TODAY'S VERSE: Colossians 3:23-24

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." [New International Version (NIV) Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society]

TODAY’S MESSAGE

I'm sure it has happened to you at least once in your lifetime. You work hard... you wake up every morning and strive to give your best... you make your greatest effort to please your boss, spouse, parents, church leaders... but you feel you're doing too much and not being recognized for it... or you're giving away too much time and not being paid enough... or you simply feel not appreciated at all. Ever felt this way?

I know exactly how it feels, for I've been there many times. But God is watching, and He does not lose sight of the facts. He also sees your heart... your attitude... your great desire to serve Him and others... your willingness to go the extra mile... your desire to please Him over everyone and everything else. And He'll definitely honor you for it.

Let us never forget Who we work and live for, Who our real boss is. And as we take care of serving and pleasing Him, He'll take care of placing us in the right place at the right time. We'll never lose when He is in charge!

TODAY'S PRAYER

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for watching over me and not losing sight of my daily circumstances. Teach me to rely on Your grace each day to continue doing my very best wherever You place me, and thank You for the doors of opportunity that will soon open for me. This I pray in Jesus' name and with a heart of thanksgiving and praise, amen.

Romans 1:20 From the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.

We all have heard the one liner that you may be the only bible that someone may ever read and it is true. One thing He writes in us is that He is the God of Transformation. Let's read in Paul's 2nd letter to Corinth:

 But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.  For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech-unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away.  But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.  Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.  Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord . [2 Corinthians 3:7-18]           

As the Lord transforms us from glory to glory, He is writing it down in our hearts for all to read.  The Greek word for transformed is metamorphoo, which is the same as our English word for metamorphosis-the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Every child learned in science class that the struggle to get out of the cocoon is part of the transformation process. Cutting the cocoon open early to help the butterfly out will actually destroy it in the end. We can gain much insight from this little picture. Don't try for shortcuts with God but submit to the process of transformation as God truly writes the story of your transformation into the image of His dear Son: 

 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10) 

 The Lord is writing a letter in your heart. Just as we can read the book of Revelation to see how the big letter ends, we can see that from the beginning the Lord has known how our stories end. We walk it out as we stay in the cocoon, as we allow Him to write the story. Want to Know More Give the Lord a call !!!! 

Jeremiah 33:3 Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and wondrous things you do not know.

“10¢ Off Every Gallon!” the sign declared to all who passed. A car or truck occupied every pump. From the road at 45 mph, one couldn’t read the small print. These details might have disappointed some bargain hunters, but I knew what it said because I was heading to buy gas. The ten cents off came when you spent so much at the grocery store that ran the gas station. My wife had accomplished this feat (not hard with three kids, even though she is a top-notch couponer), and I was armed with her grocery card to scan for the discount. Others, I am sure, were disappointed to find the discount unavailable to them. 

Like that sign, which declared a fact for all to see, the Romans’ lives also made a declaration. Unlike that sign, though, the Romans had no small print or asterisks to surprise someone. In his travels around the Empire, Paul had witnessed the Romans’ faith. How does one witness faith? Faith produces fruit. Undoubtedly, some fruit from the Roman church in the form of a believer had come in contact with Paul. He met and talked with someone who had come to faith or had grown due to his or her involvement with the church in Rome. He witnessed the faith of a church many hundreds of miles away by inspecting fruitful lives.

That leads me to ask: where am I bearing fruit? Do I declare to the world that I have faith through a fruitful life? This verse convicts me to see every day and every encounter as an opportunity to declare my faith. 

“And age to age He stands, and time is in His hand, beginning and the end.
The Godhead Three in One, Father, Spirit, Son; the Lion and the Lamb - How great is our God!”

Dear Lord, choices … conflicts … how do I know what You want and need me to do, and how do I filter out the noise and distractions? I pray for wisdom and discernment, and the clearness of mind and heart to follow Your guidance, but forgive me, Lord – I do not always know what that guidance is. Do I need to pray as Christ did, so that I sweat drops of blood? I am trying, Lord – I really and truly am. Please help me find the right way and the right path, and help me make the right decisions – ones that will best serve You and Your kingdom. Amen.

It will not be out of place to consider the ancient tradition, teaching and faith of the Catholic Church, which was revealed by the Lord, proclaimed by the Apostles and guarded by the Fathers. For upon this faith the Church is built, and if anyone were to lapse from it, he would no longer be a Christian either in fact or in name.

