“But thanks be to God…”

But thanks be to God!
He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:57

(Lynch Creek Farms)

Twas the week before Christmas and all through the land
Democrats, and even some Republicans, seemed mad at the man…

Articles of impeachment were hung in the chamber with glee
in hopes that all votes would pass as quickly as could be

The nation tried to carry on with its holiday of cheer
while Democrats greeted the President’s supporters with half-hearted sneers

With Madame Speaker dressed in her mock funeral black
I wanted nothing to do with this presidential attack.

Despite a time that was to be merry and bright…
I avoided all news keeping this debacle from sight…

…..

And thus this entire governmental spectacle has taken hold…

It’s taken on the heaviness of a thick black cloud hanging wearily
over an otherwise merry and joyful time.

All except for those who had “merry impeachment” parties and
dinners last night…and those who clapped in the house upon the resulting vote.
Shameful and boorish behavior by folks who just don’t grasp the magnitude.

This brouhaha that kicked off on election night 2016, has consumed our news outlets,
it has divided this nation deeper and further, it has overshadowed much more important
issues affecting the entire nation and it is doing its darndest to steal
our Christmas joy…

I oddly think that that is indeed Speaker Pelosi’s mindset…
to steal the joy, hence the black and now they’ve all left town…
heading home for parties and fun while leaving the nation and
their unfinished business, hanging in a lurch.

However, could this not have waited until say January…when we’re all already
depressed from dealing with our post-Christmas letdown and seasonal affective
disorders stemming from the lack of light, the gray days and cold winds???

Yet the stealing of joy is exactly what Satan would like.

I am, however, still left feeling very sad as well as mad…
or is that more angry than mad?

I am mad at our governmental leadership.

They have forsaken their duties to govern, write legislations,
vote to pass or pass on various laws…
all because of an obsession that began three years ago along with
a fast leaning slant toward socialism.

Everything about governing has been put on hold all in order
that ‘they’ may “impeach” a president who has committed no crimes.

Now I must confess, I missed Andrew Johnson’s impeachment
as it was slightly before my time…
but the near impeachment and ensuing ‘abdication’ of office by Richard Nixon
made a deep and lasting impression on me.

It made me sad seeing the uglier and smugger side of our politicians
at an age when I could understand what divisiveness was all about.

It was not so much from President Nixon, who I was deeply disappointed in,
but it came from the ensuing three-ring circus that followed the discovery of the
Watergate break-in, clandestine figures like “deep throat” and
the infamous Watergate tapes.

I had never felt so remorseful for our Nation as a whole as I did then—
only to have been surpassed had I been living during the Civil War,
which undoubtedly would have left me feeling fractured just like our country.

For you see, I don’t get mad at the Democrats as a whole nor do I get mad
at the Republicans as a whole…instead, I get sad for our Nation as a whole.

This is so much more than a them vs them…it is rather an us vs us.

I did not care for Bill Clinton.
He looked directly into a camera lens and lied to a nation.
I had to keep our young son from the room during the news lest he
wonder about the constant talk of blue dresses and oral sex…
How would you have explained all of that to a young child who hadn’t a clue about sex
and then have to also explain that was all about our President?

You can’t and you don’t.

I also hate the fact that I feel as if I have to defend the fact that I am a woman
who is conservative.
Yes, I am college-educated.
Yes, I am well-read.
Yes, I have a deep understanding of history.
No, my husband does not tell me how to vote.
Yes, I am a Christian.
No, I do not like how often immature and childish our President acts.
Nor do I not like his tweets or lashing out…

But I see his childishness as the direct reaction to equally childish behavior…
for our government has become a place for children’s tantrums and their tit for tat.

I do, however, like the fact that this President has made good on his promises…
promises that other politicians seem to forget once they come to power.

Think Jerusalem.

And the issue is perhaps not in ‘coming to office’, but rather the ‘coming to power’…
because so much of our troubles stem from not office but power.

I also like the fact that we have a strong economy, a strong stock market, the lowest
unemployment rate in ages and a President who fights for the little guy.

