Wallace/Currie Hymnal Suggestions

This morning, for reasons that remain a mystery to me, I had the old song "Mercedes Benz" by the late Janice Joplin running through my head. I couldn't remember all the words but it became readily obvious to me that this song might well qualify as a worship song for the materialism-worshiping congregants of the Jim Wallace and Chuck Currie ilk. So... I found the lyrics. You be the judge.

"Mercedes Benz"

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?

My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.

Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,

So Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a color TV ?

Dialing For Dollars is trying to find me.

I wait for delivery each day until three,

So oh Lord, won't you buy me a color TV ?

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a night on the town ?

I'm counting on you, Lord, please don't let me down.

Prove that you love me and buy the next round,

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a night on the town ?

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?

My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends,

Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,

So oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?

American History In Black And White

This documentary from David Barton by Wall Builders is a great find for those interested in a history of black Americans with the modern filters of political correctness and revisions removed. Below is a part of this documentary. It is apropos for these days for it sets the record straight, not as leftest and party-first loyalist "journalists" like Chris Mathews do by name calling and presenting opinion and wishful thinking as history, but by reciting many of the writings of the times. If you are a homeschooler, it is good. If you have children in public schools, it is most definitely a must. I admonish you to equip your children with the truth! It is well worth the money and you'll be glad you did! Also check out David Borton and Wall Builder's web site, and other helpful you-tube clips.

Documentary By The Man Woman Myth

Thanks to Laura at Full Of Grace, Seasoned With Salt for finding this series of videos on feminism. This one is part three of six. They can all be watched on You Tube. While I don't agree with some of the conspiracy sounding language (click here for an explanation), these clips resonated with me in many ways; like a frog in the pot suddenly feeling some water at a normal temperature for a change and suddenly realizing that the water around him has gotten really really hot. Still, these do not approach the issue from a Christian perspective as much as a materialistic perspective so be warned of some sparse profanity.

Insurance Refresher

Meet Bob. Bob knows a catastrophe could bankrupt him and he doesn't want to live his life with this hanging over his head. This creates a dilemma for Bob because the very fact that he is alive inherently involves risk, yet Bob wants to somehow reduce those risks.

While Bob knows he can't eliminate his risks entirely, he also knows that the odds of an encounter with that risk is somewhat remote. With this in mind he talks to many people and convinces 100 friends and neighbors to contribute a set amount of money into a pool with the knowledge that the money would be used to help any of them to off-set a catastrophe should one occur. Some, on the other hand, like John who preferred to instead buy a monster truck with chrome rims, forgoes joining in the cooperative effort. More about John later.

With the knowledge of the increasing amount of money in the pot Bob sleeps easier at night knowing that a much larger lump of money than he could possibly save is available should catastrophe strike. Furthermore, with the return they are getting on this pooled money it is grwoing on its on so there is now talk of reducing the required contributions.

Re-enter John. One day Bob gets a call. John has just wrecked his monster truck and wants to begin contributing to the fund in order to gain access to the now sizable amount of money in the fund for repairs.

What is the right thing for Bob and the 99 others to do?

Life Is Indeed Short

See an interesting video here about a young high school man, Nathan, with a terminal disease. Near the end of the clip He speaks to what looks to be his classmates about the advantage of knowing when he is going to die. As for me the reality of my mortality came relatively early I think. In my twenties I can remember lying on my back looking up at my arm. As I would hold it before me the crushing realization that one day it would rot would settle in on me like a ton of bricks. Morbid I know. I would remember all the milestones of my past that I had waited for so anxiously: a driver's licence, finishing high school, getting out of the military, the first paying job of my profession. These events came... and they went..., and just as certainly, I knew that a date with my last heart beat loomed just as certainly on the horizon.

As a non-Christian this reality would bring on a paralyzing fear. As a Christian it is only oppressive; but it is a reality. Once after attending a funeral I wondered aloud amongst friends what people would say at my funeral. A friend that knows me quite well spoke without hesitation saying dryly: "It finally happened".

Still, even with the seemingly heightened awareness of my mortality I can't help but wonder: am I numbering my days so that I can present to God a heart of wisdom? This short video may guide your thoughts as well to some much needed soul searching.

Don't Tell Me That You Love Me

At some point in recent history the American Church took the tact that speaking out against laws being passed by the government caused division. It was political and politics didn't belong in the church. (the 5013c impact) There was a move instead to be more "loving". As this thinking increased the salt and light of the church decreased in the public square and the sanctuary. Acceptance has become the tenor as sins are being embraced in some segments of the church, or simply disregarded in others.

This gave those who wrote laws free reign to experiment on society as they wished with all kinds of man-centered philosophies with the promise of utopia . The family is now in shambles, the blood of the unborn cries out to God, and the government is bankrupt as a result of inserting itself between immoral behavior and its consequences. All of this is done under the guise of compassion.

That's OK I guess. It is the way of a society that has casted off all restraints. Just please, don't try to tell me, as the ponzi-scheme that is the morass of "social programs" collapses, as the children are trained to be barbarians and the fruit of the toil of everyone from the aged to those who have yet to survive the womb is being squandered on vain and futile fantasies, that you love me.

