Poem?

On top of all the political, economic, and civic stuff that has been swirling around my head, I wrote a poem about what also has been going on in my head.  I met a woman at the church we visited last Sunday and her name is Ann.  We just very randomly approached one another, and I asked her whether she worked outside the home or worked in the home, she replied she was a "writer."  Well, I just got so excited!  She writes poetry, is working on her memoires, and has been an editor of a newspaper.  She has already inspired me to write another poem.  Thank you Ann.  

Asking for what I thought was a stone, I was given bread.

Asking for peace, I was given strife.

Asking for joy, I was given sorrow.

Asking for love, I was given only mercy.

In mercy I found the Bread of Life.

In sorrow I found the joy beyond circumstances.

In strife, I found peace with God alone.

I asked for a stone which I thought was bread, peace, joy, and love, 

and in the asking, found abundant life.

Economics 101-There's no such thing as a free lunch!

My mind is not in a fog today,  but it has many, many concepts, current events, and cultural considerations flitting around from one synapse to another one, and I cannot figure out which concept to write about.  

My previous blog was on economic and civic considerations, and because of this I will continue on with more economic principles.  This is where it gets very difficult.  How do you make a blog on economics interesting enough for people to read it, research it, and then regurgitate it?  The politics and the media of the last century, with the exception of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, have propagandized the American public into believing that they are victims, individual responsibility has been given over to the government, class warfare (including rich and poor, black and white, gay and straight, religious and atheists, and  radical feminism) has been used to separate Americans from their moorings as Americans.  The schools have carried this philosophy to the young, and parents, to a certain extent, have abdicated their roles to teach their children not only (on our side) Christian beliefs, but what and why the United States is successful, and what it took to get where we are today, and the frailness of liberty if people are not vigilant at advancing freedom.  Christians have rarely seen the importance of teaching their young the link between the Biblical Worldview and Freedom, or to put it another way the link between Christianity and our way of life in this country.  They have taught the Bible well, but have placed a dichotomy between the sacred and the secular, instead of teaching that Christ is Lord of All of life; including economics, civics, psychology, etc, etc.  

I heard on the radio yesterday a man from either ABC news or CBS news giving his opinion on what the congressmen on the floor of the house were saying about the bailout.  I apologize for not getting the name of the man right, or the exact quote, but I have searched the web for an hour and have not found the quote or the opinion.  He was quoting one of the congressmen as saying that we should not go down this slippery slope to socialism by voting for the bill in question.  He said if he had to choose between bread and freedom, freedom would win out easily.  The commentator said that this thinking was empty headed and that he and most people in the US want their bread and their freedom.  I wanted to weep.  Have we come this far in our thinking that freedom should not cost us anything?  I was angry.  What about the men and women that not only chose freedom over bread, but counted their own lives as something worth laying down for the cause of freedom.  When we as an electorate want bread, we have already lost our freedom.  We are one of the few nations in history that have ever had freedom.  But that does not mean that we will always have it.    

Our framers were very wary of government.  When government becomes bigger and bigger, our freedom is slowly eroded.  This bailout of 700 billion dollars is so dangerous, to you and to me.  Whoever owns your treasure owns you.  Why should the American public through tax payer dollars pay for bad decisions and the consequences of those bad decisions?  Should we bailout the people who gave or took loans knowing that they could not pay for them?  Votes are bought through the bailout money from your pocket and mine.  This is not free market economics this is socialism pure and simple.  Capitalism is based on the free movement of all economic resources.  This is a reliance on the private ownership of property so that the allocation of those resources are encouraged by a decentralized government.  

At a recent women's retreat I struck up a conversation with a retired woman who was very upset about the government not giving the poverty stricken more money, houses, and resources.  I went to work.  Expressing to her the fallacies of her arguments.  It doesn't work, it doesn't encourage growth, it causes generations of a dependent class of individuals that in turn will vote for those that give them the handouts.  She mentioned the children of these people.  I told her of the example of Desire Street Ministries who moved into the worst part of New Orleans and over time, built a church, school, and resources for the children all without government help.  I enjoyed my talk immensely with this wonderful, generous woman.  She started the conversation saying "well if this feeds the children then I am all for being a socialist."  She said she could not trust the private sector and big corporations to be givers.  I asked her, "what makes you think that government can be trusted not to be greedy?"  "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." (Lord Acton)  