We elected a businessman, not a politician…
and in that lies much of the angst.

We know and understand the leadership, or perhaps that is the lack of leadership, from our
politicians…many of whom are lawyers…we don’t necessarily understand
governmental leadership from a business mogul.

For the record, I am not a deplorable nor am I ignorant.
And as a Christian, I would like a Christian leader…but I’ve yet to find one.

David was at times a most wretched king who made very evil and selfish decisions…
but God still used him to lead a people.

Am I suggesting Trump is a David?
No.
But it shows us how God can use bad for good.

Oh and by the way, this is not Nazi Germany and Trump is no Hitler…
I do not want to hear that comparison ever again because there is no such comparison.
That demeans the 6 million people killed in the Death Camps.
As well as the approximate total of 75 to 85 million killed simply due to the war…
add to that the millions killed or sent to gulags following the end of the war by Stalin.

No, that is not Trump.
That is not our country.

I am a Reaganite…plain and simple.

But I will never be made to apologize for who I opt to vote for or not vote for.

So don’t scratch your heads as to why this latest impeachment has some folks
sad and not gleeful.
Do not demean those who do not share your excitement.
Do not shame others for their right to vote and right of choice.
Some elected officials leave me wondering but the vote was not mine to make.

And no Speaker Pelosi, you are a lifelong politician, I do not buy
your theatrics of solemness or sadness.

This is not a happy time in our Nation…

Yet I was reminded last night that I am to give thanks unto God.
He has already overcome the world…

“And I saw that truly nothing happens by accident or luck,
but everything by God’s wise providence …
for matters that have been in God’s foreseeing wisdom, since before time began,
befall us suddenly, all unawares; and so in our blindness and ignorance
we say that this is accident or luck, but to our Lord God it is not so.”
St. Julian of Norwich

the observation of love by a wee flea

“Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed
especially desolating and painful,
with particular satisfaction.
Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five
years in this world,
everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence,
has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained…
This, of course, is what the Cross signifies.
And it is the Cross, more than anything else, that has called me inexorably to Christ.”
Malcolm Muggeridge

Cartoon Flea Success

Yesterday I found myself reading over the latest blog offering by the Scottish Pastor
David Robertson….
who once again, expresses so much more eloquently what I feel…

Thoughts and words I’ve been trying to convey here in my little corner of the blogosphere..
for quite sometime, but seem to fall a bit short of his more marvelous observations.

This latest post is entitled The Fallacy of the Fascist Revival–Hope Not Hate

I was barely through the first paragraph when I heard myself shouting “AMEN”

“My concern is not so much with fascism but with the dumbing down of our society,
including our media and political discourse and what that leads to.”

Personally I have become so perplexed with this new global obsession with what seems
to be some sort of new age fascism….
that I am heart sick that so many Americans are now so deluded as to claim that the
other half of their countrymen are now practicing Nazis…
as they truly have no inkling as to what they are accussing
or claiming others to be practicing…..

I have become so incensed that there are actually so many seemingly educated,
yet truly misinformed individuals,
who are clamoring over such nonsense as to the country being overrun with goose-stepping
brown shirts and that a sitting US president is channeling the essence of an
evil demigod and führer.

I am infuriated that there are those who currently think that anyone with a differing opinion
should now be labeled as a fascist…
all without having a true depth of knowledge of what it is that they are labeling and accusing
others of being…..

All of what this has done, this current fanaticism, is but to cheapen the lives of those
who actually suffered and lived through the reality of all that was throughout the 1930’s-1940’s…

Our friend at the “Wee Flea” notes:

As usual Brendan O’Neill puts it far better than I can.

“The word is now used with an ahistoricism and thoughtlessness that are genuinely alarming.
And among the upper echelons of society, not merely by scruffy protesters or online blowhards.
The Archbishop of Canterbury says Trump is part of the ‘fascist tradition’.
Prince Charles has warned darkly of a return of the atmosphere of the 1930s,
and we all know what that means. ‘Yes, Donald Trump is a fascist’,
says New Republic, a magazine that once considered itself a voice of reason among
the paranoid style of American political life. But everyone’s paranoid now.
Everyone now sees fascists.”

