Life With Mother: On the subject of the Democratic convention and an editorial written masterfully by Maureen Dowd this morning...

 No disrespect intended to Seamus Heaney or the Irish wonders that were penned by the editorialist...

To Be Irish is to know that in the end?  the world doesn’t like us! {implied} is this the motto of unity?

We love you Joe! You are just not the man for the job.  This sudden feeling to mask a deeper problem with rhetoric about a speech impediment is just scary.   We love you and your Irish charm.  We wouldn’t break your heart for anything, but the America that we are in now needs a leader with business savvy and economic and brutal reality and not the limericks and Lyricism of trying to rhyme History with Hope.  Though harmonize, they might, rhyming them is a task for the fairies.  This is not a fairy problem, Joe.  This is a problem for picks and axes to dig us out of this mess.  This is not a rhetorical problem or a political problem; it is a real business and economic and health crisis.  You know something  about such things, but do you have the resolve to do anything but to save your own? Understandable to want to save your own, but unacceptable.  

   When Rome was burning under your watch there was precious little you could do and jobs were trickling out of our country and unemployment skyrocketed and unfortunately we haven't the stomach nor the resources to endure this again if you are elected.  

       You have no plan and hide under the sorry unity that hating Trump affords you.  We Americans {both educated and uneducated} can see through that mask, Joe.  We love you, but you are yesterday’s Democratic Party.  You are not in touch with today’s problems.  A mask doesn’t hide that problem, Joe.

      Its not that we are prejudiced against your Irish Catholic resolve.  It is not that we are afraid of your age.  It is not that we don’t appreciate all of the sacrifices that you have endured for our country.  We need a business and a wise and savvy negotiator in the White House.  America is deteriorating like South Jamaica was and Donald lifted it out of the slums and gave it life and vigor.   America is sick and Donald built the hospitals and Nursing homes that housed our aged and gave us jobs for our youth.  The world needs to see America care about itself, right now, so that it can do the same!  We love you Joe, but we are not voting for you in this election.  You are the past and we love the past, but we need a new future of self care and promise and not limericks and lyrics to encourage us while we sell our future to the highest bidder.

For Still Our Ancient Foe...

 For Still our Ancient Foe…

doth seek to work us woe

The weapons of our warfare are not carnal { NYT.   WJT.  Wash Post, etc, etc,}

And the enemies of our souls are not people, but principalities and powers in high places...

How then, can we cast down the imaginations that have funded and emancipated the Prinipalities and powers that plague us in this generation?  what a question/  How then, can we free ourselves from an identity of Christendom that deems us a Facist few, instead of a reconciling majority, which is what we are.  

We refuse to be deemed the problem here.   we refuse to be  blamed for the Covid and the BLM movement and the chaos in the streets that the antifundamentalist media have labeled us to be.  

They are happy to place the label of Special Needs upon us when we have been and remain the gel that has kept this republic together for its history.  We have compromised and we have discussed our differences all the way to the barn and now that we are over the Lord’s knee in spanking mode, the naughty are blaming the problem on us.

We are redeemed in our souls and not afraid of God’s judgments upon our nation, because we have asked Him to spare us from full annihilation for the sake of the few praying people.  We know we all deserve Hell and that we have been blessed with so much mercy that this sad moment in history where we are experiencing a plague is just a small token of what our sins deserve.  We haven’t been God-pleasing in our personal lives or in our churches.  We have tried to reconcile when we should have been fighting against the powers of division that sent us to our homes.  No other generation has hidden the remedy from the sick minority.  We have.  Prayer and corporate gatherings are the healing balm that our nation needs at such a time.  

It is not our expectation to escape such a time of accountability.  Trusting in the God of the Sciences is what I choose to believe He created science and data and the people who askew these data points for the fear of the weak is not hidden from his sight or the sight of the church.  Still, we would not be those who are blamed for the death in our nation for the sake of saving face.  We have been blessed with other ways to gather and we have gathered.  And we are praying and we will not be devoured by the attacking foe and the imagination of “White Evangelicals” being the problem.  We are not the problem.  we are the reality of healing in His wings White Evangelicals, Black Evangelicals, Black lives that matter and white lives that matter, White churches orthodox and Black orthodoxy, We are the solution and not the problem. The fear mongering media and divisive tactics of the media in the attempt to justify their presence is the problem.  Cover the reality and not your fear base.  