Think about it this way.  Maybe if these loans, that should never have been granted in the first place, go under it will be better in the long run for the ones that are directly affected and for those of us that are indirectly affected.  If the loans are harder to obtain than they used to be, then the people of the US will be more responsible with their money.  If loans are harder to get even for those who want student loans and car loans this will be better in the long run for us all.  One of the reasons why the cost of college and universities, houses, and cars have risen is because loans have been so easy to obtain.  Those people selling their goods know that anyone can get the loans it then drives up the price of goods and services.  The government has made it so easy to get loans, and the market is then driven by government not supply and demand, so the people with the goods and services to sell, know this and the price of things rise.  If the opposite was true, it would then drive down the cost of things.  There is no guarantee for banks, businesses, etc to stay afloat, this is not a right that is written into our Constitution.   The government needs to get out of the way.  I just heard that the feds pumped more money into the market to help loans.  This is exactly what happened in the great depression and inflation eventually went out the wazoo.  What a mistake.  The feds in essence are saying, come, buy, loan, on the backs of green that do not add up to anything, those monies are just a psychological ploy.  

I was shifting from the blogs and news websites that I peruse everyday, and went to Drudge who linked to an article that was saying exactly what I have been saying.  I am so glad someone agrees with me! I was just going to link to it, but it is so good, I decided to print in all here.  

Bailout marks Karl Marx's comeback

Posted: September 29, 2008, 8:03 PM by Jeff White

Martin Masse, mortgage crisis

Marx’s Proposal Number Five seems to be the leading motivation for those backing the Wall Street bailout 

By Martin Masse

In his Communist Manifesto,published in 1848, Karl Marx proposed 10 measures to be implemented after the proletariat takes power, with the aim of centralizing all instruments of production in the hands of the state. Proposal Number Five was to bring about the “centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”

If he were to rise from the dead today, Marx might be delighted to discover that most economists and financial commentators, including many who claim to favour the free market, agree with him. 

Indeed, analysts at the Heritage and Cato Institute, and commentators in The Wall Street Journal and on this very page, have made declarations in favour of the massive “injection of liquidities” engineered by central banks in recent months, the government takeover of giant financial institutions, as well as the still stalled US$700-billion bailout package. Some of the same voices were calling for similar interventions following the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001. 
“Whatever happened to the modern followers of my free-market opponents?” Marx would likely wonder. 

At first glance, anyone who understands economics can see that there is something wrong with this picture. The taxes that will need to be levied to finance this package may keep some firms alive, but they will siphon off capital, kill jobs and make businesses less productive elsewhere. Increasing the money supply is no different. It is an invisible tax that redistributes resources to debtors and those who made unwise investments. 

So why throw this sound free-market analysis overboard as soon as there is some downturn in the markets? 

The rationale for intervening always seems to centre on the fear of reliving the Great Depression. If we let too many institutions fail because of insolvency, we are being told, there is a risk of a general collapse of financial markets, with the subsequent drying up of credit and the catastrophic effects this would have on all sectors of production. This opinion, shared by Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson and most of the right-wing political and financial establishments, is based on Milton Friedman’s thesis that the Fed aggravated the Depression by not pumping enough money into the financial system following the market crash of 1929.

It sounds libertarian enough. The misguided policies of the Fed, a government creature, and bad government regulation are held responsible for the crisis. The need to respond to this emergency and keep markets running overrides concerns about taxing and inflating the money supply. This is supposed to contrast with the left-wing Keynesian approach, whose solutions are strangely very similar despite a different view of the causes.

But there is another approach that  doesn’t compromise with free-market principles and coherently explains why we constantly get into these bubble situations followed by a crash. It is centered on Marx’s Proposal Number Five: government control of capital. 

For decades, Austrian School economists have warned against the dire consequences of having a central banking system based on fiat money, money that is not grounded on any commodity like gold and can easily be manipulated. In addition to its obvious disadvantages (price inflation, debasement of the currency, etc.), easy credit and artificially low interest rates send wrong signals to investors and exacerbate business cycles.

Not only is the central bank constantly creating money out of thin air, but the fractional reserve system allows financial institutions to increase credit many times over. When money creation is sustained, a financial bubble begins to feed on itself, higher prices allowing the owners of inflated titles to spend and borrow more, leading to more credit creation and to even higher prices. 

As prices get distorted, malinvestments, or investments that should not have been made under normal market conditions, accumulate. Despite this, financial institutions have an incentive to join this frenzy of irresponsible lending, or else they will lose market shares to competitors. With “liquidities” in overabundance, more and more risky decisions are made to increase yields and leveraging reaches dangerous levels. 

During that manic phase, everybody seems to believe that the boom will go on. Only the Austrians warn that it cannot last forever, as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises did before the 1929 crash, and as their followers have done for the past several years. 

