The Thinking Tinker

I remember, as a young teenager, watching a cartoon made to explain the Constitution of the United States of America. Made by Warner Bros that explained what freedom is. You have the freedom to pursue happiness which also means you are free to fail. That freedom does not mean that you are guaranteed an outcome, just the freedom to pursue. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Re-read that. Nowhere does it say you have the right to succeed. Nowhere does it say you have the right to someone else’s efforts. Your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness does not effect my right to life liberty and my pursuit of happiness.

I once had a supposed friend that was an extreme liberal. I thought that we wanted the same thing, just wanted to achieve it differently. He came to me one day and said he can make me a liberal with one example. He said which would I want, a liberal slice of apple pie or a conservative piece? I thought for a moment and replied that his example is flawed. I said the problem is that I grew the apples (I had an apple tree). I watered and pruned that tree. I picked the apples, peeled them, mixed the flour and water and other ingredients to make the crust, put my apples in the pie with the sugar that I bought. I baked the pie in my oven, paid for the gas that cooked the pie and I took the pie out of my oven. Then, you kicked my front door down, took my pie, sliced liberal pieces to give to my neighbors that had no pie, then took a large piece for yourself as payment to distribute my pie leaving me only a conservative piece of the pie that was mine. That is the very definition of communism. He didn’t speak to me for a long while as I had won the argument. So my friend gave for free, my pie to my neighbors. There is nothing for free. Someone has to provide it. In this example, my friend acts as the government, an entity that makes nothing without taking from someone first. The government forcibly takes my pie and distributes it to those that they feel deserve my pie and says I should be happy that they leave me with only a portion of my pie. The pie represents my money that the government takes forcibly in the form of taxes. And the funny part is, the government decides how much of my pie to take. They can decide to take more of my pie next year leaving me less and less of my pie. Nothing is free, someone must create the pie first. 

We have been conditioning people with low education that the gov’t will provide for you. Have you ever heard give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he eats for the rest of his life? Also, you see signs in national parks not to feed the animals, it makes them dependent on hand outs and they can’t provide for themselves. 

In the mid 1970’s, my family was going thru a financially difficult time and I went with my mom to grocery shop. We had to shop for enough food to provide for the family for a week. My mom had me keep track of how much money was the cost of food in the cart with a manual calculator. Out cart was very empty as we went up to the cashier at the grocery store. It was a Vons in California. The couple in front of us had two carts, one with meat and cheese only. The man was dressed in a suit and his wife was in a nice gown, they looked like they had stepped of the cover of GQ. They paid for everything with food stamps. Our groceries fit in one paper bag and on the way out, my mother and I saw this couple load the groceries in a fairly new Cadillac. I know there is a need to provide assistance for people, but that night proved to me that the system is broken and there was and still is widespread fraud in the system. We have people that have been brainwashed to believe they deserve other peoples money. Now, look at the news reports during the government shutdown in October of 2025. People saying they deserve other peoples money in the form of S.N.A.P. benefits. Over 41 million Americans receive Food Stamps a.k.a S.N.A.P. benefits, that is over 12% of the American population taking approx. nearly $200 per month per person in food stamp benefits. That number is embarrassing for this country. And the problem goes back generations. 

There was a time when the normal family was a man and a woman creating a family. Now, there is a difference between men and women. One is not more important than the other, but each bring something different to the family. A man creates a safe family environment with discipline and provides for the family. A woman brings emotional stability and nurturer. Different but equal in importance. So what happened in America to make more and more single parent households?

Part of the problem was pornography. Playboy magazines basically said that the girl nextdoor wants sex as much as guys. This is true, but what it also did was objectify women as sex objects. I know because as a young preteen and teenager, I was a walking hormone that had seen too many Playboy magazines that my cousin had swiped from his dads stash. My view of women had become warped focusing on the physical act of sex and not the private beauty of sex with a spouse. Now, you have more and more boys and men thinking that sex is the end all, be all of a relationship and women getting pregnant then the guy dumps her or divorces her in search of a younger woman to pursue and procreate with. Add to that the ‘a woman can do everything a man can do’ attitude that was prevalent in the 60’s into the 2000’s. The saying was a woman needs to become a strong independent person that does not need a man. Like the old woman’s perfume commercial ‘I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never ever let you forget your a man because I’m a woman, by Anjoli. Now you have generations of woman that are single parents with no husband in the picture to provide the strength and discipline to the younger men in society, and men who are dropping out of parenting in search of his next sexual conquest. I don’t care to know the body count of Hugh Hefner, but he was diseased in more ways than one. And the government said, in essence, ‘don’t worry, we will provide for you’. Now you have generations of young men with no direction, no purpose, no sense of stability and are willing to become part of a family that provides that need, usually in the form of a gang. Generations of men whose mothers either had to work two jobs just to feed their family providing no direction or purpose, or staying at home, watching TV and collecting free food from the government becoming dependent on the gov’t system for food and essentials always voting for the party that will give them free stuff. 

Of course I am speaking of generalities and not specifics, but you get the idea. A general breakdown of society. But at what point does society break so much that it can’t be repaired without a major disruption in society? The revolutionary war broke all political ties to the English monarchy thus creating a new nation with new laws. The Civil war said that slavery was wrong and that black people were equal and had the same rights as white people. We fought in 2 world wars because no one has the right to conquer and destroy their neighbors and force a political ideology on the rest of the world in the form of Communism or Imperialism or to outright try to kill all of a peoples just because of their religion. What kind of war will have to be fought to bring the American society back into alignment with what our nation had tried to create? Freedom to pursue happiness without the gov’t taking too much of my pie so that I can keep most of what I earn. When will the American society realize that the gov’t has, like a cancer, grown almost too big to be excised from the body so the body does not die? I fear that it might be almost too late. 

On the US currency, it is printed ‘In God we trust’. Do we?

