11-11-11 Thankfulness and Glory

John 8:7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said to them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
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We’ve arrived at the last day of the week which is 11-11-11. A culmination of Help the Less Fortunate Week. All those ‘ones’ in the date, makes me think of the number one front and center force in my life and that is the Lord God. Throughout this week I’ve given you a window into the world in which you live and perhaps maybe sit in judgment of innocent human beings. Have you hung pretty curtains at the window, so the low-life outside doesn’t look so clear. Have you put up shades on your window so their tattered and torn smelly clothes can’t be seen or inhaled? Have you turned your nose up to the needy?

This is what you have done in the season of Thanksgiving? Shut yourself off from giving and absorbed yourself in YOU. “I have all my Christmas shopping done! Aren’t I great?” “I dropped a five dollar bill in the Salvation Army bucket, instead of my usual one dollar!” Wow, don’t you just feel so good about YOU? I have not written this week to guilt you into anything. If you can not act of your own fruition then acting at all will be futile.

I’ve helped you to open your heart and mind into the world of compassion so that maybe when you see a person in need, you won’t turn away from them, out of disgust, maybe you’ll humble your heart, and go to them and see what they need and how you can help. Maybe they just need a cup of coffee, not a whole order of food, maybe the car behind you in the Wendy’s drive-thru could use a spontaneous act of kindness, maybe an elderly person in your building, complex, neighborhood could use a visitor. Maybe someone in the hospital where you’re visiting a friend or loved one, never gets to see a friend or loved one, why not go in and say, Hello?

Instead of gossiping behind peoples back who are not as fortunate as you, why not reach out to them with an arm of compassion. Why not bend in a different direction this holiday season and better yet, why not do it year round? Why wait for the holiday to begin?

Heb 13: 1-3  Let brotherly love continue.
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.

As we entertain ourselves in the company of like minded people, our hearts will overflow with the compassionate nature that Jesus had intended for us. When we surround ourselves in the body of lust, greed, perversion, we get lost in the mire and can never see clearly what God has intended for us on this Earth.
 
As I sit here in farm country, watching the harvesters reap what they sow, I look out into a nation who is being swallowed by earthquakes in divers places, fires, storms, unearthly behavior. Remember, we’ll be protected, because we as Christians will see the signs and wonders and won’t be caught unaware. We’ll have our arms wide open, and ears wide shut to all the naysayers who wish to drive us away from our innocent intent, and that is to help someone in need, without once asking for praise in return. Can you do that?
 
Why a person shuns people in need, is really beyond my comprehension. How can you neglect looking out the window and not SEE what is going on around you and how can you not care unless there is something in it for YOU? Have you ever just given, to give? Have you ever went above and beyond YOU, and thought of someone else, not for gain or recognition just for the sheer warmth that it left lingering in your spirit?
 
Feel that warmth of a giving heart. It is the rainbow of God lighting your soul. Don’t deny it when it happens to you, embrace it and do something because of it.
 

May the joy, peace and compassion envelop you this glorious season. Bring a miracle to life. All you have to do is...PRAY! Godspeed my friends...

“Remember this, what you do in secret, God sees it. What you think silently, God hears it. What you post publicly, would your mother be proud to call you hers? What you think is innocent, would your Father, think so too?” Joni Zipp

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Before you act, listen.
Before you react, think.
Before you spend, earn.
Before you criticize, wait.
Before you pray, forgive.
Before you quit, try.”
~ Ernest Hemingway

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to all the veterans in

the world

I salute you.

All Tied Up?

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble." - 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
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Did you ever notice people with the means to help, don’t. And the people without the means, do? Or at least want to. I think I remain poor because even if I was a popular published novel writer, my money would be flung out the window, handed off to people who need it!

I have family members who make more than $100,00 thousand a year, and ones who make less than $25,000 a year. Wanna know who helps in our dire time of need? Yup you guessed it, the ones with the least amount to give. And if you ask the ones with more than enough money for help? They tell you they don’t have it, their money is all tied up. What does that even mean? Oh wait...it is in savings for THEM, so THEY have a good life, for the rest of their lives. Poo, on those who have nothing, get a job they say. Well! I don’t need you, I have GOD, and YOU have your place carved out for you.