Bless us Lord! In the name of the Christ who is over it all. Amen

Frankly Scarlett, do you care enough to still trouble your house to try to gain the inheritance of Truth for your children?

Boast not thyself  of tomorrow>

Though Our sins be as scarlett??

Wilt thou make us white as snow?  Gone with the wind, Inheriting the wind, How we trouble our house makes the very different.

Strokes, topspin, slice, overheads, serve and volley.  Troubling our house at the pace of the problems and we will create an inheritance or watch it fly away as with the wind!

Grateful for a visit from Aunt Audrey

We haven't had the opportunity to show hospitality much in these tumultuous days of Work and Home and children.  Now, we really have no little children, just adults and a budding adult.  Thank God for the opportunity to show some of the preciousness and receive the precious blessing of having a dear one into our home.
It is a delight to readjust our focus from our own mundane concerns of health and welfare to another who is dear and yet, for whom distance has kept us from having over and sharing loving fellowship with.  We have so much in common with our dear sister and we are grateful for the providence allowing her to come and share with us and we with her.

Pray, dear children,  that our testimony will continue as dear with each other as the distance has allowed us to be.

Aunt Ann and my Mom taught me, cousins are for kissing and cousins are for fighting with!

Aunt Ann and my Mom taught me, cousins are for kissing and cousins are for fighting with!  

I miss you already Aunt Ann.

I miss seeing how to create conflicts and how to rectify conflicts between you and my mommy.  they are at it again, I used to think quietly to myself.  The religious perspective and the human perspective were always at odds in our extended family.  Learning to let the human perspective direct the religious perspective and the religious perspective temper the passions was a lifelong study of mine watching my mommy and her first cousin always lovingly wrestling through the issues of the family and the life that we were enjoying.

People have needs, you always knew.  It was never about you.  It was always about getting the job done.  You truly got the job done.  Absolutely the most efficient woman in my life.  Mu said jump and you were in the air before any of us could hear her touch the last consonant of p.  I loved seeing that as a little child.  I loved watching you care for your children and godchild and nieces and nephews and mother with determine and focus.  You were really one of the best people we have known.  An agitator and militantly caring woman, you were.  You went out of your way to love people with activity, in whatever way you could.  I loved that about you! 

Stop Blaming God for the deterioration of the Earth and our relationships (Thoughts from Thomas L. Friedmans reminders of our generation's Breaking the Earth NYTIMES)

Revelation 7:2  

And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,

Revelation 7:17  

For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

 

The Earth Our Gift?

God said it was GOOD.

Spending all of it’s resources upon our own lusts, seems to have been our continual race, from the very beginning.

1. Man’s disobedience, a. Eve wanted a promotion to God.  b. Adam wanted to promote her.  c.The demotion of the race to below Satan. d. Jesus ready stands to save us.
2. Now Jesus changes our self centered interests into other centered interests, Namely not destroying the planet, in our tirades like Cain killed his brother.
3. Cain really thought it was the purpose of God for him to get away with that and built a religion around his covering of his sin, while in actuality Abel’s blood was crying out and every martyr’s blood cries to God. In the self serving religious acceptance of murderous and planet killing piety lives to shake his and her impious fist in the face of the merciful blessings of God’s good gift of the earth and the relationships that we have in it.
4. No, Eve didn’t receive her promotion to God status that she intended through eating and disobeying as the Serpent had promised.
5. He proved a liar.
6. Instead of tracing their steps back to the relationship that was lost, we march through the wilderness of self promotion and consumption, instead of repentance and restoration.

God shows us the way back to Himself.  Salvation of our souls and Joy to the world in true piety and commitment to our relationships.  Stop killing your brother by dumping those polutants in the water.  Stop blaming your wife for your lack of leadership in the grand scheme of your physical footprint upon the earth.  These are the ways that we today blow up our parts of the earth.  Lets try taking the part of the serpent and tempting ourselves to promote God to His own right place in authority over us.

“While rocks and hills and plains will also repeat the SOUNDING JOY!”


Lets start eating the fruit of obedience to God and its reminders in the HYMNS.

