Friday, July 6, 2012
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Is America A Christian Nation?
Is America A Christian Nation?
Dr. David Barton researches historic persons, places, purposes that make America exceptional. Dr. Barton notes that, "Out of one hundred ninety-two nations (UN data), America is one of the few that doesn't generate a revolution every forty years or more frequently. Our nation's design and foundation is based on biblical wisdom accrued.
On this July 4th, consider just one of these truths you are committed to preserving, modeling in your daily life...
For me: We are a nation that has a government, not the other way around (Ronald Regan) In the bible this is modeled upon Moses receiving the ten commandments. The first three warn us where to keep our eyes focused, and to Whom to listen...they warn us against idolizing any that is not GOD.
Comments are welcomed below!
Dr. David Barton researches historic persons, places, purposes that make America exceptional. Dr. Barton notes that, "Out of one hundred ninety-two nations (UN data), America is one of the few that doesn't generate a revolution every forty years or more frequently. Our nation's design and foundation is based on biblical wisdom accrued.
On this July 4th, consider just one of these truths you are committed to preserving, modeling in your daily life...
For me: We are a nation that has a government, not the other way around (Ronald Regan) In the bible this is modeled upon Moses receiving the ten commandments. The first three warn us where to keep our eyes focused, and to Whom to listen...they warn us against idolizing any that is not GOD.
This is why iconoclasts are important in every culture:
Iconoclasts break the hold of icons on consciousness... they wake us up to a glorified human being allowed posing as idol because we fall asleep to truth (AKA FALSE IDOL).
IN GOD WE TRUST...(not a bloated and parasitic federal government)Comments are welcomed below!
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Monday, June 25, 2012
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
What we CAN do...unfurl our edges...becoming more fully bloomed
We cannot control other living beings without stimulating the mind of war within those we control. But what is "control?"
Is it the phone ringing? The caller who dialed our number?
Phone "ringing" can be lowered, shut off, even ignored.
Sometimes we are grateful that the phone rang...and other times it becomes our tipping point. Situations change. Our reactions change. Only we are in control of our stuff.
Is it that wiley woman wearing shapely shorts catching our eye who controls our thoughts and flow of emotional reactions (She must be aware -or not- that some eyes beyond her own belong to heads of under-developed, violent, and violating men)?
... In Iran burkas regulate most uncomfortable or untimely internal experiences that might find frowned-upon outward expression.
... In the US, we just look away if offended ...or avoid Walmart shopping at six.
Does McDonald's make kids obese because as parents we have to feed our kids, and our kids watch commercials, and then they clamor for what other kids get?
...We can see how convoluted "reasoning" gets when we let popular thought-waves wash over our capacity for not only logical thought, but higher thought.
Most of us live (on this continent) in an ultra-stimulating environment...making meditation and stewardship-practice imperative if we are to grow while also maintaining sanity and integrity. It's too easy, without regular self-monitoring and openness to honorable feedback, to victimize ourselves by reacting to anything we find in our environment just because it's there....and we see it, hear it, sense it...and don't like it! It bothers our inner balance, disturbs our inner peace.
Even more disastrous is reacting to something "out there" as if we know it's meaning, it's intention, and concluding that it's purpose was to irritate the living daylights out of us. Our potential for irritability builds from within ... somethings outside ourselves just happen to be easier targets than others. We inside ourselves are responsible to working with our own inner structures and the receptor sites our internalization of outer experience creates.
Unless another opens our virtual doors tossing in a smoking stink bomb, I'd say the only way others can really control us (in the United States of America, that is) would be contractually, legally ( through prison, jail, and LAW-Making ... including of course the means of law enforcement).
Political platforms, personalities, programs, and institutions (e.g. labor unions' self-preserving deviation from original good purpose) that expand their reach into decision-making arenas localized in others must make promises to those they reach over, step on, invade. They "bargain" power-resource exchanges with those watching, listening, witnessing.
Then promises must be "faught for" and lots of other important things need changing in order to deliver that which was promised. Too often, the original intention is lost in the shuffle and the shuffle becomes the reason for being. If we're not playing close attention, we can get lost in the Big Shuffle of Bureaucracies ... big government, big unions, and the underlying drives of America's 44th president. What drives him to make strangely personalized official statements, e.g. "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin." "After November, I will have more flexability." etc. etc. etc.
Barrack Obama reveals himself to be an elite celebrity president.
Behaving like a celebrity brings the temptation to maintain popularity ... and further cultivate it. As with the intitutionalizing shift made by labor unions to self-preserving wagging of the dog, Obama's shift into motivational gear has taken place. He is simply becoming more of his true colors revealed in Dreams of My Father. Instead of honoring duties and inaugural promises made to all Americans, he honors the anti-colonial war his father waged.