Now, what should be done when that pyramidal scheme starts crashing to the floor, because of a series of cascading failures or concern from the central bank that inflation is getting out of control? It’s obvious that credit will shrink, because everyone will want to get out of risky businesses, to call back loans and to put their money in safe places. Malinvestments have to be liquidated; prices have to come down to realistic levels; and resources stuck in unproductive uses have to be freed and moved to sectors that have real demand. Only then will capital again become available for productive investments. 
Friedmanites, who have no conception of malinvestments and never raise any issue with the boom, also cannot understand why it inevitably leads to a crash.
They only see the drying up of credit and blame the Fed for not injecting massive enough amounts of liquidities to prevent it.

But central banks and governments cannot transform unprofitable investments into profitable ones. They cannot force institutions to increase lending when they are so exposed. This is why calls for throwing more money at the problem are so totally misguided. Injections of liquidities started more than a year ago and have had no effect in preventing the situation from getting worse. Such measures can only delay the market correction and turn what should be a quick recession into a prolonged one. 

Friedman — who, contrary to popular perception, was not a foe of monetary inflation, but simply wanted to keep it under better control in normal circumstances — was wrong about the Fed not intervening during the Depression. It tried repeatedly to inflate but credit still went down for various reasons. This is a key difference in interpretation between the Austrian and Chicago schools. 

As Friedrich Hayek wrote in 1932, “Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion. ... To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about ...” 

The confusion of Chicago school economics on monetary issues is so profound as to lead its adherents today to support the largest government grab of private capital in world history. By adding their voices to those on the left, these confused free-marketeers are not helping to “save capitalism”, but contributing to its destruction.

Martin Masse is publisher of the libertarian webzine Le Québécois Libre and a former advisor to Industry minister Maxime Bernier.

Sad Day for the Country

I feel like the little old lady in the picture.  I am so very sad about what is happening in the country today.  The nationalization, another name for socialized financial market, bill that the House and the Senate democrats want to pass is a travesty.  Please before it is too late call your congressmen and your representatives.  Pray that this bill does not go through.  

Read the Preamble to the Constitution and see if it aligns with what some of the people in Washington want to do with this bill.  

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 Our Constitution does not say that all of our financial decisions will be or should be taken care of by the government, but that is what this bill is all about.  Please go out there today, read The Communist Manifesto.  The Communists, as written down by Marx and Engels, advocate stirring up the lowly populace in a crisis, and manipulate them to hand over their liberty to the powers that be.  I am so sad.  

AHHHH

I have always written the posts on this blog as I would for a magazine, or a devotional book.  It seems that most people like to read short, personal posts that only take a minute or two to read.  Trying to appeal to more and more people, I am trying to write more of these interspersed with continued longer posts.  I love to write and I always figured most people did not want to read about what I did on a day to day basis.  I mean, who wants to hear that I did five loads of laundry, ironed seven shirts and assorted clothes, swept the upstairs, went to Wal-Mart twice because I forgot something that I needed for dinner, took Bekah to school and picked her up in the afternoon, cooked dinner, unpacked five boxes of books, etc, etc..  What is exciting about that?  It is probably exactly what you did, or something like that.  

In light of that explanation I will say what was on my mind this morning as I was walking at the Darrell Almond Park in Norwood.  The longer that we are here living at the lake house, the more I love it.  For the first time since I was married (26 years ago) I have not had a job, had or nursed a baby, and have the least amount of responsibility in my entire adult life.  My oldest child is married, and the next two are in college away from home, I do not have a job, and live an hour away from the area that my husband is planting a church.  I have been having a ball!  I have been exercising 1 1/2 hours a day, reading books that I want to not have to, listening to talk radio everyday while I iron, do laundry, and other chores, painting, getting ready to sew a dog bed for Dallas, completely cleaned out the basement for company, put up a hammock off the basement back porch, and visited bookstores when I want to.  I think the problem is that I am getting very used to it.  I also am feeling guilty about it.  For so many years through homeschooling, teaching, etc.. etc... I have been on the run, flying by the seat of my pants, always being behind, and now I do not know how to act.  I just know that I like it.  Next week I am going to go visit Margaret on her birthday at school, and I can.  I have a feeling that I just need to be very, very grateful to the Lord for this time.....because it may be fleeting.  