More so than that, the ones without don’t even need to ask if I need help. Have you ever seen the man with raggedy clothing on the street corner, cup in hand, sign on ground, NEED FOOD, some call them ‘bums’, some say they are derelicts, some whisper, ‘street trash’, I say the are ‘homeless’ victims.

Why victims? Because they became a victim of circumstance. Please don’t give me the story on these men and women, how they are just out for booze. Sucking off of ‘good taxpaying people’. Do you hear how wrong that sounds? I grew up in the city, Baltimore city, and the homeless could be seen sleeping on top of steaming sewer drains, they will carry their ‘home’ with them, usually a cardboard box, a lot of times a shopping cart filled with a coat and boxes that they would roll around the streets from one place to the next.

It was always so sad to see these men AND women clinging to the very edge of society. A misfit among the human race, pushed there by disease? Hard times? Society? Or Family? I have been on the edge of that line numerous times but God has always sought someone to reach out to me and bring me something, anything in my time of NEED, not want. God is the only saving Grace during these hard times of need, and having real Christians surround you and pull you together into their arms, that is what you NEED!

Sure we all want a nice home, a warm home with a car outside waiting for us to jump in, clothes on our backs, and food on our plates. We also want that new blouse we saw at JCPenny’s, or that purse we saw at Macy’s, or the new sofa we saw at the Furniture Store. But those are all WANTS and nothing that you really NEED.

I NEED my state of mental health, and the Greed Factory is not where I’ll ever visit anytime soon. You enjoy your time there and if you see someone who resembles Jesus, in need, tell him you can’t help, “YOUR money is all tied up.” See how that works for you.

Hebrews 13:1-2 "Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares".

But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mk 10:43-45 (NLT)

Tomfoolery

Rom 1:32  Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
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I think I’ll give up on my writing blog!

April Fools!

Such a silly day of pranks and tomfoolery; where on earth did this April Fools day derive its origins from?

From Wikipedia:

In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1392), the "Nun's Priest's Tale  is set Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two. Modern scholars believe that there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts and that Chaucer actually wrote, Syn March was gon. Thus the passage originally meant 32 days after March, i.e. May 2, the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England  to Anne of Bohemia , which took place in 1381. However, readers apparently misunderstood this line to mean "32nd of March," i.e. 1st April. In Chaucer's tale, the vain cock Chauntecleer is tricked by a fox.
 

In 1509, a French poet referred to a poisson d’avril (April fool, literally "April fish"), a possible reference to the holiday.In 1539, Flemish poet Eduard de Dene wrote of a nobleman who sent his servants on foolish errands on the 1st of April. In 1686, John Aubrey  referred to the holiday as "Fooles holy day", the first British reference. On the 1st  of April, 1698, several people were tricked into going to the Tower of London  to "see the Lions washed".The name "April Fools" echoes that of the Feast of Fools , a Medieval holiday held on the 28th December.
 

In the Middle Ages, New Year's Day was celebrated on the 25th of March in most European towns. In some areas of France, New Year's was a week-long holiday ending on the 1st of April. So it is possible that April Fools originated because those who celebrated on the 1st of January made fun of those who celebrated on other dates. The use of the 1st of January as New Year's Day was common in France by the mid-sixteenth century,and this date was adopted officially in 1564 by the Edict of Roussillon.
 

In the eighteenth century, the festival was often posited as going back to the time of Noah. According to an English newspaper article published in 1789, the day had its origin when Noah sent his dove off too early, before the waters had receded; he did this on the first day of the Hebrew month that corresponds with April.
[end wiki]
 

Well now, that was an eyeful! I say that April fools day is for fools who believe everything and are willing to accept things at face value. Tricks can land you in a heap of trouble. Just read the book Needful Things by Stephen King. One trick led to another, all assuming the wrong person played the trick and eventually all of Castle Rock was blown to bits, just because of the spinning wheels of tricks.
 
So as you go about today, playing needless tricks, all in the name of ‘fun’, remember some people don’t get the humor and it could have ill effects; possibly coming back to bite you in the butt.
 

“There’s no fool like an old fool.”