We acknowledge the Trinity, holy and perfect, to consist of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In this Trinity there is no intrusion of any alien element or of anything from outside, nor is the Trinity a blend of creative and created being. It is a wholly creative and energizing reality, self-consistent and undivided in its active power, for the Father makes all things through the Word and in the Holy Spirit, and in this way the unity of the holy Trinity is preserved. Accordingly, in the Church, one God is preached, one God who is above all things and through all things and in all things. God is above all things as Father, for he is principle and source; he is through all things through the Word; and he is in all things in the Holy Spirit.

Writing to the Corinthians about spiritual matters, Paul traces all reality back to one God, the Father, saying: Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in everyone.

Even the gifts that the Spirit dispenses to individuals are given by the Father through the Word. For all that belongs to the Father belongs also to the Son, and so the graces given by the Son in the Spirit are true gifts of the Father. Similarly, when the Spirit dwells in us, the Word who bestows the Spirit is in us too, and the Father is present in the Word. This is the meaning of the text: My Father and I will come to him and make our home in him. For where the light is, there also is the radiance; and where the radiance is, there too are its power and its resplendent grace.

This is also Paul's teaching in his second letter to the Corinthians: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. For grace and the gift of the Trinity are given by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. Just as grace is given from the Father through the Son, so there could be no communication of the gift to us except in the Holy Spirit. But when we share in the Spirit, we possess the love of the Father, the grace of the Son and the fellowship of the Spirit himself.

Like having a regular walking program to keep myself fit. But it's not even going to mention how much or how far I've actually practiced.

Oh well..guess I'll just continue to ...be lazy !

It’s no big secret that I’m not a big fan of mainstream media, and the horrible turn that I’ve watched it take towards sensationalism as it embraces a more and more tabloid like mentality each and every day. There used to be a time when reporters and journalist were not afraid to ask the tough questions, they were not intimidated by the powerful people who they investigate, and that they would actually take the time to report the news rather than create it.

I’m a firm believer it that old saying that it’s newsperson’s job to make what’s important, interesting; not to make what’s interesting, important.

I could go into some long bitter diatribe about how the quality of news broadcasts was so much better before the networks decided that the news divisions of their respective stations could no longer run at a loss, but rather needed to do things to boost their ratings so that they could start to turn a profit with the sale of advertising… but I don’t think that I need to, it’s more than obvious when you watch the news anyway.

My faith in the major news networks has been minimal to say the least with the growing popularity of sensationalist news programs like Nancy Grace and To Catch A Predator, which ammount to nothing more than the news channel equivilant of the Jerry Springer Show. It seams that just at the moment that I’m ready to give up on them all together, something happens to renew my faith… Enter Keith Olbermann of MSNBC.

The following is a transcript from Countdown With Keith Olbermann that originally aired on May 15th 2008, the full video can be viewed here (recommended).

OLBERMANN: Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on two topics a lot of us had foolishly thought, and had naively hoped, we would not again have to address, and a third topic nobody thought a President would ever seriously mention in public, unless perhaps he‘d just been hit in the head with something and was not in full possession of his faculties, how he expressed his empathy to the families of the dead in Iraq by giving up golf.

The President has resorted anew to the sleaziest fear-mongering and mass manipulation of an administration of a public life dedicated to realizing the lowest of our expectations. And he has now applied these poisons to the 2008 presidential election, on behalf of the party at whose center he and Mr. McCain lurk.

Mr. Bush has predicted that the election of a Democratic president could, quote, “eventually lead to another attack on the United States.”

This ludicrous, infuriating, holier-than-thou and most importantly bone-headedly wrong statement came yesterday during an interview with Politico.com and online users of Yahoo. The question was phrased as follows: “If we were to pull out of Iraq next year, what‘s the worst that could happen, what‘s the doomsday scenario?”

The President replied: “Doomsday scenario of course is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States.

“The biggest issue we face is, it‘s bigger than Iraq, it‘s this ideological struggle against cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives.”

Mr. Bush, at long last, has it not dawned on you that the America you have now created, includes ‘cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives‘? They are those in, or formerly in, your employ, who may yet be charged some day with war crimes. Through your haze of self-congratulation and self-pity, do you still have no earthly clue that this nation has laid waste to Iraq to achieve your political objectives?

‘This ideological struggle‘ you speak of, Mr. Bush, is taking place within this country. It is a struggle between Americans who cherish freedom, ours and everybody else‘s, and Americans like you, sir, to whom freedom is just a brand name, just like “Patriot Act” is a brand name or “Protect America” is a brand name.

But wait, there‘s more.

You also said “Iraq is the place where al Qaeda and other extremists have made their stand and they will be defeated.”