Studying everyday and waiting for the Bridegroom.....Lynn

SBS Soggy Brain Syndrome

Hesitating to write what is on my mind, and continuing to mull it over and over seems like such a chore.  Sometimes swimming in a sea of thoughts that do not make a very coherent whole makes for a soggy brain.  That's it, my brain has Soggy Brain Syndrome (SBS for short). If every one else in the world can have a syndrome, why can't I?  Being one of those people that has to rest after being with new people or crowds for any extended period of time, SBS has taken over my body at this point.  This weekend I went with a very good fellow friend in ministry to a woman's retreat.  We laughed, cried, talked, slept, shopped, and had a great time. I actually had to sit with women I didn't know, talk to women I didn't know, eat with, sing with, worship with, and sleep (almost) in the same room with women that I didn't know.  I really do love people, women in particular, but it wears me out to be with people that I do not know for any length of time.  I did manage to take a nap on Saturday afternoon and that helped.   Everything about the weekend was fabulous.  Somewhere along the way I have finally learned, well maybe not completely learned, that it is OK to be an introvert.  I married an extrovert who at times has not always understood me and my quirks.  At the same time I have not always understood how he could be with people 24/7.  The world needs us both.  Ken will be the first one to tell you that he has learned his need for solitude from me, and I will be the first one to tell you that I have learned that I need people.  Actually, I always knew that, but people scare me.  I have learned over the years that people are not as scary as I think, and that all people are in so many different ways alike.  Women, whether they are fat or skinny, pretty or plain, learned or simple minded, are all insecure in some way.  Some of us really try to cover that up in a big way, but underneath it all we worry about what other women think about us. 

The way that I have, to a small degree or another, have tried to over come this is by knowing who made me, we all have gifts and they are not all the same, and to reach out to the women around me, and to listen to them.  I have found the more self gets out of the way, the more content I am to just "be."  

Today I cleaned out and up the entire downstairs.  I moved boxes, furniture, dusted, swept, ironed, and caught up on all the laundry.  As I was busy doing, my mind was busy also.  It was processing the weekend, praying for my kids, husband, and friends.  I listened to talk radio, and sang praises to the songs on the Christian radio station.  I planned the rest of my week, vacuumed, dusted, and hung up my hammock on the porch.  My SBS is much better tonight.  I will sleep well and wake up ready to see or talk to people tomorrow.  I am much more content knowing that God created me an introvert than I ever have been before.  I think that makes for a better friend, wife, mother, and daughter of the King.  

Waiting for the Bridegroom........Lynn

John Milton's Poetry

I know I keep jumping from one author to another, but my mind right now is jumbled with many thoughts trying desperately to come up with some kind of coherent thesis.  I feel kind of like the little white balls in the lottery tumbler waiting for the person to stop the motion so that at least a few of my thoughts can come to the surface and make themselves known.  

I have been reading Milton's Paradise Lost for months now.  I pick it up, put it down, chew on it a while, then put it down again.  It is the most beautiful epic poem that the world of literature has ever produced, humanly speaking.  I am not putting it above Scripture or anything like that.  I have been astonished at it's depth of reasoning, beauty, choice of words and phrases, the depth of which Milton knew of the Bible, secular literature, geography, every subject under the sun, and his ability to put it all together.  What a mind.  When I read something I am always compelled into doing more research on the subjects in the literature in question that I do not know.  I have learned a great deal about Milton, his world at the time, and subsequent scholars interpretations of Milton.  Samuel Johnson in 1783 said "poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason."  It is very much akin to music as it relates to worship.  Music does for worship what poetry does for reason.  This is exactly what Paradise Lost does for human kind.  I use the phrase "for human kind" because of the absolute magnitude that this poem has had on and in the world.  He gives us an epic poem along the same lines as Homer and Virgil did, but they wrote about "the gods" little "g", while Milton wrote about the Almighty God maker of Heaven and Earth.  Instead of a battle as in The Iliad the battle is in the heart of human kind, the hero and the heroine as they fall from innocence.  The restoration is in whether they will repent, be saved, and completely restored not by anything they have done but by the salvation to come.  

Milton understood his place in the Universe.  He, by the time that he wrote Paradise Lost, was completely blind, dependent, and had lost most of his worldly possessions and his status in life that he had once attained.  This brings me to the point of my last blog, and I will attempt to tie Edwards and Milton into the Gospel.  

One of the most praise worthy points of Edwards was that in contrasting the hypocrite and the true believer, his entire understanding is from a God centered view point.  The hypocrite is not spiritually minded, in fact, he may not ever have even bowed his knee before the holy God.  The true believer will face trials, tribulations, times of fear, simply because he has the Holy Spirit of God.  The hypocrite is being led along by his own passions not checked by the Spirit, Satan is leaving him just where he wants him to be; smug, complacent, undoubting, and self-confident.  He, the great deceiver wants him to stay there so that he will never realize that he is blind, naked, and un-done.  This is the Gospel that is outlined and emphasized by Edwards and Milton.  We are completely dependent on grace, not just at the beginning of our Christian life, but all throughout our lives.  As believers, it is when we have doubts, trials etc, that the God of grace is bringing us back to more and more dependence on Him and Him alone.  Milton, unlike Edwards, did have some theological inconsistencies, but he does give us a marvelous picture of the grandeur of God, and the crime that the Fall was upon mankind.  Our crime, our sin.  