This portrait of the man, Barrack Obama, the advise he takes from elitist Jarrett over experts from the field, along with the decisions of his appointee, e.g. Eric Holder forms a pattern for me that becomes less deniable as weeks and months progress. Unless we follow current events, we miss the dots to be connected. Unless we connect the dots, we are subject to missing the import of what is happening right before our eyes. And that is how many unnecessary and aweful tragedies take place among good people. Even expression of an ugly possibility brings outrage to bearer of a message. Disturbing, unsettling, unpopular, politically incorrect, unbelievable...
Is it the phone ringing? The caller who dialed our number?
Phone "ringing" can be lowered, shut off, even ignored.
Sometimes we are grateful that the phone rang...and other times it becomes our tipping point. Situations change. Our reactions change. Only we are in control of our stuff.
Is it that wiley woman wearing shapely shorts catching our eye who controls our thoughts and flow of emotional reactions (She must be aware -or not- that some eyes beyond her own belong to heads of under-developed, violent, and violating men)?
... In Iran burkas regulate most uncomfortable or untimely internal experiences that might find frowned-upon outward expression.
... In the US, we just look away if offended ...or avoid Walmart shopping at six.
Does McDonald's make kids obese because as parents we have to feed our kids, and our kids watch commercials, and then they clamor for what other kids get?
...We can see how convoluted "reasoning" gets when we let popular thought-waves wash over our capacity for not only logical thought, but higher thought.
Most of us live (on this continent) in an ultra-stimulating environment...making meditation and stewardship-practice imperative if we are to grow while also maintaining sanity and integrity. It's too easy, without regular self-monitoring and openness to honorable feedback, to victimize ourselves by reacting to anything we find in our environment just because it's there....and we see it, hear it, sense it...and don't like it! It bothers our inner balance, disturbs our inner peace.
Even more disastrous is reacting to something "out there" as if we know it's meaning, it's intention, and concluding that it's purpose was to irritate the living daylights out of us. Our potential for irritability builds from within ... somethings outside ourselves just happen to be easier targets than others. We inside ourselves are responsible to working with our own inner structures and the receptor sites our internalization of outer experience creates.
Unless another opens our virtual doors tossing in a smoking stink bomb, I'd say the only way others can really control us (in the United States of America, that is) would be contractually, legally ( through prison, jail, and LAW-Making ... including of course the means of law enforcement).
Political platforms, personalities, programs, and institutions (e.g. labor unions' self-preserving deviation from original good purpose) that expand their reach into decision-making arenas localized in others must make promises to those they reach over, step on, invade. They "bargain" power-resource exchanges with those watching, listening, witnessing.
Then promises must be "faught for" and lots of other important things need changing in order to deliver that which was promised. Too often, the original intention is lost in the shuffle and the shuffle becomes the reason for being. If we're not playing close attention, we can get lost in the Big Shuffle of Bureaucracies ... big government, big unions, and the underlying drives of America's 44th president. What drives him to make strangely personalized official statements, e.g. "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin." "After November, I will have more flexability." etc. etc. etc.
Barrack Obama reveals himself to be an elite celebrity president.
Behaving like a celebrity brings the temptation to maintain popularity ... and further cultivate it. As with the intitutionalizing shift made by labor unions to self-preserving wagging of the dog, Obama's shift into motivational gear has taken place. He is simply becoming more of his true colors revealed in Dreams of My Father. Instead of honoring duties and inaugural promises made to all Americans, he honors the anti-colonial war his father waged.
This portrait of the man, Barrack Obama, the advise he takes from elitist Jarrett over experts from the field, along with the decisions of his appointee, e.g. Eric Holder forms a pattern for me that becomes less deniable as weeks and months progress. Unless we follow current events, we miss the dots to be connected. Unless we connect the dots, we are subject to missing the import of what is happening right before our eyes. And that is how many unnecessary and aweful tragedies take place among good people. Even expression of an ugly possibility brings outrage to bearer of a message. Disturbing, unsettling, unpopular, politically incorrect, unbelievable...
Only the individual CAN control his/her response to our inclination to take offense, to prefer certainty to doubt, to engage our warring mind. We need only review the multitude of different responses from the general public when we ask an important question, e.g. What's your dream career choice? There are as many answers, available among individuals populating our various environments, as there are differences among snowflakes. We are very different stewards of our many different minds. Pick a topic to initiate a thoughtful discussion...any topic. We have many different choices available:
- What's your favorite ice cream?
- Where would you live in the world if there were no borders or barriers?
- Who do you love (most often, more fully, unremittently, unconditionally, etc.)... and why? and how do you express your love? and who "gets" you? who doesn't? what gets in the way?
- When is it time to be so fully ourselves that our very being challenges the expectations of those we value deeply?
- Why do we prefer to belong to the current version of "politically correct" rather than disclose where, how, and why we actually deviate?
- How might we respond to ones who perceive and express a different portrait of reality than we currently do?
The changing of habits ... or perspective
www.Earth.Google.com
... an experience of moving through generations of perspective
... an experience of moving through generations of perspective
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