Don’t blink

I was so proud of myself for reading Albert Einsteins theory of relativity and actualy understanding it. But, like Roy Scheiders line in Jaws the 1975 movie “We’re gonna need a bigger boat”, it has a bigger and deeper meaning that spans more than you might think.

Everything can be ‘related’. Think about it. 6 degrees of seperation was a theory that, for fun, showed you were only 6 degrees seperated from anyone else in the world. While thinking about it, I was only 1 degree seperated from Ronald Reagan and Jack Lemon. I actually met and ‘paled around with Bob Hope who knew Ronald Reagan and since I met Lucy Ball, I was only 1 degree of seperation from Vivian Vance. Come to think of it, anyone that worked with or met Bob Hope or Lucy Ball, I am only 1 degree of seperation or ‘relative’ to those people. George Burns and I are seperated by 1 degree…1 person. And if so, how many degrees of seperation am I from Errol Flynn?

But relativity explains even more. Think about how long you had to wait for Christmas when you were a kid. At 6 years old, you probably don’t remember your first 3 or 4 Christmas’. So you remember only maybe 2 which means time stretches and seems long because it you have only experienced something only twice in your lifetime. But when you are 15, you have experienced Christmas 15 times (but only remember 11) so time doesn’t stretch as much as it seemed to when you were 6. By the time you are 60 years old, Christmas seems to come way too fast.

Think of the common housefly. It lives like only a few days. If it were born at 12:01 AM Christmas morning, it will not see New Years day and probably live half of its life during Christmas. Speaking of the fly, I got into my car only to find one buzzing around in my cab. Imagine me trying to swat it or shew it away toward on open window to get rid of it. Now imagine that fly buzzing around in the compartment of my car that was going 75 mph. Was it flying 75mph? No because its speed was relative to the cars interior, not the exterior. Imagine the shock of buzzing around in my car and suddenlyflying out the window and being swatted by a 75 mph wind. Relativity explains that as well. Its speed inside the car vs the speed outside of the car. And to its point of view as it leaves the window and you travel forward at 75 mph and it practically sees you disappear very fast.

Einsteins theory postulates that an astronaut gets in a space ship and leaves the earth and travels near the speed of light for a year into space, turns around and comes back to earth. His twin brother will have aged much more then he did, close to 14 to 15 years more. The astronaut went into space for two years, but time then moves at different rates for each of them.

By the time you are 60 years old, you start to realize that it is no longer time to ‘collect’ but time to reflect. You realize that your past is much longer than your future. You have, at average, lived 2/3 of your life. Your memories are more precious than possesions. Relativity plays a roll in your life again. Your ability to hop, skip and jump are relatively impossible now compared to when you were younger. What happened is you did not listen to your elders that said to slow down and enjoy life. Like the Romans engraved on their sundials ‘enjoy life because it is later than you think’. To the 2 or 3 people that will read this, look back on your life and realize that until you are planted 6 feet under the grass, enjoy life. Enjoy those that are around you. Don’t hold onto those petty grudges of the past, they will burden your spirit. Find the joy you once had as a kid experiencing the rain hit your face for the first time. The simple joys in life will make your life seem relatively longer.

What do I truly believe

Have you ever looked into yourself? Have you ever been introspective and striped away all of the facade, set aside your many masks and looked at who you are, at the core? Not the bumper sticker slogans that everyone else uses, or what you think others want to see in you, but a real virtual naked look at who you really are?

When you are young, you have many chances to ‘reinvent’ yourself. I did it several times. Graduating from elementary school to Jr. High School (when I was a kid, 6th grade was elementary and 7th grade was first year of Jr. High, not “middle school” followed by 10th grade was your first year High School) Each time I had a major change was an opportunity for me to reinvent myself. Then college came and I attended two different colleges so that allowed me to reinvent myself yet again, each time reflecting on who I was and who I wanted to be. You might not realize when you reinvent yourself, but it is human nature. You might not know that your body actually replentishes itself every seven years, so even your body reinvents itself. But who are you at the core?

I grew up in a christian household and went to Sunday school and church. I heard all the sermons, heard all of the Sunday school lessons. I even feel that I was marked at an early age (long story for another post). At the beginning of third grade, my parents took me out of public school and put me in private christian elementary school. There, I heard more christian principles that laid a foundation in my life. But I was also exposed to pornography at an early age. My cousin stole some of his fathers Playboy magazines and we snuck of to my cousins fort and gawked at the pictures and read the articles. I always new there was a difference between boys and girls, but I figured out fast what happened to girls when they grew up. Viva la difference. My cousin and his family I don’t think believed in God, but I hope I am wrong.

It wasn’t until I was married with kids that my wife and I decided to actively find our own church to attend as a family. Once there, my wife and I became involved in many aspects of the church including teaching Sunday school so we could have a little more influence on our kids.

Have you ever seen a nice leather chair? You don’t have to sit in it to imagine just how comfortable it must be. One that looks like it belongs in a mens club with buttery soft leather cushions that you just sink into in all the right places. You can sound like a salesman describing it. You might stand and even convince others how great it is. But have you actually sat in the chair? Have you experienced the comfort of that leather chair? So it is with Christ. Are you truly a deciple of Christ, or have you just read enough about him to convince yourself you are a Christian? Can you speak about him convincingly but not believe in your heart? Are you, as an aquantance once said, a good Catholic because I go to church on Christmas, Easter and I go to confession once or twice a year. I even put a dollar in the plate sometimes. Do you follow a church doctrine or do you have a relationship with Jesus of Nazereth? Have you had an actual personal experience wth Jesus?