They made no “stand” in Iraq, sir. You allowed them to assemble there! As certainly as if that were the plan, the borders were left wide open by your government‘s farcical post-invasion strategy of ‘they‘ll greet us as liberators.‘

And as certainly as if that were the plan, the inspiration for another generation of terrorists in another country was provided by your government‘s farcical post-invasion strategy of letting the societal infrastructure of Iraq dissolve, to be replaced by an American Vice-Royalty enforced by merciless mercenaries who shoot unarmed Iraqis and then evade prosecution in any country by hiding behind your skirts, sir.

Terrorism inside Iraq is your creation, Mr. Bush!

It was a Yahoo user who brought up the second topic, upon whose introduction Mr. Bush should have passed, or punted, or gotten up and left the room, claiming he heard Dick Cheney calling him.

“Do you feel,” asked an ordinary American, “that you were misled on Iraq?”

“I feel like—I felt like there were weapons of mass destruction. You know, “mislead” is a strong word, it almost connotes some kind of intentional—I don‘t think so, I think there was a—not only our intelligence community, but intelligence communities all across the world shared the same assessment. And so I was disappointed to see how flawed our intelligence was.”

Flawed?

You, Mr. Bush, and your tragically know-it-all minions, threw out every piece of intelligence that suggested there were no such weapons. You, Mr. Bush, threw out every person who suggested that the sober, contradictory, reality-based intelligence needed to be listened to, and damn fast. You, Mr. Bush, are responsible for how “intelligence communities all across the world shared the same assessment.”

You and the sycophants you dredged up and put behind the most important steering wheel in the world propagated palpable nonsense and shoved it down the throat of every intelligence community across the world, and punished everybody who didn‘t agree it was really chicken salad.

And you, Mr. Bush, threw under the bus all of the subsequent critics who bravely stepped forward later to point out just how much of a self-fulfilling prophecy you had embraced, and adopted as this country‘s policy, in lieu of, say, common sense.

The fiasco of pre-war intelligence, sir, is your fiasco.

You should build a great statue of yourself turning a deaf ear to the warnings of the realists, while you are shown embracing the three-card monte dealers, like Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. That would be a far more fitting tribute to your legacy, Mr. Bush, than this Presidential library you are constructing as a giant fable about your presidency, an edifice you might as claim was built from Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, because there will be just as many of those inside your Presidential library as there were inside Saddam Hussein‘s Iraq.

Of course, if there is one over-riding theme to this president‘s administration it is the utter, always-failing, inability to know when to quit when it is behind. And so Mr. Bush answered yet another question about this layered, nuanced, wheels-within-wheels garbage heap that constituted his excuse for war.

“And so you feel that you didn‘t have all the information you should have or the right spin on that information?”

“No, no,” replied the President. “I was told by people that they had weapons of mass destruction.”

People?

What people?

The insane informant “Curveball?”

The Iraqi snake-oil salesman Ahmed Chalabi?

The American snake-oil salesman Dick Cheney?

“I was told by people that they had weapons of mass destruction, as were members of Congress, who voted for the resolution to get rid of Saddam Hussein.

“And of course, the political heat gets on and they start to run and try to hide from their votes.”

Mr. Bush, you destroyed the evidence that contradicted the resolution you jammed down the Congress‘s throat, the way you jammed it down the nation‘s throat. When required by law to verify that your evidence was accurate, you simply re-submitted it, with phrases amounting to “See, I done proved it,” virtually written in the margins in crayon. You defied patriotic Americans to say “The Emperor Has No Clothes” only this time with the stakes—as you and the mental dwarves in your employ put it—being a “mushroom cloud over an American city.”

And as a final crash of self-indulgent nonsense, when the incontrovertible truth of your panoramic and murderous deceit has even begun to cost your political party seemingly perpetual Congressional seats in places like North Carolina and, last night, Mississippi, you can actually say with a straight face, sir, that the members of Congress, “the political heat gets on and they start to run and try to hide from their votes,” while you greet the political heat and try to run and hide from your presidency, and your legacy.

Four thousand of the Americans you were supposed to protect are dead in Iraq, with your only feeble, pathetic answer being, “I was told by people that they had weapons of mass destruction.”

Then came Mr. Bush‘s final blow to our nation‘s solar plexus, his last re-opening of our common wounds, his last remark that makes the rest of us question not merely his leadership or his judgment but his very suitably to remain in office.

“Mr. President,” he was asked, “you haven‘t been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?

“Yes,” began perhaps the most startling reply of this nightmarish blight on our lives as Americans, on our history.

“It really is. I don‘t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as—to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

Golf, sir?

Golf sends the wrong signal to the grieving families of our men and women butchered in Iraq?

Do you think these families, Mr. Bush, their lives blighted forever, care about you playing golf?

Do you think, sir, they care about you?