Pastor Robertson continues:
“Dumbing down then enables people to become deluded by the delusions.”

“People who are either too lazy, too unthinking, or too self-obsessed with their own delusions,
can’t stand being challenged and so they hate. Even if, in their own eyes,
they are on the side of reason and love they will emote and hate.
In fact its worse than that – its BECAUSE they are on the side of love that they feel
they have the right to hate. And in the age of the internet and social media,
they find it much easier to do this online, than spray painting their neighbours house.”

So not only are we witnessing this new age lunacy here in the US…
that of our modern day fascist witch hunt…
One that I liken to an ill perceived “War of the Worlds” mass pandemonium,
it just so happens that it is sadly more indicative to the growing hysteria
found across our entire Western Civilization…

“This demonisation has frightening consequences.
Someone from Edinburgh sent me this photo of a poster in Edinburgh he passed the
day after he read my article.”

Yet perhaps the most troubling aspect to be found in all of this
is to be found in the messages we are now sending
to our young people….
especially as we are hearing such hateful rhetoric spewing
form the mouths of educators…..

“One of the most disturbing series messages I got was from someone who said they were a
history teacher and described the UK government as a fascist government.
Now imagine you are a child who hears that, and hears about the evil of fascism,
and then reads a poster like this.
It’s beyond irony that those who want to use hate speech legislation to suppress all
views except their own, are so often full of hate.”

Pastor Robertson then poses the question that most sane and rational individuals
now find themselves asking, nay imploring….

“Where is the Hope in all of this?”

And in his question…in this search for some semblance of rationality, sanity…
it is our Hope in which we find our answer…..

“I don’t see it in politics.
And I don’t see it in groups like ‘Hope not Hate’, because they too demonise the other,
in order to justify themselves. It seems as though we are in an endless cycle of blame,
guilt and hatred.
But there is a solution.
There is somewhere where ‘the dividing walls of partition’ are broken down,
where people really do become one and where love, harmony, unity and diversity predominate.
I am of course talking about the church of Jesus Christ.”

“Its not an ideology that brings love and unity—
its Christ.
If you want Love not Hate, then you need to know the One who is Love.”

The Fallacy of the Fascist Revival – Hope Not Hate

Hygee

“Religion died, from various diseases, and humanity died with it.
Or perhaps it is truer to say that humanity died of great possessions,
of modern development, of the pace of modern life and so on –
and religion died as humanity succumbed.”
Alfred Delp

(Sometimes all we need is just a sliver of Hope…
Deer Lake, Watercolor Resort, Julie Cook / 2016)

There I stood in one of the many long snaking lines at the grocery store early this afternoon.
I don’t care where you are, be it grocery store, the post office or a local fast food joint,
this time of year there will be long snaky lines.
That’s not mentioning the large discount stores, department stores or home improvement
centers where “snaking lines” pales in describing the madness currently taking place
at those spots…
but I digress….

As I made my way to the register and conveyor counter waiting to unload my cart,
only to have my items rung up, paid for, bagged and reloaded into my cart,
I noticed the array of magazines lining the shelves.
From tabloid to self help, from recipes to horoscopes….

There in all her blazing glory was an ever grinning Oprah appearing to levitate over
the Grand Canyon happily proclaiming that one and all should be living their grandest
life possible…as in living it oh so grandly and oh so largely.

“Easy for Oprah to proclaim” I hear my brain grousing.

I could live grand while levitating over the grand canyon rather than standing in
a long snaky, too close to Christmas line waiting to buy kleenex and chicken
if I had a boat load of cash, an entourage of folks
waiting with bated breath to do my bidding
all the while having no where to be or nothing particularly world altering to do.

Once at home, with said chicken and kleenex unloaded for the 3rd time today….
I sat down at the table in order to catch up on a few things.
Like considering addressing the few Christmas cards I just had to gather…
as in the few cards, according to my husband, that are essential that I send out….