I have had many unexplainable instances in my like that, in my mind, are examples of God protecting me or interfering in a positive way in my life. While driving my dads truck in a rain storm, I had to slam on the brakes when the guy infront of me stopped at a yellow light. I hydroplaned and went into a spinning skid. I knew I was going to hit that car, but instead I made a complete 360 degree spin and came to a perfect stop in the lane to the right of the car. While in church one Sunday, I was waiting for a payday but had to have .50 cents for the parking meter for Monday for my job. But I felt the need to give what I had in the offering plate as it was being passed. All I had was change, two quarters a dime and two pennies. The noise as the change was dropped was loud enough to annoy my wife. Later, as we got home from church, I reached into my pocket to get the house keys and to my supprise, I also pulled out two quarters a dime and two pennies. Now I took all the change from my pocket to put in the offering plate, only a key ring with 3 keys on it was in my pants pocket.

I have read “Experiencing God” the book, Taken F.A.I.T.H. training and, with my wife, went on three short term missions trips. Two to Myanmar (formerly Burma) and one to Puerta de mango in Nayarit Mexico. (Doorway to the mangos) On our first trip, in Mandalay Myanmar, while sharing the gospel to a group of people in a gentlemans home, my wife and I noticed an elderly woman with skin like leather. Her whole continance was dark and she acted like she had been beaten by life her whole life. After sharing the gospel, she expressed an interest in accepting Jesus as her saviour. After leading her through the sinners prayer, I saw the Holy Spirit. Her whole face glowed as if it were radioactive. She smiled and said to the translator “I now know I have hope and will live a life in heaven after death.” When Jesus said the Holy Spirit will enter you like a flame. I saw the effect of the Holy Spirit. I saw her face glow bright. It was that moment I knew … before I believed in my heart, but it was that moment that I was granted the honor of physically experiencing…GOD.

On our third trip on missions, we went to a small village in Nayarit Mexico where we helped build an addition to the church during the day and shared the gospel in the evenings. We were given use of a house next to the church to sleep in. The church had cots made for us and one early evening, I was tired from digging the trench for the footings for the additional building. I went to take a nap and after I closed my eyes, I felt the hot breath of something hovering over me. I felt, what ever it was, that it hated me. It’s a feeling you get in the pit of your stomach. Something evil was staring at me and it was close enough that I could feel its hatred. I was too scared to open my eyes to see what it was, but I yelled out for Jesus to save me and cast whatever was near me away. I then had a wave of peace flow thru me and I felt safe enough to open my eyes. There was no one else in the house. To this day, I know it was an evil spirit sent to scare me/torment me. Our group must have been effective against the evil one.

So, lately I have been introspective. Asking God to send the Holy Spirit to guide me which is why I decided to strip away the masks and look at myself at the core. What do I really believe?

While I question myself, I can’t forget that lady in Burma. She radiated hope. I can’t deny what I feel and know deep in my heart that the Bible is true (we can debate later which translation of the bible someone should use) But why have I been so cold lately, spiritually?

I remember a story…The pastor of a church went to visit a member who had not been coming to church lately. It was raining but the door was unlocked and the man told the pastor to come in. So the pastor walked in, took off his coat, hung it up and sat in the chair next to the man who was sitting by the fire. Several quiet minutes passed, when the pastor noticed a piece of coal fall away from the fire and start to loose its glow of fire. The pastor grabbed the fireplace tonges and picked up the piece of coal and put it back into the fire where it burst with heat and the bright glow of the other pieces of coal in the fire. The man then looked at the pastor and said “ OK pastor, I will be back in church Sunday”. The moral is the man had fallen from the fire of the church body and was not glowing with the power of God as he once had been.

That is me. I must find a church body to renew my burning for the Lord. You need to be with like minded people to help sustain your spirit along with prayerfully reading the bible.

So yes, I belive the Bible is real. I believe in God the father, God the son and God the Holy Spirit. I belive Christ, as both man and God, died on the cross for me and rose up on the third day. I believe I saw the Holy Spirit in the lady in Myanmar (Burma) and I believe I was spiritually attacked in Nayarit Mexico. And while I acknowledge I am basically a good man, I am far from perfect, flawed in need of the silversmith to burn away all of my impurities to reveal the true me, not because I deserve it, but because God already paid the price for my sins.

Now, it is your turn. Be brutally honest and look at yourself. What do you really believe at the core? Not what you think others want to see, but the way you really are in private.

Who is the enemy?

If you are playing a game, your opponent might be considered the enemy. When playing chess, your opponent is trying to capture your king, so that person is the enemy. In school, when your sports team plays another team, the team is always ‘the enemy’. Playing hockey can really create enemies. Have you seen hockey players with all their teeth? Some people have a bully that pesters you in school, so you might call them an enemy. But what about earlier in life?

When you are very young, you are just learning your place in the world. Your parents try to prepare you for life. Your mom might say to you “don’t put your hand in the fire” but you might not listen. The fire looks so inviting. The flickering of the flame and warmth emiting from the fire with the warm glow of yellow/orange light, you are drawn to it and stick your finger in the fire just like your parents said not to. The effect is a severe burning sensation. Fire can and does grow and consume everything if not controlled. It is no wonder firefighters call fire ‘the enemy’.

Speaking about parents, I wanted to be on the cities swim team. I was overweight as a child but once in the water, I was graceful so my parents signed me up. The swim trunks were mini speedos that left nothing to the imagination nor created any ‘drag’ in the water. My mom said that I would fill it in someday. I can’t determine if my mom was the enemy or the speedo. Maybe both?

In school, you are given an assignment by the teacher. When I turned the assignment in, I would get it back and it looked like a chicken walked in red ink then tap danced across my paper. Mrs. Ide, my 6th grade teacher, was the enemy. She actually expected words spelled correctly, proper names capitalized and correct punctuation in my assignments. I wonder if she had a special red ink pen just to grade my papers.

Then, some are unlucky enough to have an enemy at work. Someone that makes your work life miserable. That person is an enemy that endangers your job. You might desire to dispense a little ‘justice’ against your enemy. How much time is spent trying to deal with that rude person? How much time is spent distracted from your job?