You, Mr. Bush, you who let their sons and daughters be killed. Sir, to show your solidarity with them you gave up golf? Sir, to show your solidarity with them you didn‘t give up your pursuit of this insurance-scam, profiteering, morally and financially bankrupting war. Sir, to show your solidarity with them you didn‘t even give up talking about Iraq, a subject about which you have incessantly proved without pause or backwards glance, that you may literally be the least informed person in the world?

Sir, to show your solidarity with them, you didn‘t give up your presidency? In your own words “solidarity as best as I can” is to stop a game? That is the “best” you can?

Four thousands Americans give up their lives and your sacrifice was to give up golf!

Golf.

Not “gulf”—golf.

And still it gets worse.

Because it proves that the President‘s unendurable sacrifice, his unbearable pain, the suspension of getting to hit a stick with a ball, was not even his own damned idea.

“Mr. President, was there a particular moment or incident that brought you to that decision, or how did you come to that?”

“I remember when de Mello was killed, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man‘s life. And I was playing golf—I think I was in central Texas—and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it‘s just not worth it any more to do.”

Your one, tone-deaf, arrogant, pathetic, embarrassing gesture, and you didn‘t even think of it yourself? The great Bushian sacrifice, an Army private loses a leg, a Marine loses half his skull, four thousand of their brothers and sisters lose their lives, you lose golf and they have to pull you off the golf course to get you to just do that?

If it‘s even true.

Apart from your medical files, which dutifully record your torn calf muscle and the knee pain which forced you to give up running at the same time, coincidence no doubt, the bombing in Baghdad which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello of the UN and interrupted your round of golf, was on August 19th, 2003.

Yet there‘s an Associate Press account of you and photographs playing golf as late as Columbus Day of that year, October 13th, nearly two months later. Mr. Bush, I hate to break it to you six-and-a-half years after you yoked this nation and your place in history to the wrong war, in the wrong place, against the wrong people, but the war in Iraq is not about you!

It is not, Mr. Bush, about your grief when American after American comes home in a box. It is not, Mr. Bush, about what your addled brain has produced in the way of paranoid delusions of risks that do not exist, ready to be activated if some Democrat, and not your twin, Mr. McCain, succeeds you.

The war in Iraq, your war, Mr. Bush, is about how you accomplished the derangement of two nations, and how you helped funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to lascivious and perennially thirsty corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater, and how you sent 4,000 Americans to their deaths for nothing.

It is not, Mr. Bush, about your golf game!

And, sir, if you have any hopes that next January 20th will not be celebrated as a day of soul-wrenching, heart-felt Thanksgiving, because your faithless stewardship of this presidency will have finally come to a merciful end, this last piece of advice: when somebody asks you, sir, about Democrats who must now pull this country back from the abyss you have placed us at—when somebody asks you, sir, about the cooked books and faked threats you foisted on a sincere and frightened nation—when somebody asks you, sir, about your gallant, noble, self-abnegating sacrifice of your golf game so as to soothe the families of the war dead; this advice, Mr. Bush: shut the hell up!

Good night, and good luck.

I applaud you Mr. Olbermann, I applaud you. I honestly have no reason for writing this article other than the fact that what you had to say deserves to be quoted, and I am glad that someone in the mainstream media is finally willing to call “bullshit” when they hear it.

I now return you to our regularly scheduled bitter diatribes…

At the group discussion we were presented with a number of points for discussion out of which my group only got to no 1, whether or not it's legitimate for the state to fund schools that are more or less exclusively tied to a particular religion. I think I was the only one who said that it's not only legitimate but even a duty for the state to do so. Even without relating the discussion to the infallible judgments in Quanta Cura, parental control of the child's education would require the state to support schools of this type.

It was an interesting evening and an educational foray into modernist territory, that otherwise well educated Catholics can come up with and support such liberalist and releativist attitudes as those I heard baffles me. If I am not busy it would be interesting to see what they have to say on the next occasion when the subject is the Eucharist.

http://www.socyberty.com/Philosophy/Kants-Moral-Argument-for-Gods-Existence.123901

http://www.webupon.com/Blogging/Three-Simple-Ways-to-Increase-WebsiteBlog-Traffic.124133

http://www.picable.com/People/Windmill.124167

http://www.gomestic.com/Personal-Finance/Websites-That-Will-Save-You-a-Lot-of-Money.124237

http://www.socyberty.com/Advice/15-Tips-for-Life-Little-Things-to-Make-Life-Easier-and-More-Fun.124248

http://www.picable.com/Art/Comics/My-New-Webcomic.125048

My stomach was in knots.  My jaw was clenched.  I was wondering how I thought that coming to England would reduce the stress in my life.

