Tuesday, July 30, 2013

When things get too heavy in the midst of insanity




  • This must be how Jeremiah felt when he had to seek out some staying power.  He was in the midst of  "a stiff-necked people" and he was feeling the weight of the day.  He called out to God:

    Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee:

    And God called back to him:

    Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hardfor me?  (Jer. 32: 17, 27).



    As my daddy used to say, "It beez that way sometime."


    Well okay then!



    While I dwell on this travesty in a prayerful mood and a sadness in my heart as if Pfc Bradley Manning is my own child, I won't lament.  


    Instead:


    I will Trust in the Lord with all my heart, and I will not lean to my own understanding.  In all my ways I will acknowledge him, and he will direct my paths.  I will not be wise in my own eyes.  Instead I will fear the Lord and keep from evil. Therein is hidden health in my navel and the marrow of my bones.  So I will honor the Lord with all that I am and with all that I've got.  So be it.


    Now,

    "I feel better, so much better, since I laid my burdens down."



Sunday, July 28, 2013

Deep thought reflection on profiling and things


In response to a fellow student:


Everybody that is nonwhite is a target for profiling (young or old), which is the state of things since 9/11.  Just as NSA is a reality (because of the abuses of the events) of 9/11, profiling, a result of the Patriot Act, is also.  However, those who suffer the most from racial profiling are blacks and any ethnic group that looks like an Arab.  For example, it is hard to tell some Latin Americans (unless they are Caucasian) from some of the various ethnicities of the Asian continent.  However, I think that even the Hispanics are not as much in jeopardy of profiling as is the Arab.  

Further, if religion could have a color or had a human frame, more people of any ethnic group would be harassed or profiled because of their religious affiliation above anything else.  I always say that black people, for example, have enough problems, and that being Muslim only compounds their dire straits for being human beings in an unjust world of other human beings.  Sometimes as it is in these times, religion can get you profiled to death with no apologies offered.  It is insane because we do allow laws that take away people's freedom.  People allowed these things to come about because after 9/11, the citizenry lost all good sense and reason, which allowed the people in power to become everybody's brain, including Bush's.  

People allowed this to happen and have not yet found the fortitude to stand together and change things, which only a mass can do.  Those with the power of money and machinery took the reins from the people with fear tactics and brought more fear upon us because they went out and made enemies of more people than we know of so far; they dared anybody in the world not to like it - for us or against us.  That was the beginning of our sorrows.  An emotionalist America gave over their good sense for a false sense of security that someone put forth to the people, giving policymakers public and private the license to do all the unlawful things that might not even be revealed yet.  For example, all of that lawlessness gave birth to the dreadful drone program and is continuing the lawlessness of GITMO.  

The only way these things can change is that people change them.  The power of the powerful though is that they know how to keep the people from agreeing among themselves that all is one and one is all, thereby keeping the focus of what they are really doing off of them by having the people continually fighting over "unformulated" reasons they are fighting one another rather than fighting the lawlessness of the lawmakers (special interest groups, PACS, and every other unjust powerhouse). (special interest groups, PACS, and every other unjust powerhouse).

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Reflections on the climate of things and their speedy warming up

Climatic Reflections:



"Be not a witness against thy neighbour without cause; and deceive not with thy lips.  Say not, I will do so to him as he hath done to me: I will render to the man according to his work.  I went by the field of the slothfu, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.  Then I saw, and considered it well : I looked upon it, and received instruction.  Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:  So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man" (Proverbs 24:28-34). 

AND

"Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler. Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep , O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?  Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep : So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.  A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth.  He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers;  Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord.  Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy" (Proverbs 6:5-15).



Consider this paradox:  We do all we can, spend more than we might find really affordable, and invest in all kinds of powers or rumors of powers that purport life extension or physical agelessness as far and as long as possible.  It seems we want to live forever in the flesh.  

On the other hand, we contribute to our own demise by our actions and attitudes towards others' actions.  We do not appreciate that we are shortening life of all kinds (in all the elements - earth-air-fire-water), including the potential life of generations to come.  By the things we do today in the name of one kind of mammon or another in the pursuit of the self-gratifying sensuous life.  We make up hefty and fluffy death beds that most if not all will sleep in more sooner than later  

It is especially true that those who do not contribute to this impending doom: the First Peoples for example, as well as the poorest nations on the planet, will share those beds along with many other innocents.  All life has a footprint, but some footprints are next to nil, while others are robbing many, many people of the right to live in a more humane, just, and kind world.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Walk the Walk to live the Life

Well, I don't know, but I know I need something.  I can't put my finger on it but I know I need it.  What do you mean when you say, "Yes, you know what you need."  I said I don't know, but I know I need something. ....

Okay, well how do I correct that?  I ask you, "Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall  I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"  And a Voice from the Deep spoke in my ear:  "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Micah 6-8)


I understand now that I know what I thought I did not know.  The Voice required me to do the work.  Humility, the greatest power in the world, is able to do it.  Many fake humility - yet they're hypocrites so that is natural and their names are legion.  Grace gave me Master example.  Peace  .