly fragmented world, one must, some argue, adopt a pluralistic approach to religions and a relativistic stance on truth.

What do we make of the claims and criticisms of the relativist? And how shall we commend the truth of the gospel today? 

Commending the Truth

To begin with, the belief that knowledge of the truth necessarily translates into arrogant intolerance confuses conviction with condescension and rational disagreement with disagreeable behavior.

Over the years, the National Council of Churches of Singapore has conversed with the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore about matters that concern both religious communities. They have had friendly exchanges, for instance, on how each faith understands community engagement. The bishops, imams, and theologians who gather are all committed believers, and there is no question about their having deep differences. Yet the tone of their interactions has always been gracious and respectful, and because of this, the gatherings have been productive.

Real tolerance entails putting up with what one considers to be error. Precisely because there are genuine differences between people, we see tolerance as a virtue.

By insisting that there is no such thing as universal truth, except the universal truth that there is no such thing as universal truth, relativism is as absolutist as the claim that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. One cannot insist with the pluralist that all religious and moral truth claims are equally valid, and at the same time maintain with the relativist that there is no one ultimate truth that alone makes sense of the diversity of truth claims.

The Christian faith condemns arrogance and an attitude of superiority toward people of other faiths and, for that matter, people of no faith.

To be sure, there have been bigoted Christians and very insensitive practices within missions and evangelism in the church’s long history. But these are indicative of the church’s shameful failures rather than the essence of Christian faith.

Christians are called to love rather than tolerate people, and in so doing to mirror God’s love for all people. This includes ardent relativists, sanguine pluralists, and pugnacious atheists. In commending the truth in the face of relativism, we must keep in mind that we are at root dealing with people, not cold ideas. The relativist is not just a representative of a worldview but a flesh-and-blood person with all the needs and longings of a human made in God’s image. More important than winning the argument against relativism is winning the relativist for Christ.

Convinced relativists, like people everywhere, are not immune to difficulties and troubles. A global economic downturn or a devastating earthquake does not discriminate between relativists and exclusivists. When relativists are struck down by the exigencies of life, it is rare that cogent arguments for truth will draw them. More likely, it is practical care and concern shown by loving Christians. We cannot provide warmth to a cold relativism, but we can wrap a blanket around a shivering relativist.

Meeting people of all faiths and persuasions at the level of our common humanity is a good starting place to share the truth of Christ. In the safety of genuine friendship, where trust is earned and respected, people can honestly question their fundamental assumptions. Christians can sow seeds of subversion in the field of relativism by raising questions about the adequacy of moral relativism as a guide for living. Can one really live without absolute truth? How many are actually persuaded that there is no difference between Mother Teresa and Pol Pot?

Relativists may insist on the absence of universal truth, but they instinctively assume the reality of it. This is because people have an irrepressible yearning for God and a longing for the truth. God’s truth will prevail because there is something coherent and persuasive about his Word, something that rings true to life.

Given the relativistic temper of our times, it’s easy for the church to lose confidence in the gospel as “the power of God unto salvation” and to back off from proclaiming Christ as the only way to God. To guard against this loss of nerve, Christians need to be seriously grounded in the truth of Scripture and the knowledge of Christ. The work of commending truth in our world must therefore begin at home—in the life, worship, and disciple-making catechesis of our churches.

To believe in absolute truth is to run counter to the spirit of the age. We can expect to be ridiculed, ostracized, and opposed. We need to be reminded that the one who was Truth Incarnate, the one John describes as “full of grace and truth,” became Truth Crucified at the hands of those bent on snuffing out the light of truth. Darkness did not have the last word. Light pierced the tomb of Jesus, and in the resurrection of Christ, we have Truth Vindicated.

(Dr Chan is a lecturer in theology at Trinity Theological College, Singapore, and editor of Church and Society in Asia Today.  This piece was retrieved from Christianity Today, February, 2010 at http://www.christianitytoday.com/globalconversation/february2010/index.html)

 

Overheard in the mind of an “experienced” but frustrated veteran of life!!

15 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by stertin in Other authors, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Sayings

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Did the caller drop the phone?, shirts get dirty- but pants?, the movie I watched as a youngster, the sense of camaraderie, the tipping chair, your productive output

Overheard in the mind of an “experienced” but frustrated veteran of life!!

Have you met the one in whose mind runs the following????