Then I decided to go to an event at the local university in the evening.  It was just one of those things that doesn't make logical sense, but I just knew I needed to do it.  So I went.  Pete was speaking on Galatians 5 and the freedom we have in Christ.  The freedom from rules.  The freedom for relationship. The freedom for righteousness and how we need to run away from slavery and embrace this freedom.

When I was sitting in my seat I was getting overwhelmed and felt things happening, but I had no idea what was happening in the rest of the room.  Then he got me to come to the front and write things on the chalkboard and I got to watch the faces of the students in the room.  The stuff was definitely hitting home with people.  When he finished we went into a time of worship and the worship leader asked if the 24-7 folks would be willing to come up front and pray with people who needed it.  That's a no-brainer question!

All these people started coming forward and we prayed with them.  They were crying and laughing and hugging.  Absolutely amazing.  You could just feel God working on people!

Afterwards I found out that this is highly unusual for this campus group.  Evidently we had a little mini-revival going on there.

What a roller coaster of a day!  Starting in frustration and ending with God showing His power to transform people.  Holy cow!

Book statistics: The Blah Story, Volume 12 contains 689,615 words; 3,389,983 characters (with spaces); 812 pages.

The cover of The Blah Story, Volume 12.

The back cover of The Blah Story, Volume 12.

Here’s an excerpt (the first page of The Blah Story, Volume 12):

    Her blah didn’t blah blah to blah some blah advantages. The blah was blah and blah blah, but she blah quite a blah blah blah. Nevertheless, the blah blah that blah gave the blah blah was blah of blah, irony, and blah blah. When blah had blah blah that blah was likely to blah blah a blah once blah she blah no blah of her blah. She blah to blah old blah blah more blah than blah.
    Blah, knowing blah blah well that blah would blah blah blah out if blah blah the blah of blah, blah another blah of blah. She blah after blah blah.
    ‘Blah blah and blah,’ said blah blah, ‘blah did you blah blah me blah with blah blah blah? I haven’t blah for a blah.’
    ‘Blah,’ blah in blah, ‘I blah blah you I blah blah yesterday blah. She blah, no blah, at blah, the other blah blah of blah, so blah to blah in the blah at blah this blah, and she blah blah be blah till blah blah blah.’
    ‘Oh blah, I blah blah now. Well, blah is blah weather to blah in the blah.’
    Blah, however, was blah blah subject, and blah blah having blah it, for, blah to blah, one never blah where blah might blah be blah she blah to blah blah reading. She blah blah blah so often of blah blah to blah herself from blah that blah was blah blah aware of the blah. Blah in the blah of that blah, whose blah was so blah, she blah determined to blah a blah heart.
    ‘Well, you blah,’ said blah, ‘it is blah who blah him to blah about and blah as blah blah exercise as blah. He blah a blah blah that blah the open blah. Blah is very blah for blah blah.’
    Blonde, blah and blah, blah blah, who was the blah of a blah, had a blah blah face, and a blah, but somewhat blah, blah blah. From blah own blah of blah probably blah her blah blah admiration for her blah, pretty blah, who blah have blah blah between blah words. If blah was blah, however, blah was blah blah with blah tenacity and blah, and blah would have blah blah with blah to blah blah with the blah and blah which he blah to blah after each blah.
    ‘Ah, it’s blah,’ she blah, ‘to blah blah to blah our blah so blah away. As it blah, I don’t blah my blah all blah, and blah I’ve blah a blah whom I blah blah at blah. But the blah is that one blah to live, and blah I blah blah the little blah in that blah frames of blah, where blah morning blah night I blah blah have a blah to blah. Blah, I blah help blah at the blah that I blah able to blah and blah his blah. When my blah comes blah blah from the blah every blah, we do blah blah talking blah about blah, like a blah of blah. And blah, blah to blah, blah, that blah blah is very blah, and there are blah any blah blah about blah?’

More info about the book you can find at Amazon.com

As a school pupil I had to endure it every day - the compulsory hymn and routine prayers. Just imagine it, 600 teenage boys with their mind focused on one thing (and believe me, it wasn't god or their Latin homework), growling the hymn as quietly and as nonchalantly as possible (you could get punished for not singing), then standing and trying to provoke other people to laugh during the troubled stillness of the prayers being monotonously intoned by the headteacher. It was a 'really meaningful' religious act.

The Roman Catholics were excused, of course. As I remember it, we didn't persecute them or try to burn them in the school yard at break-times. They were held in awe for having the mysterious secret that enabled them to avoid the daily assembly torture as well as escape the compulsory Religious Education lessons where we quizzed the aging teachers about sex (again, and again, and again, and again).