There is a contemporary Christian song circulating the airwaves right now that has some of the best theology in it that I have ever heard.  It also makes the point in which I am attempting here.  It is "I Will Not be Moved" by Natalie Grant:

*(notice that she illustrates that she doesn't persevere because she has it all together, she perseveres because of God and His grace)

I have been the wayward child

I have acted out

I have questioned Sovereignty

And had my share of doubt

And though sometimes my prayers feel like

They're bouncing off the sky

The hand I hold won't let me go

And is the reason why...

Chorus:

I will stumble

I will fall down

But I will not be moved

I will make mistakes

I will face heartache

But I will not be moved

On Christ the Solid Rock I stand

All other ground is sinking sand

I will not be moved

Bitterness has plagued my heart 

Many times before

My life has been like broken glass 

And I have kept the score

Of all my shattered dreams and though it seemed 

That I was far too gone

My brokenness helped me to see

It's grace I'm standing on

Chorus

And the chaos in my life

Has been a badge I've worn

Though I have been torn

I will not be moved

(Natalie Grant) 

I too will not be moved.  I can say that with absolute confidence, not because of me, but of whom I am dependent.  He takes this very blind, naked, and helpless child and makes me stand unmoved.  Praise to the God of Great Grace.  

More on Jonathan Edwards in his Religious Affections

 I am behind in my reading of this book and I am trying to get caught up without missing out on the meat of the content.  I am in the section where Edwards is contrasting between the hypocrite and the true believer.  He says some very awesome things here.  I am always amazed at the nuances that can arise between the belief systems of Theology.  You always begin any study with your view of God, every study.   The subtle differences that make themselves known through study creep up.  Usually through our study of men and women that make it a habit of the mind to have contemplated the Scriptures and the God of the Scriptures at length and for years. Here we find that Edwards has pulled apart what it really means to be either a hypocrite or a believer in such a way that he makes these nuances known.  Most evangelicals would say the opposite of what he is saying here in his text, and because we have not studied, thought through, or read the masters we do not catch it.  Often times the hypocrites are the ones that seemingly are the ones that glide through their "Christian" walk like the Rock of Gibraltar, no doubts, no loss of faith or hope, and no dread of being deceived, because the great deceiver is telling them that all is well.  He wants them right where they are.  "Don't Worry be Happy." He says of the true believer, "though there be many things that are good evidences of a work of grace in them, yet they doubt very much whether they are really in a state of favor with God, because it is they, those that are so unworthy, and have done so much to provoke God to anger against them.  Their doubts in such a case arise from unbelief, as they arise from want of a sufficient sense of, and reliance on, the infinite riches of God's grace, and the sufficiency of Christ for the chief of sinners."  What wonderful insight.  This comes from a theology that says we do not earn any of it.  Salvation, sanctification, conviction of sin all of it is by grace and grace alone.  When we are hit by doubts, wonderings, trials, heartaches, could it not be the hand of a loving God telling us the truth about ourselves, that we are in such desperate need?  We then know that we are need of repentance.  So often though, I am convicted, truly repent and then as James says at the end of chapter 1, I walk away and never remember that I am still in need of His abiding grace, that is until God once again nudges me, punishes me, reminds me, loves me in spite, jars me etc, etc.........  Edwards goes on to say that when "their love decays" (how about those words!), and he is talking about true believers, fears then arise, all because God knows what we were made for and what He has called us to live for.  Is that not encouraging?  I quote again, "God's people, when fallen into dead and carnal frames, when love is asleep, would be lamentably exposed indeed:  and therefore God has wisely ordained, that these two opposite principles of love and fear should rise and fall, like the two opposite sides of a balance; when one rise the other sinks...divine love prevails, and comes into lively exercise, this brings in the brightness of hope, and drives away black lust, and fear with it."  How awesome is that?  To know that our trials are there only because of love, and that love will it prevail, perseverance of the saints!  Oh what blessed hope we have, oh it makes me want to shout.  It doesn't depend on me and I am safe in His blessed arms.  Because I am His, He will keep me until the end.  Praise Him.  

I said all of this begins with theology.  God is so much bigger than we think.  God centered theology is hope beyond Hope.  If you believe that even just a part, a little part of your salvation is built on you, then all of this changes.  It does depend on you, and that creeps into all that you do and believe.  This doctrine has been so subtly manifest in the country for so long, that we do not catch the nuances of teaching that is oh so insidious.  This doctrine that it depends on me, is also where the sacred/secular divide comes from, but that is for a different blog.  Also, it is human nature to believe that we must do something to earn His love.  All without exception the other major religions and worldviews are man centered.  Study, you who are housewives, soccer moms, dads, do not just let the "professional christians" study.  Start out with something that is simple but challenging, and even if you do not understand it all, you will very much begin to build on it.  OK now I have gone on to another rabbit trail.  