With my small world derailing these days, Christmas and its more secular hoopla is
being held to a bare minimum…don’t ask where the tree is yet…I might get around to it.
As there is simply not enough time, energy, me nor joy lurking in my crumbling world.

My eyes wandered to an interesting little news article as I fought off the impending chore…

After reading the interesting little article I decided
I must be living under a rock.

Now mind you, I really don’t mind living under a rock…
as there is often a good bit of peace and solitude under said rock.

It’s when I read about some latest craze or word or trend that seems to have
“social media” or the internet, or the entire world for that matter all ablaze…
that I know I’m contently under my rock.

I really don’t miss hearing about or seeing those things that set popular culture on fire.
Those latest brouhahas in movements, foods, pastimes, clothing, music…
In fact I rather relish being left out of the hype.

Now I suppose that’s an age thing as there was probably a time I would have “died”
had I not been riding the latest band wagon….

So it seems there is this word…
“hygge”

It’s a Danish word pronounced either hyue-gar, or hoog-jar or hoo gah…
maybe it depends on where in the country of Denmark you are from…
kind of like a regional dialect sort of thing.

Anywhoo, hygge is a word, or better yet, a state of mind,
that just so happens to be taking the UK by storm…
and it is predicted that very shortly that the very same world altering word
and blissful state of mind, will wildly descend upon life here in the States.

It is a word that describes the approaching, or perhaps better yet, the attacking of life
with a mindset of all things positive…
all the while as one embraces the enjoyment of everyday life experiences.

Hummmm…..a rather oddly familiar concept

Seems that the world altering events of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump has folks
all across this globe in a peculiar dither..
as in the masses are in a state of ‘inability’…a feeding frenzy of inability…
as in an inability to function, to embrace life, or to even appreciate life…
let alone finding the strength to simply enjoy living.

And leave it to the Danes, those same northern folks who have been voted time and time again
by all things travel to be the happiest folks on the planet,
to perfect that very state of happiness into a new global phenomenon….
while all the other poor souls who are still languishing in the events of the past year,
seek some sort of solace from their woes.

Enter hygge…

Yet…
Despite this latest feel-good phenom making the most of the empty cultural voids…
this latest and desperately sought after placebo for an ailing populace…
is actually a state of mind that’s been around for quite some time…

Or perhaps, better yet, it’s really more of a command as to how one should actually live…

And as for me…
it is a very timely reminder….
that despite my overwhelmingly imploding small world…
I have long known the secret to a contented life that goes far beyond the
limited understanding of this oh so jaded and self centered world…

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.
Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.
His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT)

And that my friends is God, in Christ Jesus, our very own hygge….

This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24

Go boldly where many dare not tread

The scripture is filled with examples of genuine masculinity;
you could mine David’s story for probably a year by itself.
And we have to get the masculinity of Jesus back.
Not the pale-faced altar boy, but the man that made a weapon and cleared the temple,
who boldly cast out demons and calmed the raging sea.
John Eldredge

(Blue Herron and sandpiper / Santa Rosa Beach, Fl / Julie Cook / 2016)

I often feel as if I am that lone voice, crying in the wilderness.
As I climb ever higher on this bully pulpit of mine.

I want to shout…

“HEY FELLOW CHRISTIANS….”
CAN YOU HEAR ME???

Or maybe I should clarify…

“HEY FELLOW AMERICAN CHRISTIANS…”

Sigh….

We have all been complicit and silent far too long..
As we look at the current state of this country…
It makes one just want to scream…

Have we all just simply lost our minds???

From the election madness
to racial division…

From immigration run amuck
to a rapid escalation in crime…

From our inner cities doubling as war zones
to our obsession with anything but our current mess…
think the whole Brad and Angelina crap….

From non citizens having more rights than citizens
to those who think only one color of life matters

I mean come on…

It is time for the average, decent Christian citizen to say NO MORE!!!!!

And why do I say Christian???
Because Christians know better.
Dosen’t mean they / we always do what they / we know is the right thing to do,
but deep down, they / we know better….