By the time I became a teacher the hymns had gone, but in the schools I worked in, there had to be an inspiring little homily, usually on a religious theme, and there were still prayers. Although at the time I was a Christian, even I could see the pointlessness of it.

The staff would be betting on how often the headteacher would repeat the same story. When he was often called away at the last minute, the deputy headteacher, knowing I was 'one of them', would often grab me with a look of horror as he was about to walk on the stage and say: "You couldn't just go and do something religious could you?" I was happy to oblige, 1) because helping out the senior management wouldn't harm my career, and 2) because I worked in church youth groups in my spare time I had a fund of ready made bible stories I could quickly adapt. Staff colleagues seemed to be mystified by the fact that I could pray in public without reading anything from a book, but the teenagers did what all teenagers do during prayers in school - they tried to provoke other people to laugh during the troubled stillness. I could see that it was really far from being a meaningful religious act.

Religious communities have been debating the precise purpose of faith schools. For example, in 2001 the Church of England issued a report, "The way ahead: Church of England schools in the new millennium," which marked a radical shift in its position. The report called, in effect, for a subordination of the service to the nurture function. C of E schools, it announced, should be more "distinctively Christian," with a mission to "nourish those of the faith; encourage those of other faiths; challenge those who have no faith... religious education and collective worship should be seen as an integrated experience, with collective worship acting as an expression of what is taught in many RE lessons."

Despite what is happening in the religious schools, the state sector has never seen its role as being overtly evangelical. However, there is an understandable argument that the function of schools is to produce educated, model citizens, and there seems to be this lingering view amongst some in the establishment that one of the best ways of doing this is to give them a forced daily dose of exposure to Christian ritual. (Perhaps with Anglican Bishops still in the House of Lords, and the monarch still as head of the Church, that is not surprising.) Like cod liver oil, a forced daily dose of exposure to Christian ritual may be revolting to take, but it does you good.

The really good news is that some people are beginning to question whether forcing children to endure exposure to religion is against their human rights. As a recent e-bulletin from the British Humanist Association points out:

A report from Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights (13 May, 2008 ) calls for any child of ‘sufficient maturity, intelligence and understanding’ to be given the right to withdraw from compulsory religious worship in schools. Currently, only sixth form students have the right to withdraw themselves, and other children can only be withdrawn at the request of their parents, but the Human Rights Committee have said that this violates children’s rights to freedom of belief and conscience. Writing in support of the Committee’s report to Minister for Schools and Learners, Jim Knight MP, the BHA said, ‘We agree with the JCHR that the law is clearly inconsistent with the European Convention on Human Rights and that children of ‘sufficient maturity, intelligence and understanding’ should be permitted to withdraw themselves from prayer and other worship.’

If there has to be compulsion for school assemblies, god has to go. As Andrew Copson, BHA Director of Education and Public Affairs, commented:

‘The best situation would be the replacement of the law requiring religious worship with a law requiring inclusive assemblies that would be suitable for all children. For as long as the current law remains, however, children must be allowed to decide for themselves whether they wish to participate. To compel them to pray, or worship in other ways, is a clear interference with their right to freedom of belief – one of the most important rights that we enjoy.’

And of course, if I were god, I would want to stop being forced into schools. I would gain no pleasure in gaining worship by compulsion, whether it be from torture or the threat of a school detention. If I were god, I could read hearts and could recognize a sham when I saw one.

The United Methodist Church, via its China based organization Amity Foundation, was on the scene nearly immediately, and has pledged to offer food, clean water, counseling and money.

These last few weeks in Asia have been overwhelming following first the cyclone in Myanmar, and now the earthquake in China. The recovery process for both of these countries will be slow and painful.

UMCOR (the United Methodist Committee on Relief) has been offering immediate and long-term assistance in response to disasters around the world for years, and now is no different.

If you are interested in helping to contribute to their efforts, please consider visiting these links to the UMCOR website.
For earthquake relief:
http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/newsroom/releases/archives08/amityearthquakeresponse/

For cyclone relief:
http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/newsroom/releases/archives08/relieftomyanmar/

For more information on Amity, check out their website:
http://www.amityfoundation.org/ ]]> http://brianakira.wordpress.com/?p=424 Fri, 16 May 2008 08:14:37 +0000 Akira http://brianakira.wordpress.com/?p=424

Icon written by Fr Andre

Dedicated to the memories of Fr Hilary Paweł Januszewski, Cardinal Adam Kozlowiecki, Fr Stefan Grelewski, Fr Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski, Pastor Hermanus Knoop, Pastor Nanne Zwiep, Fr Titus Brandsma, Fr Jean Bernard, Bishop Nikolai Velimirović, Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo Dožić, President Stefan Starzyński, Crown Princess Antonia von Bayern, Duke Albrecht von Bayern, Duke Franz von Bayern, Jacobite King Francis II of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Duke Maximilian von Hohenberg, Prince Ernst von Hohenberg, Princess Sophie of Hohenberg, General Charles Delestraint, and all the innocent inmates at Dachau, 1933-1945.