  • I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.
  • There is great need for a sarcasm font.
  • How are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
  • Was learning cursive really necessary?
  • Bad decisions make good stories.
  • Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.
  • You may not know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you realize your productive output for the day is done.
  • I almost always worry when I exit my Word document and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page document that I think I did not change.
  • I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello?), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voice mail. Did the caller drop the phone and run away?
  • I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste!
  • I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
  • I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
  • Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had absolutely no idea what was going on when I first saw it.
  • I would rather try to carry 10 over-loaded plastic bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
  • I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
  • How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear or understand a word they said?
  • I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent someone from cutting in at the front. “Stay strong brothers and sisters!”
  • Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
  • There’s no worse feeling than that milli-second you’re sure you are going down after leaning your chair back a little too far.

The author desires to remain anonymous!!!.  I can understand why.

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How to become a successful religion, by Mark Galli

10 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by stertin in Biblical personages / passage, Other authors, Stories

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"Christianity Today", "nobody cares about the past!, adding insult to injury, becoming a successful religion, Director of New Ventures, effectiveness potential, Mark Galli, marketing inefficiency by "the Holy Spirit" ?, speaking of jail, your leading PR man - Peter

“How to Become a Successful Religion” – A marketing consultant advises early church leaders  (thanks, Mark Galli)

 

To: James, President of the Jerusalem Council
Re: Initial Impressions

Shalom Marketing Ltd. was recently contacted by a member of your council, asking us to tell you about our services. He said to make it clear that he was footing the bill for this initial evaluation, with the hopes that our sound advice will encourage the council to hire us to guide your marketing efforts for the next strategic stage in your movement’s life.

We have heard reports of your movement for some time now—who hasn’t?—and our initial impressions are very positive! You seem to have dynamic leadership, organizational flexibility, and a natural touch with the people. Add some sophisticated marketing—well, who knows how successful you can become! Naturally, this brief memo will, by its nature, point out areas in need of attention, but make no mistake: We have great optimism about what we call your “effectiveness potential.”

Let’s begin with one of your leading PR men, Peter, who is clearly a gifted communicator. We believe he would find that our seminar “Winning Techniques for Effective Communication” would help him be more effective still! Unfortunately, he has the regular habit of berating his audience, just at the moment when he has them eating out of his hand.

For example, after that day when everyone thought you all were having one giant party in the middle of the day (by the way, that was a stroke of marketing genius, to show everyone that you all know how to have a good time), Peter gave what frankly was a long-winded speech (we’d recommend no more than five minutes in the future), rehearsing a great deal of history (we’d recommend sticking with the present; nobody cares about the past anymore), and then ended on a couple of awkward notes.

First, he made a point of emphasizing the death of your movement’s founder, reminding one and all of recent bloody events. This, of course, casts a rather negative spell on the moment, as people were reminded of something unpleasant. Instead he should be spending a lot more time on your founder’s so-called resurrection. We do not, as a matter of policy, judge the veracity of any group’s religious claims, but we certainly recognize the resurrection’s marketing appeal. It appears to be core to your business, so we would certainly encourage you to exploit its potential.

The other uncomfortable note was when Peter added insult to injury, blaming the crowd for killing your founder: “This Jesus … you crucified.” And then he implies that the crowd is full of “lawless men.” And if they didn’t get the point, he drove home this indelicate point at the end of the sermon: “Let all the house of Israel [now equated with lawlessness] therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

We understand that Peter would have likely still been grieving over the death of the founder, but insulting your audience is not the way to win friends to the movement. 🙂

Granted, a reported 3,000 people were added to your movement that day, which only speaks of Peter’s incredible PR gifts. For if he could convince so many to sign up after this presentation, how many more could he have gotten had he been using the tools of “Winning Techniques for Effective Communication”?

Unfortunately, Peter did the same thing after that extraordinary incident with the lame man. More history, more death, and more insults, ending with, “But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life … .”

He tried to soften the blow by telling them, “Brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance,” but of course this likely came across as patronizing. It’s no wonder that the religious leaders were “greatly annoyed,” as one report had it, and then threw Peter and John into jail.

Yes, another 2,000 joined the movement right after that, but again, what could have been accomplished if more effective communication techniques had been employed?

Speaking of jail, we would encourage your leaders to avoid jail time as much as possible. We know that the movement is controversial and that the Jerusalem authorities have a short fuse, so a run-in with the authorities is inevitable from time to time. It does give your movement the sexy rebel image, which can be a plus. But try to work with the authorities when you can.