Praise God today for the one that keeps you from falling.  

Continuing to wait for the Bridegroom......Lynn

Fluff about Dallas and Bama

As I  have been perusing different posts that have been written by my friends and relatives, sometimes I wonder why I do not get more comments from the people that are reading my blog. Now if it sounds as if I am whining,  you would probably be correct.  I am just one of those people that loves to know that my writing is enjoyed, read, skimmed, thought about, hated, or even mediocre.  I find though that comments are left on blogs when the blogs are not of a serious nature, what I call fluff.  In light of this, I have decided to write about something of a "fluffy" nature.  Maybe I am just too serious of a person, actually I know that I am.  

Here goes:  

Most of you that know me know how much I love my dogs.  I walk them everyday, groom them, take care of them, pamper them, and completely spoil them.  I figure I can spoil my dogs, but not my kids.  Dallas was diagnosed with a heart murmur a couple of years ago, so I really spoil him.  Although, even though they have said he will not live as long as he would normally, we really let him be a dog.  He walks, runs, and swims just as much as he wants to.  If I didn't take him out the door with us on outings he would whine the entire time we were gone and work himself into a frenzy.  I figure it would be better for him just to go with us, and live and enjoy living as a dog as long as possible.  Sometimes if he sees a cat or some other kind of critter on our walks in the woods, he takes off like a bolt out of the blue.  Then he occasionally will slow down, stumble around and have to recover slowly.  He walks it out and in a few minutes he is back at his usual pace.  A few times in the last two years he has actually passed out after this burst of speed and adrenaline.  That's when I really get concerned and baby him all the more.  I grew up in Dallas, thus the name. 

Our puppy is named Bama.  My husband is a huge Alabama fan and grew up most of his life in Birmingham.  We have regional dog names in our family.  My oldest daughter Katie has a dog named Addis.  Her and her husband met in Ethiopia near Addis Abba and so even they have joined in the chorus of city and regional names.  Addis is a black lab that also loves to swim, and every so often we have three dogs to love on.  

Back to Bama.  She has turned out very different from Dallas.  She is smaller, thinner, lighter in color, and very much "girlie."  I do not mean that to denigrate my gender in any way, but she likes conditions to be just right.  When you transport her in the car she gets car sick, when she is sitting watching you eat she drools, she will swim in our lake, but only if she can walk in and not jump off the dock, and she constantly dominates and pushes Dallas around. Dallas is always giving her what she wants.  If Bama wants a toy, he gives it to her, if she wants the stick he has, Dallas gives it to her, Bama eats and then Dallas eats and on and on.  She completely freaks out on the Fourth of July, running as far away from the fireworks noises as possible and shaking for dear life.  

I love my dogs.  I really can't imagine not having a dog.  They are one of life's simple pleasures that God has given us to enjoy.  

Don't tell Ken, but they are both on the bed with me right now!!

*To be honest, the above pictures I took off of Flickr!  I will put pictures of the "real" Dallas and Bama on the blog when I find them. 

The great deceiver

As I wrote in an earlier post, I am reading Jonathan Edwards book Religious Affections.  Tim Challies  is reading through some of the Christian Classics, and I have done the past three along with him.  This seems to be a very timely book.  We live in an age where even "religious" affections and feelings are from the pit.  I was reading the comments on his blog and found some very interesting information all dealing with the church here and elsewhere.  He made mention of a couple of people in the Contemporary Music Industry that were very telling.  One was that Ray Bolz, singer of As the Anchor Holds and Thank You, has come out of the closet as being and very much living the homosexual lifestyle.  The second was Mike Guiliamucci of the group Hillsong has for two years been living a lie coning people into believing that he was dying of terminal cancer, when the opposite was true.  I will post, or I should say attempt to post the U Tube news clip of his apology to an Australian reporter.  Jonathan Edwards warns in this book that affections and feelings can be in themselves a big con game.  Of course he doesn't use those kinds of words, but actually uses some very harsh words instead.  Both of these men (Boltz and Gugliamucci) have been greatly deceived in one way or the other, and the father of lies is alive and well.  Filled with profound sadness my heart goes out to these men, their families, and the people that really followed their music.  

The first part of Religious Affections, Edwards goes into great detail about how God uses affections, changes our affections, and gives us profound joy.  He then tells us not to be deceived.  