[n.b. "Innocent" would naturally exclude Dachau inmates such as General Franz Ritter Halder.]

I was in my fourth year in college and interviewing with companies recruiting on campus. I was sitting outside the interview room and started crying. I don't remember now exactly why I cried then but it was generally because I'd been thinking about all the bad things I'd done, things I didn't do but should have, how poorly I treated people, how I'd tried premarital sex but felt hopelessly empty and disconnected afterwards, how I was addicted to pornography, wanted and tried to break from it but couldn't.

Sometime after the interview, I saw a billboard for a Vineyard Christian Fellowship church. I'd gone to Catholic church all my life, but none of the traditions, memorized prayers, and sermons made sense. When I went to Vineyard, I could see that the people there had something I didn't have, and I wanted whatever it was. They were praising and worshipping God so freely and unabashedly. The pastor preached from the Bible in a way that made sense to me-- I could understand the truth of the message.

A few Sundays after first going to Vineyard, I asked someone there after service to help me accept Jesus Christ into my heart. I was surrounded by three people and they stayed with me as I prayed my acceptance prayer: "Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross to pay for my sins. Please come into my heart and life be my LORD."

That day was the beginning of my new life with God. Praise be to Him who created everything and who gave His son Jesus Christ as payment for our sins, that we may be saved from death if we believe in Him. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son Jesus Christ that whoever believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life." John 3:16.

Jesus' Missing Years

By Gregory Koukl

Did Jesus study in India for the "missing" 18 years of His life and then bring back a message reflecting eastern religious thought?

1. There is no historical information what-so-ever that places Jesus in India.
Most "documentation" comes from psychic messages (e.g. The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ and the readings of Edgar Cayce) and they conflict with each other. The only evidence that even claims to be historical was supposedly viewed by Nicolas Notovich in 1887 in a monastery in Tibet. The alleged scrolls about the prophet Issa have never been produced and the monks who were supposed to have them denied any knowledge of either the scrolls or Notovich.

2. The Gospels teach Jesus stayed in Israel.

1. Our best historical accounts strongly imply that Jesus stayed with his family the entire time He grew up, as would be expected of a young Jewish lad.

Matt 2:23 "...and He came and resided in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, 'He shall be called a Nazarene.'"

Lk 2:51-52 "And He went down with them, and came to Nazareth; and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men."
2. Both of these accounts are immediately followed by the account of John the Baptist, implying Jesus' baptism was the next significant event in Jesus' life. If Jesus had traveled to the East it would have been a critical theological event and would not have been left out of the historical record. Jesus' earlier trip to Egypt as an infant (Matt 2:13-15) was included.
3. Other references tell us that the townspeople of Nazareth were taken aback at Jesus' wisdom as He preached. The implication is that He grew up in their midst as a normal Jewish boy. They were amazed at the Messianic emphasis of His ministry. This was an entirely new element.

Lk 4:22 ""And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, 'Is this not Joseph's son?'"

Matt 13:54-56 (cf. Mk 6:3) "And coming to His home town [i.e. the place where He grew up] He began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they became astonished, and said, 'Where did ths man get this wisdom, and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? Where then did this man get all these things?'"

3. The expense and distance make such a trip unlikely.
This kind of travel would have been extremely difficult for a youngster. The distances that had to be covered were incredible for anyone in that time, adult or child, given the methods of transportation. In addition, Jesus came from an extremely poor family who could not afford the incredible expenses a trip like that would incur.

4. Gentile culture was repugnant to Jews.
At that time in history Jewish involvement with gentiles was strictly limited. Non-Jewish culture was repugnant to a Hebraic (as opposed to Hellenistic) Jew. Jesus would have little cultural tolerance for living in the midst of idol worshiping gentiles in India.

5. Jesus taught Judaism, not Hinduism.
Theologically, Jesus' teaching was completely antithetical to the world view of eastern religions. His theology was thoroughly grounded on a Hebraic concept of God and reality. Jesus continued to refer to the Old Testament, indicating His respect for the Law and the prophets and the God of Israel. In fact, He kept the Law impeccably. He never quoted or even alluded to the Vedas.

6. Conclusion:
Every shred of hard evidence we have places Jesus in the land of Israel for His entire life except the brief sojourn in Egypt (which the historical accounts are careful to note).