Then there is marriage. If the In-Laws don’t think you are good enough for their child, they might become the enemy. And your spouse, if your relationship is not based in love, can become your enemy. If coming home does not create a place of safety and sanctuary, your married life can be draining. So would you say marriage is an enemy? How many marriages end in divorce?

You might think any one or all of the examples are that of an enemy, but wait, at this time in your life, you may have made a decision on a religion. Now, you can really say you may have an enemy. There are going to be those that hate you based on who you worship. And the one religious group that has the most enemies would be the Jews. It seems that almost all of the world is their enemy, trying to ‘eliminate’ them just because of who they worship. Seems for thousands of years, since the Isrealites obeyed God, and God made the Isrealite nation his ‘chosen’ people, the world has become the enemy of the Isrealites and God himself. (jealous much?) About the only friends of the Jews are Christians, who happen to worship a Jewish carpenters son. A religion of love and redemption instead of hatred and force. So for the Jews, the world that hates them are the enemy, followed by the Christians who are friendly toward the Jewish religion/nation.

What if you have political beliefs? Are you right leaning or wrong, er, left leaning? Seems that the left have adopted the beliefs of the socialist and call their enemies fascists, but forgot that fascists are, in fact, socialists. So for communists, are the fascists their enemy or those that believe big, bloated governments are the enemy?

No matter who you are, what your background is or what kind of up-bringing you had, life brings you enemies, it is how you identify them and how you react to them that defines you.

Now that I think of it, I remember a story:

A little bird was flying south for the winter but started late and stopped to get a little rest before continuing. Now it had snowed the night before and the little bird was cold and while it was taking a drink, a large chunk of snow fell out of the tree and buried him. He was so cold, he had almost froze to death when a cow relieved itself and a big steaming pile of cow plop landed on the little bird. Now the cow plop was hot enough to start to thaw the bird and it was no longer near death. Even though it was in the mess of the cow plop, it became so warm, it started to sing as it was thankful that it was not going to die in the snow. About that time, a cat heard that little bird singing and dug that bird out of the cow plop, cleaned it up…and promptly ate that bird. So what lessons can we learn from this story?

Don’t procrastinate on a journey;

Not everyone that craps on you is your enemy;

Not everyone that digs you out of of sh¥t is your friend;

If your feeling good while in a pile of crap and surrounded by the enemy, keep your mouth shut.

But if you delve deeper, you will find an even more important enemy.

I have read a book by Sun Zsu called ‘The Art of War’. Sun Zsu postulated that “…If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles”. That means you must know yourself as well as your opponent.

So who is the the enemy? I have learned that the ultimate enemy of me is myself. I am my own worst enemy. Ignorance is an enemy. Lack of faith is an enemy. Hatred is an enemy. Not using the knowledge that I have learned over the years is an enemy. How I react to adversity can be an enemy. But, there is more.

I accepted the gift of salvation from Christ, so God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are with me, always. Deuteronomy 31:8. And since there is no one greater than God nor anything greater than God, it does not matter who my enemy is, does it?

So the ultimate enemy is the enemy of God! The fallen angel known as the ‘angel of light’ is the spirit that thought he could oust God from Heaven. Satan will do anything, say anything to embarrass God or destroy His creation. He derives great pleasure in creating confusion, division and hatred amongst Gods creation.

So who is your enemy? Ignorance, hatred or jealousy. Or are you going to allow the enemy of God to fleece and confuseyou, or are you going to allow the Spirit of the Lord to empower you against the enemy? Tally ho!

I don’t believe anymore

I used to think that gov’t was, in great part, working for the greater good of the citizens. Maybe, at one time, the greater part WAS looking out for the greater welfare of its citizenry. But 50 years of paying attention to politics, I have learned instead that the greatest majority of government is more like that of 1984, a book written to be a warning of socialism and not an instruction book.

In 2020 thru 2024, it seems as if government, federal, state and local was increasing its level of control of us, the citizens. When illegal aliens are getting welfare benefits that are greater than our homeless veterans and homeless citizens, something is wrong. When the total value of the benefits to outlaw immigrants excede the average retired citizen, something is wrong. When people were forced, first thru calusion then by federal mandate then thru ridicule to get injected with a vaccine that was experimental and never fully tested, something is wrong. Remember, when Donald Trump first allowed pharmeceutical companies to, thru warp speed, to skip the USDA testing process, liberals were saying they would not take the ‘Trump shot’. Then, low and behold it was forced on us. When leftist groups riot, set fire to buildings and ransack stores nobody gets arrested, instead the leaders of the left say it is ‘mostly peaceful’ protests as billions of property damage is incured on small business’, yet a group of truely peaceful people walk into the capitol buildings guarded by security that says nothing, they are hunted down like rabid dogs and jailed without benefit of council and labeled ‘domestic terrorists’ by the left regime. Even a elderly grand mother was accosted by federal agents and jailed at an undisclosed location without benefit of legal councel until she agreed to a very unfair plee deal that labeled her an inserectionist. Something is wrong. People feel it and the left of center politicians are starting to realize that maybe, just maybe they went too far.

When cowardly, weak minded men that can’t compete againt real men in sports are allowed to claim that they ‘feel like a woman’ and are allowed to compete against real women, something is wrong. Like the man in a novelty shop said, ‘If you have a dick you aint a chick’. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig. And the left of center people think that is ok, something is wrong. Liberalism has become a mental disease, some believe it always has been.

The left can’t compete in the arena of ideas, so they have to resort to discrediting or distroying their enemies, and if that doesn’t work, killing them. Donald Trump was lied about, discredited, arrested and not one but at least two or more times attemped assasination attempts. Many right leaning politicians have been shot or shot at. Funny that the right leaning politicians want to publically debate yet the left wants to shut them up. Look at what happened with Twitter, Facebook and Youtube during Covid. Any descenting opinions were squashed and shut down immediately and only that which was approved was published.