Faith is the Victory

Encamped along the hills of light,Ye Christian soldiers, rise,And press the battle ere the nightShall veil the glowing skies.Against the foe in vales below,Let all our strength be hurled;Faith is the victory, we know,That overcomes the world.
Refrain:Faith is is the victory!Faith is is the victory!Oh, glorious victory,That overcomes the world.
His banner over us is love,Our sword the Word of God;We tread the road the saints aboveWith shouts of triumph trod.By faith they, like a whirlwind's breath,Swept on o'er ev'ry field;The faith by which they conquered deathIs still our shining shield.
On ev'ry hand the foe we findDrawn up in dread array;Let tents of ease be left behind,And onward to the fray;Salvation's helmet on each head,With truth all girt about,The earth shall tremble 'neath our tread,And echo with our shout.
To him that overcomes the foe,White raiment shall be giv'n;Before the angels he shall knowHis name confessed in heav'n.Then onward from the hills of light,Our hearts with love aflame,We'll vanquish all the hosts of night,In Jesus' conqu'ring name.

Orcs or Storm troopers/ Let's grow together

Brain Development vs. skill development

If we are reared as though we are made in the image of God: to have communion with Him and communicate with Him, that has ramifications in our educating.

If we are creating show dogs, who can perform this or that task and yet have no ability to engage in relationship, that is far below God’s letter of intention in and for our lives.

We are coming Up from Slavery as a World!  We are learning the inherent greatness of being made in the image of God, every one of us.  We are learning not to take people into our service as slaves and not recompense them for their services.  This is a great leap.  We are learning that no man is below any other man.  We who have much have responsibilities that others do not.

The War with the Orcs is this battle.  Fighting with and for people who cannot see the way out of the system that they have been socialized.  Skill development have a place, but each persons brain and mind and body is purposed by God.  We must engage them to see that as their highest priority.

whether Orcs or the Stormtroopers in Starwars, I am talking about people who are committed to their service to a system of education that is developed to create and extend the disparities that are already created.

We don’t want people to get to where we are, economically or relationally with God.  We cut the cords of our climbing.  Jack and the Beanstalk?  kill the plant so no one else can get to this place?  

Ezra and Nehemiah took their captivity and gave their people a way to grow in their minds to the place of thinking where they were.  Learning to think is important, even to the captives.

Thoughts on Gulliver

Notice that I placed an attachment to Gulliver's Travels as a link on the sidebar of the Blog today!

I love that story and this is not the first time that I have seen the relationship between Gulliver and the 1689 confession.

This time, I have seen the beauty of the Irish people's ability to see the true beauty and power of a thing in its inception. I think that is what happened to Swift when he saw the 1689 confession.  I thought this of myself, but I don't think I have ever met anyone else who put it quite as beautifully as Swift did.

I know that you disagree with me, but let me get my argument out before you shut me up.

God took us from a far country in our thinking to love and embrace the 1689 confession.  We were privy to several seasons, at least 3 different times learning the confession in Sunday school.  What a beautiful experience.  How truly stimulating in mind and spirit to study issues that great men actually agreed on!  Often we study things that made people disagree.  But this is an exercise in coming to a common thought on several subjects, through the scriptures.

We realized just how very hard it was when someone in our church suggested that we attempt to come to agreement on some contemporary subjects and create a 1989 confession.  We couldn't do it.  We never did accomplish that Herculean task and so we suffice it to place our hands in and agree with the people in 1689.  Leaving our contemporary issues to flail in the breeze of disagreement.

There is safety and life in learning to submit yourself to elders and to a confession, in your thinking.  It gives you a view of issues in your own day that is from above.  Not in the same way that praise takes you above your calamities, but in a more intellectual way.  I would love it if we could go through the book together and write our observations in relation to the 1689 or Heidleberg, which is your own chosen confession, of late.  In any case,  I am looking forward to the discussions on this train of thought.


Your Obedient Servant,

Mom

Easter Sunday Sky!

Samuel’s heart was born out of Hannah’s vow?

Where is the passion that sees the loss of our generation and commits to point her children in the direction of the spiritual conflict?

It is a passion that is born of loss?

it is a passion that is born of grief and pain?

It is a passion that is born of non-negotiable obedience to Christ and not the mores?  

Help, Lord!

She Laughs at the time to come, after she has mourned at the present state of the Church…

Christ showed me that in the clouds this morning.2 eyes and 2 i’s  in the sky and chicken little blowing the trumpet.  Usually I see just the sound coming out of the horn, today it was who was blowing it.

the  same little forlorn chick who misread the apple on his head as part of the sky had grown into the mighty Rooster who shows the power of Jesus coming in the clouds of glory is a victorious occurrence for Christ’s Mighty Church and bride!  It made me laugh.  It was too funny