Who cares if John Lewis sits on the floor of the House in protest…
He can sit all day long.

Who cares if Colin Kaepernick sits, or raises his fist or kneels
during the National anthem…
He can be defiant and rude and disrespectful all day long…

All of those actions are easy…
But they don’t do anything except sew more discord, more alienation, more resentment
and more division…

The harder thing is to get up off the floor and up off the playing field by going into
those communities, those inner cities…
and actually talk face to face with those young black Americans…
who are angry…
and to those who continually commit crimes,
telling them that violence cannot continue begetting violence.

Because that is all that is happening.
And might it be added that no black life is any less nor anymore important
than any other color of life…
As those hard conversations have to happen “at home” before they can be carried forward.

Who cares if Hillary is a woman…
I am a woman…
and there are those who say that’s enough reason fro me to vote for her.
That is no reason.

Who cares if Madonna or Katy Perry take their clothes off publicly
as some sort of reason to get the vote for Hillary—
at last check, nakedness was never a reason to vote.

Hillary lies and that’s that.

Michele Obama can laud over her and sing her praises all day long
but Hillary has lied, continues to lie as she has allowed people to
be brutally tortured and murdered under her watch…
All the while as she continues claiming “no recollection” over email servers.

And why is all of that so quickly forgotten by both you and I?

Hillary supports abortion.

At last check, abortion and Christianity were at odds.

Lying and Christianity are at odds.
Murder and Christianity are at odds.

We should be sick of hearing “it’s my body, my choice”

At last check God gave me / you our bodies and said they were to be treated as a temple…
with respect and dignity…not willy nilly, however we felt…

Sleeping around, being irresponsible, putting wants and desires before sense and practicality
comes with repercussions…but we don’t like repercussions, or responsibility….
So we’ll be selfish in that regard and claim it’s our choice….

Who recalls God’s commandments coming with options?

Donald Trump is brash and arrogant, yet hasn’t spent life being groomed politically.
so when he shoots off at the mouth, well, he’s not use to having handlers prep him…

But he’s no prize either….

Conceit and arrogance, and cut throat business has never been in agreement with God’s word.

All of which has us in a mess!

I read somewhere this morning that someone was asked who they were going to vote for
and their response was very sobering….

“God.”
“I’m going to vote for God.”
“I’m going to write in His name…because He hasn’t lied and won’t lie”
“He actually loves America and all of her people and has been with us since the very beginning..
and His word is never ending….”

Made perfect sense.

Yet all of the Civil Liberty folks out there cringe at that notion.
All the atheists cringe at that notion
All the satanists cringe at that notion.
All the liberal folks cringe at that notion.

Because God’s word is pretty much the last and final word and we are living in a world that
doen’t want to buy into any other words but our own…

The BBC ran the following story today about one of the survivors in the deadly July attack on the Rouen priest by the two Islamic jihadists.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37505350

It’s just one more reminder, in a very visceral fashion, that we, who call ourselves Christians,
are perhaps not doing enough in this world of ours…that we have not, are not,
and for some reason, will not take a stand for God and our Christian faith…

It is time for us who claim Jesus Christ as our Savior to go forward…
forward to where most dare not tread.

Yet most folks now stand in fear….
fear of insulting others, as in fear of being not correct enough,
in fear of rocking the boat, as in fear of being ostracized
in fear of alienating ourselves, as in fear of being cut off.
in fear of drawing attention, as in fear of drawing the ire of the Muslim world.
as the fears continue on and on….

Be not afraid
Boldly proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ…
Time is of the essence.

The wicked flee though no one pursues,
but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
Proverbs 28:1

Graciousness appears to have died

“Win without boasting.
Lose without excuse.”
Albert Payson Terhune

“A man who called everyone a damn fool is like a man who damns the weather.
He only shows that he is not adapted to his environment,
not that the environment is wrong.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

(ghost crab who’s given up the ghost / Santa Rosa Beach, FL / Julie Cook / 2016)

We’re not a people accustomed to losing.
We don’t like to lose…
Who does?!
Nobody, that’s who!