Doctors that did not agree that the Covid vaccine was nessessary were discredited and everyone was basically forced to ‘get the jab’. Yet nobody talks about the people that died BECAUSE of the vaccine.

Look at the education system. How much money is ‘dumped’ into the schools, yet our students are getting ‘dumber’. It is a money laundering scheme. It is also a propaganda machine teaching our younger generation that there are more than two genders, that men can get pregnant and men can be women and women can be men that they are all equal. Something is wrong!

Our law enforcement are hated on, and sometimes for good reason. Our current police forgot about the ultimate law, the Constitution of the United States of America. And how can they be expected to enforce the law when they are being defunded and criminals are released back onto the streets before the police are finished writing their reports? And why did the Supreme Court rule that police officers are allowed and encouraged to lie to extract a guilty verdict yet it is a felony if a citizen tells a lie to the police. Something is wrong!

ICE agents are now forced to wear masks for their own protection because there are people that will try to assasinate them or their families just for doing their jobs. Something is wrong!

And now, because of AI, you can make anyone say anything and look like they are anywhere. It is called ‘deep fake’ and I saw Brent Spiner as ‘Data from Star Trek TNG testify before congress about (I forget what because I knew it was a lie). How hard is it now, to make a deep fake video of Donald Trump tell people to do anything he really did not say?

Just because you see it, hear it or read it does not make it so. It is like we are alive in a computer simulation of lies. SOMETHING IS WRONG! And if we don’t regain control of our lives, how will we live? Who can you trust? Where can you go for truth? How will you determine what is real? Something is wrong, how will you make it right?

With great power…

I remember Uncle Ben telling a young Peter Parker “With great power comes great responsability”. Spiderman comics and Marvel movies. What it means to me is the more you know, the more you are responsible for. For normal people, a fourth grader is only responsible for learning fourth grade math, not calculus. But a college student is expected to know geometry, triginometry and algebra. The more you know, the more you are responsible for.

Anyone who saw the Spiderman movie or read the comic books has heard that phrase. But some learned people also refer to the story of the sword of Damocles. Cicero writes in his Tusculan Disputations that an assistant to the tyrant Dionysius II had mentioned how great it must be to have so much power, so Dionysius offered to switch places for one day and allow Damocles to sit on the thrown of power to which Damocles was thrilled to do. So Dionysius arranged to have a very sharp sword suspended by a single hair directly over the throne. The next day, as Damocles sat down on the thrown and looked up, one can only imagine the sence of dread that he must have felt and imagine Dionysius explaning that with power comes such a sense of overpowering dread, peril, danger and responsability.

I actually first learned of this idiom by watching the Three Stooges while they were cooking, a pie got stuck on the ceiling above the host and you could see the pie starting to loosen and Mo said something to the effect of “talk about the swords of Damocles”. I had to look it up. Seems my mom was wrong, I did get an education by watching the Three Stooges.

So, my parents gifted me a daily bible Devotional entitled ‘My Utmost for His Highest’. Everyday, the writer takes a verse and writes a full couple paragraphs of an explanation of its meaning. I am quite ‘put out’ as I was happily ignorant just reading the bible with minimal understanding. Actually, I had a good understanding just mostly cursery, kind of like a high school level understanding. But this devotional is forcing me to a college level understanding and my eyes are being opened to the true overwhelming theme of the bible, both old and new testiments. The difference between the world understanding and the spiritual realm. With my new understanding, I have come to the realization that Peter Parker did as Spiderman and also what Dionysius was trying to teach Damocles…with greater understanding comes greater responsibility for the understanding you have.

Ever watch football? There is a big difference in ability between High School level, College level and professional level football. You would, as a High School football player not want to play a professional football team. You would be injured. The same effect of a weekend paintball soldier verses a Navy Seal or Army Ranger, you would be spanked.

So imagine a spiritual war where the enemy has 6,000 years experience and understands their victims weaknesses. What chance do you, as a human, have to battle such an adversary? You don’t, you can’t. You don’t stand a chance accept for the fact we have a leader that not only understands this army, but has proven time after time the beat this army. The individual enemy soldiers are afraid of this general and his army. Wouldn’t you want this general protecting you? Actually, we can’t be in that army. A better anallegy would be a field of sheep (that is us) surrounded by wolves (that is the devil and his army) being protected by Jesus and his angels. But that still isn’t quite right. We, the sheep, must chose to be protected by Jesus in his pasture. Once in his pasture, we must trust the Shephard.

So, which pasture are you in? Which one do you want to be in? Do you fully trust the Shephard? Do you know what it means to be in the Good Shephards pasture? The greater the knowledge, the greater the responsibility, but at least there isn’t a sharp sword dangling by a hair above me nor a pie stuck to the ceiling above me. Thanks Mo, Larry and Curly.

You will know them by their fruit

Matthew 7:15-20. Jesus said about his followers, that you would know them by their fruits. Beware of false teachers who are like wolves in sheeps clothings.

I spend too much time watching short videos on Youtube and posts on X formerly Twitter. The AI evaluates what I look at and for how long to create an algorythm based on my interests. One of my interests are posts about God, in particular the signs of the end times and what it truely means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. And I have to admit that I am more confused now than I was a year ago. My parents, who are still alive and kicking, just not as fast and as high as they used to, bought me a daily devotional. No, no, no, not a simple devotional that you can read in a minute or two but one with homework. Well, I am behind about three weeks. I got stuck on three parts. Matthew 7:21 where Jesus says that not everyone that calls me Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Matther 7:13 ‘small is the gate and narrow is the way…’ and Matthew 7:15 …’you will know them by their fruits’… From Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

Stressing the importance of chosing the true path of a relationship with Jesus and not falling into the trap of a false relationship with religion. Like the Pharasees in the bible, who prided themselves on a religious cerimony and rituals. You see samples of it all the time. A mob gang member performing the Catholic cross just before or after eliminating a rival gang member, claimimg to be Catholic yet still murdering a snitch or witness? How about the Westbourough Baptist church when they spew such hatred toward someone who was gay or a veterans funeral service because they killed in war? Everyone can agree that the hooded members of the Klu Klux Klan, a.k.a. the KKK are filled with hate in their hearts because someone has a darker skin color than them as do the opposite Black Panthers who have hate in their hearts for the ‘white people’. They have hate in their hearts, not the same as disagreeing with someones opinion, but out right hate.