A Little More Perspective On Hate

Given the recent discussion on a certain kind of media causing us to do things that we wouldn't otherwise do, this Video Clip raises the question: do the people writing the tweets in this video listen to that media? If what we are being told is correct, these people would be warm and friendly to everyone to everyone if only they were not exposed to some outside corrupting influences. I say this becuase in this clip you will see not a word associating the man who pulled the trigger in Tuscon to the deaths that resulted.

Will someone eventually kill Sara Palin? I honestly don't know, but even if I had never seen this clip, it would come as no surprise to me if they did. The hatred for her spewing forth has for three years now been as thick as mud.

Here is the clip with a Hat Tip to "John Shuck Made Me Do It".

Warning:
this is a look into the world of those who preach peace and love, though there is no sound, be warned that the language is very foul.

Imagine Consistency

Imagine that a massacre like the one in Tuscon was carried out by a Muslim. Suppose that that Muslim shouted Allah Akbar the entire time he was methodically picking off his victims? Would the media blame Islam for calling for that very thing out right; or would they defend Islam as a religion of peace and deny the connection? Hmmmmm... didn't something like that happen just recently? Does this event remind us more of that event, or say... an event that Democrats feel they are more capable of churning up political mud? Like say the Oklahoma City Bombing.

If Democrats and their media mouth pieces were consistent and they truly believed what they tell us about Islam, that is that we should not upset them lest they become angry and kill even more of us, shouldn't they try to disassociate as much as they're able the Tuscon Massacre with conservatism?

I'm not conceding that there actually is a connection that needs to be disassociated outside the minds of liberals, but because it does exist in their minds, consistency would demand, one would think, a similar reaction. But then again, it is not unreasonable for a group to treat their true enemies like true enemies.

A Calvanist's Fear

There has always been scripture that scares me. I know that being afraid as a believer is not a popular doctrine these days but fear can be quite the motivator for self examination. There is the “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it" scripture. Narrow? Well just how narrow? Then there's : "Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ".

Recently I was meditating on another text and the more I did so the more concerned I became: "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son". Now, I take this text to mean exactly what it says realizing that doing so puts me in the Calvinist's camp. The argument is made against Calvinists however that God doesn't want us to walk around worrying about whether or not we have been "chosen" or not, which, as it turns out, the very thing I worry about. But what am I to do? Ignore these kinds of scripture that warn us that our presuppositions might be false? For you see, I know me like no one else, and I know that I am not anywhere near being conformed into the image of His son.

Still, the fear is not my major concern here. I can deal with the fear in this temporal life. What I can't deal with is the eternal consequences of being wrong.

It's A Harsh World After All

I can't deny that I have loved living in an affluent society. (1) It has truly been a blessing. But I can also see how affluence has skewed my vision and even blinded our society as a whole. We forget that this blessing is not normal in the wider view of history but rather is a deviation from normal. The reality that we live in an inherently harsh world in fact clashes with our life long experience. This experience sets us up for what is called a "Normalcy Bias". A Normalcy Bias is a state of mind that, according to Wikipedia, causes us to assume that "since a disaster never has occurred... it never will". This nothing-really-bad-can-or-ever-will-happen state of mind blinds us to the reality that we actually live in a very harsh world; a world that is way more hostile to our utopian desires than we can comprehend. (2)

While most, it should be safe to assume, have a reasonable understanding of the harsh realities of natural disasters, these disasters are quite tame when compared to the harsher realities of the political and economic calamities brought on by man. Natural disasters brought us building codes for constructing dwellings that could withstand its ire which mitigate the human tole of its wrath. But with all the seemingly randomness of nature's furry, and the unfathomable power it unleashes, its randomness actually becomes our ally for it is indifferent in its furry. Not so with the furry of man. Nature therefore, as it turns out, can't hold a candle to the destruction and suffering brought to bear against man by man.

Another tenet of normalcy bias, according to whoever the writer was on Wikipedia, is: "People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation." It is difficult for anyone who does not participate in an affluent society to take this perspective.

So what does this mean? It means that we can go about our lives interpreting the economic facts that our government is annually spending deficit amounts that are beyond the grasp of the human mind and, in a spiritual sense, that we can institutionalize then teach all our children the idea that there is no such thing as absolute right and wrong and that all our lives are the result of random chance and are ultimately meaningless in the most optimistic way possible.

But the reality that we live in a harsh world will not be thwarted forever. Creating "money" out of thin air to built a wall between action and consequence will work only for a little while, but it will have its long term ramifications, and those ramifications will demonstrate the forgotten reality that we do in fact live in a world inherently harsh to our adolescent ideas of a utopian existence.

Notes:

1. Emphasis on "in" an affluent society; and by this I mean Western Society generally and American Society specifically. I am not claiming to be affluent myself, at least not according to the American understanding of that term, but I am able to realize that on a global scale, even in light of all the limitations placed upon me by my economic condition, that I do live an affluent life; and I do so along with the great majority of other citizens of this society.

2. I am a harsh critic of "utopian desires", but still understand all people's, including my own, desire of a utopian existence. The desire is not, in my opinion, the problem, but rather the willy nilly willingness to go on destructive and rage based rampages in pursuit of some future unrealistic and ever elusive state of being.

A Great Football Play

This is a Middle School football game wherein an on-field lesson was presented to these youngsters.  It will come in handy in off-field life should for those who take heed: things are not always as they appear.