We’re a people of winners.
We like winners.
Who doesn’t like a winner…
Nobody, that’s who!

Maybe we’re a little too accustomed to winning.
Maybe we’ve grown to expect it.
Maybe…just maybe…we’ve forgotten how to lose.
We’ve forgotten that in losing there must be graciousness…

Let’s look at a few things…

We love our sports teams.
We want them to win.
Some of us bet on them to win…
as in… betting money…
as in… betting big money.

Losers don’t make us money.
Some of us have been known to do bad things to make our teams win.
We have cheated, lied, twisted reality, conspired with others to do bad things.
We’ve been known to “fix” a game in order to win
We like to win at all costs…

Others of us get into fights when our teams lose.
We decide to fight those whose team beats our team.
We decide to beat the crap out of the opposing winning team’s fans.
We don’t lose well….

Look at our elections…

We like our candidates of choice to win.
We work for our candidates.
We campaign for our candidates.
We yell at other people who don’t support our candidate.
We call those who don’t support our candidates ugly names.
We get into fights with people who don’t support our candidate.
We vote for our candidates.
We get mad when they lose.
We decide not to accept the winner because our candidate should have won.
We contest the voting count.
We demand a re-count.
We demand a re-vote
We make up stories about the winning candidate to make him / her look bad.
We paint a really ugly picture to sway the results.
We lie, pay bad people money…
We want to win at all costs

Look at our primary elections…
There are a lot of people who don’t like a man like Donald Trump
He’s loud, obnoxious, brash, arrogant and troubling to most…
Maybe he’s not “president” material…
Yet he’s been voted into the top position.
He’s the presumptive nominee.
He earned the spot.
But those who don’t want him are mad.
As those who didn’t vote for him are doing and saying all sorts of things to stop him.
They want to ignore the majority of the other people who voted for him.
They want to say that everyone who voted for him is ignorant and racist and just wrong.
When did voting for a person of one’s choice become ignorant, racist and wrong?
We don’t like the voting to not go our way…

Look at the recent vote in Great Britain.
People voted.
The vote was to exit.
But those who lost the vote are mad.
They’ve decided that those who voted to exit are racist, ignorant, wrong.
It was put to a vote…
stay or go…
Go was chosen…
but now…
All those people who voted their choice to go, are now labeled as ignorant, racist and wrong.
We want a re-count.
We want to block the decision.
We don’t want to concede to the majority’s vote.
We want to do everything possible in order to turn the vote around to our vote, our choice.
We no longer believe in choice, or two sides
We will fight and call those who voted against our wishes ugly names.
We won’t accept anyone else’s opinion or right of choice because it is different from our own.

We forget that there are always two sides—
Winning and losing.
And sometimes we just have to live with losing….

Graciousness appears to have died….

But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness,
and in our love for you—see that you excel in this act of grace also.
2 Corinthians 8:7

The sinking sands of our crazy times

I live in a crazy time.
Anne Frank

(the evening beach walkers / Santa Rosa Beach, Fl / 2016)

I don’t think that there is man nor beast amongst us who wouldn’t agree that we are living in a time of utter craziness.
And that’s crazy in not a good kind of crazy way.

Granted previous generations have had their fair share of crazy…
However back then, back in the day,
one could pretty much discern who and what was crazy and who and what was not.
Everyone knew who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.
Life was black and white.

Everyone knew right from wrong and wrong from right and they could all unite on common ground to fight the common fight against the common enemy.

Folks could and would rally around a cause,
actually rolling up their sleeves to fight for that cause.

Today we live in a hazy time…a crazy time.
A time of heavy smoke and fog…
A time that sees the sands on which we stand, sifting…
As all the colors have swirled together… creating a tertiary bland sea of nothingness…
with no discernible good / bad …right / wrong.
No one knows which side of the fence to get on anymore.

That’s what happens when we decide everything and anything is simply all good because we don’t like anything to be bad. We’ve actually muddied the waters with our overt good intentions.