Recently, Pope Francis passed away, the leader of the world wide Catholic church, the so called apostolic successor to Peter of the New Testament of the Holy Bible, the apostle that Jesus renamed ‘the Rock’, not to be confused with the wrestler ‘The Rock’ a.k.a. Dwayne Johnson. Well, I could not see the Holy Spirit working within Pope Francis, especially when he told a child that his athiest father who had just recently passed away would be in heaven waiting for him, the child. That is in opposition to Christian doctrine where Jesus says ‘I am the way, the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father but thru me” John 14:6. Clearly, an athiest who does not believe in Jesus and the fact that he died on the cross and arose from the dead 3 days later and had not accepted Jesus Christ as his saviour would NOT be in heaven awaiting the arrival of that mans child. There are plenty of other examples of Pope Francis and his dangerous interpretations of the Bible, but history is replete with evil Popes that mislead millions away from Jesus, just like a wolf in sheeps clothing. I can not say that all Catholics are wrong, but I can say that many Catholics worldwide are being lead away from a personal relationship with Jesus. If I sin, I don’t need to confess to a preist for absolution and say 10 ‘Hail Mary’s’ praying to Christs earthly mother, but to pray directly to Jesus, bypassing the preist. The church’s priest is supposed to help give guidance and answer questions, not determine what you must do for absolution. Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will not only lead the new Pope, but every person world wide, Catholic or not into a true relationship with Jesus Christ who is no longer on the cross.

And ‘you will knowthem by their fruits’. Matt 7:16 Here, Jesus is using real world example to a spiritual manifestation. A thornbush does not produce grapes and you can’t grow figs on a thistle. Here, Jesus is talking about the manifestation of the spirit. He knew that soon, He would be gone and the Holy Spirit would be filling the hearts of men and women, He was preparing them to look at a persons true character. Can one see evidence of a changed heart. If the Holy Spirit is living inside you, there will be evidence in that persons character. Otherwise, that person may just be a phony, a fake. Someone who only has a christianlike facade, but behind the facade, there is nothing. They may actually think they are christians as they will be suprised when Jesus looks at them on judgement day, and says “depart from me, you that practice lawlessness” and a host of angels will pick them up and throw them in the pit of everlasting fire where there is crying and gnashing of teeth.

You all know what a “Lazyboy” recliner is. Imagine you going into the store and looking at a recliner. I see a brown leather recliner. I look at it from the front, then walk around it. I touch it to feel the leather. The salesman come and tells me how it was made, how the leather was sourced and the special stitching used in the factory to give the seams strength. He further explains the cushioning material and how the design of the chair gives added support to the lumbar region of the back. The handle that controls the reclining feature is easy to reach and maneuver. He then explains that it is free. Someone already came in and paid for it in my name, all I have to do is accept it. So I take it home and never sit in it. Do I really ‘know’ how comfortable it is? I put it in my Front room, I invite my family and friends to come and see my new chair, but I don’t let anyone sit in it. I haven’t even sat in it. So, do I really ‘know’ how comfortable that chair is? Or am I a fake, a phony? We all agree that in order to know how comfortable that chair is, I need to sit in it. Only by sitting in it can I then, with conviction share how comfortable that chair is. Not only is it comfortable, but it actually relaxes and refreshes me after a long day at work. If I don’t sit in it, I get no benefit of it. I don’t truly ‘know’ that chair.

This may be a poor example of knowing Jesus Christ, but I think you start to get a better understanding. If you are in a real relationship with the son of God, the person that came to earth, became human by being born from a woman and lived a live so he could experience what it is to be human, to be tempted and threatened and then eventually falsly convicted and murdered and humiliated just so he could pay the price to save us from the penalty of our crimes against God the Father then you want to share it. You want to tell as many people as you can that they, too, can have their sins against God forgiven.

I see warnings on Youtube. people claiming to see the signs of the end times. It is unmistakable that, everyday we are one day closer to the rapture, a time explained in Revelation where Jesus will have his ‘second’ coming. Where every knee will bow and everyone will have to confess that Jesus is Lord, even those that didn’t believe before, even those that are evildoers at heart will have to admit that Jesus is Lord. By that time, it will be too late to meet Jesus as he is coming triumphantly back to earth to claim what is his. Actually, everything is his and he will be the judge, jury and executioner of what is his.

As I get older, I realize I have become a pack-rat, a horder. It is amazing how much junk I have paid for and accumulated. Now that my kids are moved out and my wife and I are preplanning our retirement, It is tme to clean house. I have started to go thru my house and donate or outright toss out the junk I no longer need, want or use. Some items are easy to throw away, others are harder. Yet some items still have value, just not to my wife or myself anymore so we give the option to our kids if they want it, if not we donate it to Goodwill or ARC (another organization that sells items and uses the money to help people with disabilities). But what if you only had two choices; Keep or throw in the incinerator, a furnace so hot, it consumes an item and burns so hot that even the ash is consumed by fire. So you look and only those items that have your special seal on it is kept and all the rest, no matter how good or bad it is, gets put in the incinerator.