We’d also encourage you to make better use of your talent pool. Take the deacon Philip, who apparently is another gifted communicator. Reports of his successful work in Samaria have come to us. But then we heard that, on a whim, he up and left what was a very effective outreach to start a work in the middle of nowhere—a desert road in Gaza. We recognize that living by faith is a core value to your movement, but you are not going to get anywhere if you don’t stay in the population centers. Yes, we heard he had a very successful networking moment with a government official from Ethiopia, and this is no small thing. But it would nonetheless be wise to marshal maximum talent at points of maximum potential return.

We understand there is lots of talk about “repentance” in these marketing presentations, and we understand that personal moral change is required in the movement. But it’s not wise to put that up front in your initial presentations. Along with the death of your founder, we advise you to downplay talk of repentance until people are well into the movement. You don’t want to push people away needlessly before you show them all that you have to offer.

There also seems to be a fair amount of mission confusion. Some are saying you are a Jewish religion, others a religion for all takers. We advise against the latter until you are well established in Judea first. So we encourage you to curtail the activities of that fellow Paul and his friend Barnabas. If they are successful in their outreach, it will prematurely muddy the movement and confuse people. If you insist on reaching out to Gentiles (frankly, we’d advise against it, since it will only work against your outreach to your target audience), you can do so once your reputation is firmly established.

(By the way, we’ve heard that many in the movement attribute the marketing inefficiencies I’ve noted to the leading of “the Holy Spirit.” But do you really want to blame the Almighty for hampering your ability to be efficient and successful? We would think not.)

Finally, there is the issue of brand confusion. Some say you are called “The Way,” others “Christians.” Some people probably think these are two different movements!

First, you need to decide on a logo quickly. Some in your movement are suggesting the cross, no doubt the same group who can’t keep quiet about the crucifixion of your founder. This would be a disastrous move in our view. We’d want to do some focus groups to determine the best logo, and no, that does not come cheap. But it is well worth the investment, believe us.

As for your name, that too will take some concerted research. We recommend in the interim that you stay away from “Christians,” as that will only remind people of your founder and his gruesome death. We think “Followers of Jesus” would work, as it would focus on the life of your founder and emphasize his ethical genius. It would also downplay redemptive religion, with all its talk of sin and repentance, as well as that business about his coming again (such speculative theology will do your movement no good, in our opinion). “Followers of Jesus” is also vague enough to leave room for the imagination, allowing you to shape the movement according to the felt needs of your target audience.

Naturally, we have many more suggestions—and we have yet to do any formal marketing studies! Given your initial success, we have no doubt that if you take these suggestions, you will become not only a successful faith in the region, but likely a popular and respected religion of the empire.

Respectfully yours,

Levi, son of Joachim of Bethel
Director of New Ventures
Shalom Marketing, Ltd.

*********************

taken from Christianity Today, August 19, 2010 –www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/augustweb-only/43-41.0.html

The conversation I never knew about – until much later (“Happy Birthday, Beloved”)

05 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by stertin in Other authors, Pointing beyond the common and natural, Quotes, Stories

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

a walk with a four year old daughter, apples and trees, Happy Birthday, the conversation I never knew about, the Mommy Test, you have to be the daddy

The conversation I never knew about!! – until much later . . . . “Happy Birthday, Beloved!”

I knew there had to be some explanation, some reason why. But, I was kept in the dark. Probably they thought I couldn’t handle the truth. Probably they were right. But, I finally did hear the story of the conversation that they had. It went something like this, as I finally heard from the one who should have known:

I was out walking with my 4 year old daughter. She picked up something off the ground and started to put it in her mouth. I took the item away from her and I asked her not to do that.

“Why?” my daughter asked.

“Because it’s been lying outside, you don’t know where it’s been, it’s dirty and probably has germs” I replied.

At this point, my daughter looked at me with total admiration and asked, “Wow! How do you know all this stuff?”

“Uh,”  I was thinking quickly, “All moms know this stuff. It’s on the Mommy Test. You have to know it, or they don’t let you be a Mommy.”

We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information. “OH…I get it!” she beamed, “So if you don’t pass the test, you have to be the daddy.”

“Exactly” I replied back with a big smile on my face and joy in my heart.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BELOVED – –

Your three daughters are the apples that fell really close to the tree!!

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