How do we do that?  In an age where people at times only rely on their feelings.  How do we as believers over come this?  Please take the time to go to youtube look up Mike Gugilamucci's confession.  It is titled Mike Gugliamucci on Today Tonight.  I have just tried for an hour to embed the video, and have not succeeded, so I am giving up.  If any of you can help please feel free.  I will write more this afternoon on just how do we do that.  

Whetting the Appetite

For several months now I have been reading the Classic Selection of Books that Tim Challies has suggested reading.  This month we are reading Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards. I will add here portion of Tim's gleanings from this weeks reading.  I have gained and learned so very much from the spiritual giants that have preceded us, that I want to whet your appetite to try to persuade you to take up the challenge as well.  Let me know at omnibuscross@yahoo.com if you also would read Jonathan Edwards.

DISCUSSION

"What Edwards wanted to convey in this chapter is that holy affections are not heat without light; they are not great feelings and emotions built upon a foundation of little real knowledge of God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture. Holy affections arise from the Christians’ increasing understanding of God and His ways. “The child of God is graciously affected because he sees and understands something more of divine things than he did before, more of God or Christ, and of the glorious things exhibited in the gospel; he has some clearer and better view than he had before, when he was not affected. Either he receives some understanding of divine things that is new to him, or has his former knowledge renewed after the view was decayed.” So knowledge is the key that opens the heart and enlarges the affections.

This chapter, like several before it, drew my thoughts to so many of the counterfeit revivals we’ve seen in our day. Edwards says that there are many affections which do not arise from any increased light in the understanding. These are no evidence of a person’s salvation; such affections can be generated by enthusiasm or excitement or Satan or any number of sources. Their presence is no evidence of salvation. Whenever such revivals pop up (as they do every few years) we need to look not for the outward signs but for the presence of Scripture; we need to look for evidence that we are seeing more than mere heat.

Edwards spends much of this chapter writing about “spiritual sense.” He uses this term to describe a kind of sense beyond the five senses common to all men that allows those who are indwelt by the Spirit to have a kind of knowledge or understanding that draws them to what is truly gracious and spiritual. There are many similarities here with discernment where the Spirit works to draw people away from what is false and toward what is true."  Tim Challies

I Choose Life!

OK, OK, here I go with another movie theme, but every time I hear Sid the Sloth say to Diego the Saber Tooth Tiger, "I choose Life,"  it not only makes me laugh, but brings up a terrific line.  "I choose life."  Studying the book of James has made me contemplate this saying even more.   James tells us in the first chapter:  

"Consider pure joy my brothers, when ever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature, complete lacking in nothing.  If any of you lack wisdom he should ask God who gives generously..."

You may be asking, "what does that have to do with life or Sid?"  Hold on, I will explain. Do you ever find yourself in the midst of a trial, or an unexpected problem that seemed to have come from no where?  Or, something that really seems to have absolutely no solution whatsoever, and it has left you drained, depressed, and dependent?  Maybe the problem even looks so bad that it is hopeless.  Tell yourself the same thing that Sid told Diego, "I choose life." That can look different in diverse situations.  Know, that when you choose to give into the hopelessness of the situation,  that in a sense you are choosing death not life.  When we choose to willfully sin we also are choosing death as well.  A friend shared with me this morning a verse in the Psalms that goes right along with this:  

"This is the fate of those who trust in themselves, and their followers who approve of their sayings.  Like sheep they are destined for the grave, and death will feed on them.  The upright will rule over them in the morning; their forms will decay in the grave, far from their princely mansions.  But God will redeem my life from the grave; He will surely take me to Himself."  Psalms 49: 13-15

How often, I should say, how many times in a day do I fall back into the old routine of trusting in myself?  As James talks about the man that sees himself in a mirror, walks away, and forgets what he looks like.  I am forever forgetting just how needy I am.  I forget that in order to know or learn wisdom (as James also says) I have to begin with humility before God. Crying out to Him to save me from myself.  I first have to remember what I looked like in the mirror of His perfect Word and character.  So, choosing life has to do with humility and gaining the grace (also in James) that only comes from admitting that "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble, James 5:6."  I had a friend ask me the other day if I was omniscient.  This was in response to a trial that I had been going through, when I said that it would never get any better.  At first I just looked at her and then I was silent.  For I am not any where near omniscient, but I know the one who is.  Today why don't you and I strive to "Choose Life." 

Wrinkles Can Be Lovely

A friend of mine from Manila posted this picture on her blog crockcronicles, and I just love it!  I too hope I look like this old woman someday.  You can tell she is lively, loves life, and is not bitter.  Oh, Father, to have that grace.  