Well, that is what happens in the spirit world. Only those with the seal of the Holy Spirit will be taken to heaven, and everything else will be sent to the insinerator, but this furnace is too terrible to think of. There is no end for those thrown in it

No one knows the day or the hour of the second comming of Christ. Only God the Father knows. But how long is God going to wait when we, his creation, keeps kicking him out of our schools, our courts, our churches and our hearts? How much more evil must he witness before he says ‘ I had to destroy them once but promised I wouldn’t destroy them with a flood again, now I have no choice but to consume all evil with fire?

So this is what keeps me up at night, I have the chair, I know about the chair, I have told others about the chair and I have invited others to come and see the chair, but have I sat in the chair? What are my fruits? I have left the church because it became too ritualistic and while what was preached is true, I did not feel the authotity of the Holy Spirit. The last few churches did not seem to have the fire of the Holy Spirit.

Many years ago, my wife and I volunteered to go on several ‘Short Term Missions Trips’ the first two were in Myanmar, formerly Burma. Situated between India and China, this country is heavily influenced by both countries but has a history of its own. This country is primarily Buddhist and is a dictatorship run by 5 very powerful generals. While there sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ to people bereft of spiritual and physical hope, my wife and I were in a home (which felt like a hut from the set of Gilligans Island with teak wood framing and a thatch walls and tin roof) we had shared with a group of about a dozen people. And this one person, and elderly woman with skin like leather and a history of hard work in her face and a continance of no hope in her heart accepted Jesus into her heart. And after We led her thru the prayer where she accepted, I kid you not, even as I write this today, I get emotional at the fact that I saw the Holy Spirit that day. Her whole continance changed, her face glowed and she was filled with hope and joy. That kind of change could only be from the Holy Spirit, and when you have witnessed the power of him, the power of Jesus and the acceptance of God himself, you crave it. You need it and you can feel him influencing your life. So when you have stepped away from church because you did not feel the power and conviction of the Holy Spirit and you have gone awhile without being recharged, you feel empty inside.

For many years, there were two competing companies thatproduced batteries. Duracell and Energizer. Now between the two, it was 6 of one or half a dozen with the other. They both performed pretty much the same. But Eveready Energizer had a comercial that spotlighted the bunny. That stupid marching childrens toy of a pink bunny pounding away at a drum we called the Eveready bunny, powered by an Eveready battery that ‘keeps going and going and…’. Well, the Holy Spirit is like the battery that keeps you going and going and…

So this note, this post is written by me, for me. I think I have been told by the Holy Spirit what I must do. I must, with his help, find a church (group of people, not a building) that can not only help recharge me but also benefit from my talents and gifts. If this post helps you in any way, then this is one of my fruits.

I lost a friend today

Technically, she was my aunt, my mothers younger sister, but she was much more than an aunt, she was a friend. I called her ‘daddy #2’. My dad was a destroyerman in the Navy at the time and was out on WestPac, at least I think it was called that, short for western pacific deployment. When my mom went into labor with me, my aunt Betty was helping my mom at the house and was dressed in sweats and kept her hair short at the time. The nurse assumed my aunt was the father, so it was an inside joke that I called her that, and I would send her flowers on mothers day and sign the card ‘Happy daddy #2 day’. Growing up, we were very close, she played the guitar (self taught) and would sing to me as an infant through childhood. One of my favorites was Johnny Hortons “The battle of New Orleans”. I would always laught at the point in the song where ‘they loaded the aligators mouth with cannon balls and powder his behind’. She did alot of baby sitting for my mom and we spent alot of time together. The earliest memory of going to the movies was, when she was doing grocery shopping on the Navy base at the base exchange when she took me to the base theater to watch the Disney movie “Blackbeards Ghost”. Even today, at 63, I still enjoy that movie and laugh at the casino fight scene.

When I needed correcting, she never did it out of malice, but of love. And when it came to questions of a biblical nature, she would say to look it up myself and pray about what I read. She had a hard life, but I never saw her bitter. Not that she wasn’t angry, she just didn’t like to show it…except the time her washing machine’s water pump broke and flooded her utility room, then, wow! I took an interest in playing the banjo because of her. Have you ever heard a sad song on the banjo? Impossible, it is a happy little instrument and oddly enough, the only true American musical instrument.

In her later years, she led a ministry for battered and abused women. My wife and I made a promise that if anyone in her group needed a bible, we would buy them a bible. My wife and I bought bibles off ebay and thrift stores, but we kept our promise until she could no longer physically continue her ministry. She was always on the ‘praise and worship’ team in her church, even when she could no longer play an instrument, she would sing.

This last several weeks was hard on her. Her Medicaid refused to supply her with the medicine to control her A-fib which eventually cause her to form blood clots and have multiple mini strokes daily which eventually killer her. But this is not the time or place to critisize our healthcare system, but to celibrate a life of an increadible woman. I like to compare a persons life with a tapestry. And everyone you meet, every moment of your life adds a new thread to that tapestry. In that way, as long as those threads that were hers is imbedded in your tapestry, that that persons memory lives on. There are brightly colored threads with music imbedded in them attributed to my aunt and friend Betty. I love you aunt Betty, daddy #2.

What constitutes a good marriage

Marriage… the commitment of two people that has promised God and man that they will become one in mind and spirit. To use their strengthsto prop up the others weakness. To dedicate to each other their lives until death. Just listen to the promise “Do you (*) take (*) to be your lawfully wedded wife, thru sickness and in health, thru good times and bad for as long as you both shall live?” It is supposed to be a lifetime commitment. But we see that better than 50% of marriages fail. And 60 to 70% of second marriages fail (probably because the second marriage doesn’t have enough money because the financial cost and alimony has left the guy with even less money than he has in his first marriage, and many marriages fail due to money problems)

But I think of an even bigger problem in marriages, communication or lack thereof. When a couple are new in a marriage, there is an excitement, an energy. Not to mention the physical act of coupling and acting like rabbits. After all, there is a ‘Honeymoon’ phase. The kissing, the couples ‘love language’. The notes left in the lunchbox, the flowers brought home ‘just because’. The constant midnight talks. The snuggling and physical touching that sends a spark and causes a chiver of pleasure. But then… there is less of these little acts, fewer notes and then less ‘sex’ replaced by more T.V. or a really nice night of sleep. The fancy dinners replaced by a KFC dinner. Maybe, children which changes your life in so many other ways. Packing childrens lunches, planning childrens activities, always having to clean up a mess that you just cleaned up yesterday. Your ‘alone’ time gets shorter and shorter. One or both no longer feels special and they look elsewhere for a renewed spark of excitement.