I’ve always been pretty even keeled and level headed…or at least that is now the case in these latter years of mine as hindsight is something I have finally, thankfully, acquired…with such being a by-product of the aging process.

I’m not one to go off half cocked and jump on the elusive bandwagons of those wearing the rose colored glasses.
I like things to be black and white.
Yes or no
Good or bad…
I like being able to readily discern what is what.

A gray, blended hodge podge of gobbledegook is not my cup of tea.

I admire the John the Baptists and Winston Churchills among us.
Those who could and can see, as well as know, what is what…
No excuses, no delusions, no appeasement and sticking heads in sand.
More of stating the facts then squaring the shoulders in order to deal with the forthcoming onslaught.
They didn’t nor currently do not mince words and they called and continue calling a spade a spade….
meaning…they don’t and won’t sugar coat the truth, no matter how hard and tough it may be.

I like to see what I’m dealing with…straight away and head on…

It’s like seeing that ominous twister in the distance.
It’s fearsome, destructive and heading your way…but at least you know what you’re dealing with.
You know your options…albeit dire and possibly deadly, but at least you know what your fighting for and against.

It’s the twister coming in the night, hidden in the darkness, that hidden monster heading your way, which is most frightening. You catch a glimpse of it in the flash of lightening… only to meekly jump into bed while pulling the covers over your head as you simply hope for the best.

Not a good plan…

Nope, not at all…

I prefer knowing what it is I’m dealing with and in turn, flatly deal with it.
And I don’t like pretending that the bad is hiding in the sheep’s clothing of good.

Now I’ve never been one to jump on Ralph Nader’s bandwagon.
You know, that forever and ever Greenpeace presidential candidate…
That fellow who has been raising his battle standard since I was young!
As Nader was always the voice in the back of the room who was reminding everyone of issues no one either cared to hear about or simply tried to ignore.
He made most folks a tad uncomfortable with his rabble rousing.

He was always a bit out there for me, a bit over the top.
Not that he hasn’t had good ideas…
He has sounded the often necessary bells of alarm over the environment and all things humanitarian.
He was the consumer’s advocate before there was the magazine.

But as a more rock solid kind of soul, I wasn’t all peace, love and rock and roll.

So imagine my small bemusement recently when reading a recent interview with Mr Nadar that actually had me more in agreement than disagreement.

Never one to shy away from what he thinks is the real reason behind big government, big business, big shenanigans, Mr Nader reflects on some of the reasons for today’s craziness of the shifting sands we precariously now find ourselves slowly sinking on….

Everything from the defunct Occupy Wall Street movement, to the overtly sensitive Black Lives Matters, to our darkening college culture of self absorption, to the crisis in middle America and the rise of Donald Trump…

Mr Nader offers a good bit to chew on in his latest bells of alarm….bells I tend to agree need to be rung….

http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/10/ralph-nader-criticizes-absurd-college-culture/21393149/

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/06/09/ralph-nader-blasts-sensitive-black-lives-matter-activists-absurd-trigger-warning-campus-culture/

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
Hymn “my Hope is Built on Nothing Less”
lyrics by Edward Mote (1797-1874)

what might a modern day plague look like?

“Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

(a ravenous locust passes through the yard / Julie Cook / 2015)

I really don’t know where to begin. . .
I suppose I’ll start with the latter of the two trains of thought, work my way backwards (a little educational approach. . .backwards design) and hope the two will merge into one nice thought. . .

My son was showing me a video clip yesterday by some quasi news/ entertainment group that seems to take current event images out to the average joe on the street in search of reactions. They show random folks some random recent “viralesque” image, ask a question about the image and then record the responses and reactions. My son is 26 and he starts this little show and tell moment with “so this is how dumb folks are these days. . .” and he proceeds to show me a clip. . .the clip is filled with folks his age and a tad younger. . .hummmmm

It seems that with the new Jurassic Park movie having been recently released, Steven Spielberg, feeling a bit nostalgic, posed in front of a triceratops that was used in one of the movies in the series. The automaton dino was apparently dead and laying on its side with a smiling Spielberg sitting down in front of the creature. . .the not REAL creature.
A harmless enough image of some Spielberg nostalgia. . .