Once Again Pit Bull Attacks Gold on Lake Tillery

Ken and Lynn Cross, of River Run Road,  were taking a much needed walk in their neighborhood, when once again they were attacked by the same pit bull dog as before.  They were walking and talking down the dirt alley behind Lake Tillery Road when out of no where, it seemed, the pit bull runs up from behind one of the cars on the said property and rushes the golden retriever puppy's throat.  The puppy's name is "Bama" and of course the smallest and most vulnerable of the Crosses dogs.  She, the pit bull, approached from under the fence and down the dirt alley way.  She began grabbing the throat of Bama when Mr. Cross noticed that something was amiss.  He turns toward the perpetrator and sees that his puppy is being attacked.  He then picked up a stick and with his large frame begins to rush at the dog.  She lets go of  Bama and runs back into her yard with her tail between her legs.  As Mr. and Mrs. Cross proceeded down the dirt alley way, the pit bull comes back out of her yard to once again chase the unprovoked animals.  Mr. Cross said, "At that point all I had to do was turn around and show the dog my stick and she high tailed it back to her own yard.  I for one am sick of being chased by this animal.  She never comes up in any friendly fashion as dogs are accustomed to, she stealthily, and very quietly goes right for our younger dog."  Mrs. Cross related that the last time this happened the owners were warned and fined in order for them to keep the dog in the pen.  But, "As you can see they are not following the Animal Controls demands and are letting the dog out of the pen on a rope lead.  We talked to a woman down the street from them, that have also had the dog picked up by Animal Control.  And here it is causing fear and anxiety once again."

"We are looking into the situation there," said Officer Notonthejob, "we at the Stanly County Animal Control Division have sent a team of highly qualified agents to investigate the situation and to get it under control."  

The next day this reporter once again traveled to the alley in question and found that the pit bull was not in her pen and had been put back on a rope lead.  We will keep you informed as information is given to us.  

"Marwage, it's what brings us here today"

I have recently read the book, The Princess Bride.  My husband has been a fan of the movie for years, and I never really "got" the humor.  So, I decided to read the book.  It was one of the few books that are exactly like the movie, probably because the man that wrote the book also wrote the screen play.  As I was laughing at the part in which Buttercup is about to be wed to the wrong man, Prince Humperdink, I found myself repeating the priest's words over and over, "Marwage, it's what brings us here today," or "Twoo Wuv."  My kids all know the funniest lines and repeat them often, and now I am doing the same.  As I was having fun giggling I was also reminded of the truth in the statements, metaphorically and substantially.  Marriage is why I am where I am, and I married for true love.  Metaphorically, I am looking forward to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb because of the true, pure love, of my Savior for I am His Bride.  

We went to a fantastic church Sunday called Christ Central in Charlotte.  The pastor's name is Howard Brown.  He is African American and his assistant pastor is a very white anglo-saxon red haired man!  Pastor Brown was accepting around 20+ people into his church as members that day and did a marvelous job of explaining membership.  Afterward he told us that most of the people in the church have had no prior experience with a church, so therefore he goes overboard in explaining the meanings of things.  What a great reminder to us "old Christians" that take those kinds of things for granted.  He likened membership vows to wedding vows, and explained once again the vows that we have made to the Lord for we are His Bride.  Most importantly He stressed the vows that Christ Himself has made to us and the fact that even though we will be unfaithful, He never will be.  Thank you Howard for such a beautiful picture of beauty from ashes. 

I have had the privilege of seeing that lived out before me for the past twenty-six years.  My husband has been for me, a living illustration of the love Christ has for me as His bride.  No, I am not saying that perfection has ever been reached or ever will be, but I have been blessed.  Being in the ministry as long as we have been, we have counseled many couples having marriage problems, and I always walk away thanking God for my husband.  We have had deep struggles, problems, issues of his and mine, but by God's grace we keep seeking Him together through it all.  So......"Marwage is what brings us here today....."   Keep seeking your Bridegroom Christ, and one day we will all sit down with Him at the marriage supper together.  

Continually waiting for the Bridegroom......Lynn

I'M BACK!

I do apologize for the long time it has taken for me to finally post another blog.   I have been out of it for quite a while.  My husband and I went on a cruise to Alaska for two weeks, it took a week to get ready to go to Alaska, when we got back we had two days to get Margaret off to Covenant College, we spent four days out of town doing that, Karen and Rebekah started their new schools, and then I have taken a week to get laundry done, and try and get my house in order.  The one thing that I have learned is that it never gets better!   Time is always being eaten up by something, and when I wait like I have, there is never a good time to come back to do the things that I love, like writing.  I promise to post a long one either tonight or tomorrow.  I ripped my last contact Thursday, and have been half blind since then.  I have to prop my computer up on my chest about four inches from my face just to see to type.  I hope my contacts arrive by mail tomorrow.  Please check back.  Love you all.  Lynn