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 Thursday started out with promise and anticipation. I was excited that we were going to get school done in the morning and head to Kansas City to visit family and see the Bodies Revealed Exhibit. I was excited about there only being two days of school left. It's funny how tender and fragile your self esteem is and how that can affect the rest of you.

First, I had to get two tote bags ready to deliver. They had been flawed in tiny ways. I had fixed the flaws satisfactorily for me, but would the customer be happy with the changes I made. I was dreading dropping them off because I didn't want there to be any disappointment. I wanted to just redo them, but there wasn't time, and when you run a small business you try to make every penny count. Strike One.

Then, Reagan had to write about her school year for her spelling assignment today. This is what she wrote:

I don't reely like home skool beekos my mommy is olwase made at me. I drest up reely pretty today and it is a pretty day otside to. but I am going to get in trodl beekos my mom sed if I don't finish my pagese wen she gets ote of the showere I will by in trabl.

No, I'm not teaching her Old English. It looks like I'm failing at teaching spelling and at teaching about staying on topic. And at being a good homeschooling teacher in general. And at being a mother. I started crying before she even finished reading it to me. Strike Two.

I drove to Kansas City with a headache that lasted the whole day. While at the Bodies exhibit I managed to lose a check I had written to my stepmother to cover the cost of the tickets. How did it fall out of my back pocket? How freaked would Du be when he found out? How much financial info could they get? Could our bank cancel the check without it costing a fortune? Strike Three.

I did have a good day despite these things. It helps to get my mind on other things. And Ashlyn behaved the whole day, which was a special blessing from God in itself. I needed some perspective though.

On the way home this David Crowder Band song came on. "You Never Let Go". Oh my soul, no matter what happens in my life God has a firm grip on me. No matter how far I might stray or for how ever long, He never lets go of me. It's hard to fathom...the God of the universe cares so much about me that He never lets go of me. What peace that brings. It makes these trivial problems disappear. It makes the monumental catastrophes bearable. I don't have to go through anything on my own strength. I can't go through anything on my own strength. But with God firmly holding onto me I can bear anything. It's when I remember that He never lets go, and when I remember that I must let go, that things get better.

My problems today were trivial. If I had needed to redo the bags then I'd just redo them! This customer is a good one and a good friend at that...what was I so worried about? She ended up loving them and showing them to a neighbor. And kids are notorious for living in the present. No, Reagan doesn't generally hate homeschool. It's just lately she's been a little distracted and so I've had to lay on the pressure a little bit more. Most of the time we enjoy school. In her of-the-moment mind though she doesn't immediately think on those times. And the check. If I'd have had to cancel it then I'd have had to cancel it, big deal. I learned that things aren't really safe tucked in your back pocket. (I retrieved the check though. I went to the lost and found in the remote chance that someone found it and actually turned it in. They did).

Lamentations 3:19-25

I remember my affliction and my wandering,

the bitterness and the gall.

I well remember them,

and my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind

and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.”

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,

to the one who seeks him;...

Oh God, You never let go.

!!!

-- Whenever there is a contradiction between church tradition, human reason, or scientific theory, the Bible carries the greater authority. It is authoritative. I cannot offer pure scientific proof of the Bible's authority. I can offer evidence of it's authority, but you must ultimately decide to accept the evidence as true. In a similar fashion, science cannot infallibly prove that human activity is primarily responsible for changes in climate, but it can offer evidence to support a position. Many scientists have formed a consensus in favor or against that position, but no documented, scientific PROOF has been produced. What you believe on the subject is a matter of faith. By trusting the authority and sufficiency of the scripture you will better understand these posts.

-- The Bible is sufficient to explain itself. Mankind does not need additional commentary, analysis, or extra-canonical divine inspiration in order to understand what God is trying to communicate through the Bible. It is literal and contextual. For instance, Luke 13:32 (NASB) says: And He (Jesus) said to them, "Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I reach My goal.' " Jesus wasn't telling people to be Dr. Doolittle and talk to a fox. He was ordering a group of Pharisees to tell sly, crafty King Herod that He was making headlines out in public, even though Herod wanted Him killed.

We tend to want our thinking to be backed up by something logical, rational, or conforming to the majority viewpoint. But you really don't need that other stuff. If you trust the Bible's authority and sufficiency, you'll better understand these posts, and you can trust God to give you the power to understand what he is saying to you personally as you go back and examine the Bible for yourself.

[NOTE: A good sermon on this topic is "The Authority and Sufficiency of Scripture" by Lorne Sanny. You can download his talk in MP3 format at http://www.discipleshiplibrary.com/lorne_sanny.php ]

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