This little quasi news group was on the streets of London with microphone and camera in hand showing the picture of Spielberg and his dino and asked random folks, all of which who were young—late teens through mid 20’s, what they thought of the picture. . .

First of all may I just say that I was appalled by the blatant cursing–if someone with a camera and microphone asks me to answer a question for them while they are filming, I don’t think I’m going to pop out with the “F”word or the other lovely litany of expletives these kids spouted. . .

The other troubling thing was, and this was the point of the posting of the video, that none of those kids asked seemed to know A. that that person in the picture was Steven Spielberg and B. that that was a dinosaur, not to mention a nonexistent dinosaur.

It seems they thought how terrible it was that “this man” was posing in front of “his kill” with a sleazy smile. They were all appalled and thought how awful it was that he had shot and killed a rhino or hippo, as was the common assumption, and that he actually seemed happy about it.
Please note that my eyes are rolling around my head. . .

So now I am not only greatly troubled by the lack of decorum, manners and respect demonstrated by young folks on the street, but I am equally troubled that our young folks don’t seem to know the difference between a dead, non existent, triceratops and a rhinoceros or hippopotamus. . .

The other train of thought is even more troubling and has to do with a recent real life news story.

It seems we had a political debate in this country over this past weekend that seems to be all the rage in the world of news and politics.
Now I am not a fan of either politics or politicians—I don’t watch these so called rating topping debates as I could frankly care less. Comments, questions and responses boil down to the adult version of the he said, she said fussing of children.
Petty, bickering, hateful, assumptive. . .
These “professional” adults begin to sound like the teacher on the old Charlie Brown cartoon’s. . .
“waah waah, waah. . .”

This world of ours has some very real problems and some very real troubles yet we’ve got our potential top leader wannabes and our major news agencies babbling on and on about the idiotic comments offered by a bombastic business mogul / reality show personality and that of his loud-mouthed flippant comments during one of these dog and pony shows debates.

Frankly I want to know who really cares??!!

Who cares what a man dubbed “the Donald,” as if he were some sort of ancient royal, has to say about TV personalities or news commentators when we have the sort of troubles raging, in not only our country, but around our fragile world. . .What does this say about our priorities. . . or perhaps more correctly, what does this all say about how out of touch our major news agencies and entertainment shows seem to really be. . .or how really stupid they think the average American must be. . .
My observation. . .no one is on the same page!

The real issues and worries, such as our country’s latest implosion over race, the overt and rampant escalation of violence when people simply feel wronged, the continued killing, kidnapping, raping, torturing of individuals across this globe by militant Muslim extremists. . .all of which seem to me to be taking a backseat to the latest media obsession of men becoming woman, presidential wannabes, debates over flags being the catalyst for hate. . .

All of this as people continue demonstrating, looting, rioting, as if that’s going to help solve the real issue at hand, that people seem to think that it’s okay to kill for a killing’s sake . . . that Christians in the Middle East continue being systematically eliminated one by one, African girls continue being “taken,” Greek bailouts make the global economy nervous, Turkey erupts in violence and what of Ukraine. . .

I don’t know. . .I think those types of issues might be what those presidential contenders ought to be discussing and thinking about rather than the he said, she said stuff of children. . .

I tend to feel a bit like Goldilocks when it comes to reading the News. . .I scour a variety of sites, shifting though the printed stories, hoping to sort out the real stories minus the slants.
The following story concerning the latest attack on Christians in Syria caught my eye.
I can’t help but agree with the author’s concern about what our political leaders seem to be thinking when it comes to the blind eye to the global attack on Christianity.

Is anyone who has any sort of authority ever going to look at any of these latest crises with any sort of real concern. . .cause I really don’t think God needs to send any new plagues to get our attention, I think we’re plague enough . . .but then again when our younger generations can’t tell the difference between a dinosaur and a rhino maybe none of this really matters. . .

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/08/07/more-christians-kidnapped-in-syria.html?intcmp=hpff