Many people are in love with the concept of marrige and not in love with the person they are married to. Look at the most successful marriage failures… those that rack up ex wives or ex husbands likea hobby. Elizebeth Taylor (8 marriages) and Mickey Rooney (8 failed marriages) come to mind. Jenniffer Lopez and Nicolas Cage (4 or more each). Zsa Zsa Gabor was married 9 times as well as Jennifer O’Niel. And these are just from Hollywood, or as I like to call them, Hollywierd.

When I was in college, a night course of English composition, I wrote a paper on how society has a disposable mindset. From diapers to fast food containers to marriages. You can judge a society by its general mindset. What do they value and what do they discard. That paper was written in 1981 yet today, even babies are discarded (aborted) or castrated (sex change/gender change). What does this say about our society when over 50% of marriages are discarded after the Honeymoon period?

Are people to be discarded like last years cell phone?

What do you spend your free time with? How much time do you spend with your spouse? When was the last time you stayed up all night talking with your ‘special’ person’? Do you still share your dreams and fears with your spouse? Do you feel comfortable enough with your loved one to be vulnerable? Do you read poetry to each other? Do you talk with and not at your spouse?

Now for a paradigm shift. Ephesians 5:25 thru 27

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[a] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless

We, as children of God are to present ourselves as the bride of Christ. How do you see your relationship with Christ? Do you use a checklist ‘Church on some Sundays, the change in my pocket for tithe, prayer only when I need something? Or do you spend time with your bridegroom? I was watching a Youtube short when someone brought this idea up. I feel like I have ignored my spouse. How about you?

I have no right…

I remember the first time I died. Wow! What a statement. But I got your attention. I can see many times that if it weren’t for my guardian angel working overtime, I would not be here today. Several times, while driving, the situation should have, but didn’t, resulted in my death or possibly major injuty. One time, driving my dads 3/4 ton Chevy truck, nicknamed Big Red, in the rain, I was driving too fast approaching a signal when the car in front slammed to a stop in front of me. The tires on the truck really should have been replaced as they were…questionable. Anyway, I entered into a skid and turned into a spin that should have hit the car in front of me. Instead, I somehow came to a stop in the lane besides the car pointing perfectly forward and came to a stop right at the line as if nothing happened. I am just glad I did not need to change my shorts. Even recently, when driving at work and someone made a left hand turn into me causing my car to go from 55 mph to 0 in 1 second flat. The drivers side door was so mangled, even the state patrol officer was amazed that I was able to get the door open. The other vehicle was a large truck and the front bumper was only inches away from me. I should have been seriously injured or dead, but I only had a severely bruised chest, where the seatbelt caught me, and I still went to work the very next day.

When I was a kid, I went to visit my cousin that lived next to a major California freeway. We decided to take a shortcut to town and ran across a 4 lane freeway with all that oncoming traffic. How blessed were we for not causing and/ or being wiped out that night. From overdosing on my moms prescription pills as a child and having my stomach pumped, to falling out of a tree ( I was a climber) and ripping my leg open. I say again, I should not be alive, yet I feel God sent a guardian angel to protect me.

Recently, because of the Covid vaccine, my wife had a major negative reaction. Micro blood clots, congestive heart failure, lymphadema and several other side effects caused my wife to take an over the counter NSAID drug for pain. One morning, she told me she did not feel well. She could not make it to the car for me to take her to the hospital. The paramedic was called and they took her to the ER. The doctor flat told me, had we waited one more day, she would have been dead. She went into renal failure. Some call it prayer, I call it having a heart to heard conversation with God. And to be clear, I mean Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God and part of the triun God, the God of the Holy Bible, that God. And I asked, begged and demanded his intervention in saving my wife. Here I am, two years later, her now fully disabled and inable to sue (she was forced to take the ‘clot shot’, and I am doing most of the cooking, cleaning and house maintenance and performing her bandage changing 2 to 3 times a week while still working a full time job. I have a better appreciation for what she did over the last nearly 40 years. What my mother, grand mother and aunt went through in their lives. And I feel guilty asking God for more when it is clear that all those people that were praying for us moved God to the point of granting me more time. I have no right to ask for more when I have received so much. At what point do you say, ‘Thank you God for giving me so much! I know I don’t deserve it. I appreciate what you have done and I don’t want to keep pushing the blessings that you have given me”?

I came so close to loosing the person that God himself made for me. The person that completed me, made me come out of my shell, gave me children which led to grandchildren and shared a life with me. So many people were what I call ‘prayer warriors’ and were praying just for us. Have you ever felt like you might be pushing your ‘luck’? Asking for too much? I want you to thank God for what you have, no matter how much or how little…just let him know you are thankful.

After receiving so much, I don’t feel I have the right to ask for more. My wife is doing much better, but it has been a long road and she is not fully recovered. She can no longer go upstairs where our bedroom is and can only sleep in a power recliner for over 2 years now. And she has worked full time since 16 years old and can’t work anymore, so trying to keep her mentally stimulated is a chore in itself, BUT SHE IS STILL HERE. She has to use a walker, but she is still here. Thank you God for the additional time. Please give me more. I don’t deserve it, but I also did not deserve to be saved, yet Jesus did that.