On The Death of Friends and You

We recently lost two people whom we knew well.  One was my cousin Julie, the other my friend Eric.  It seems we have entered into that era of life I will call the "Era of Memorial".

The most shocking thing about both Julie and Eric was that both deaths happened without warning.  There was no lingering or debilitating illness; they were just gone.

Julie and her husband Jim were in Europe on their long-awaited 'dream vacation.'  While in Vienna, she missed a step and fell, breaking her nose and shattering her elbow.  A trip to the hospital and a precautionary MRI revealed a hidden danger:  She had a brain aneurism.  After some considerations, they decided to forego the rest of the vacation and return to the U.S.

She underwent a surgery where a stent was placed--I'm no doctor, so forgive me--to allow the aneurism to wither away.  All was well, and then--seizure and death.

Eric was my off-roading buddy, and we took a number of trips together here in Arizona.  He always chastised me for my Toyota pickup, and I reciprocated in telling him the woes of his Jeep.  No matter, we always enjoyed one another's company.

About a year ago Eric and his wife Marjorie moved to Colorado to pursue a job interest.  They had a new house built, and had a growing circle of friends.  Then about two weeks ago, Marjorie came home after work and found Eric dead, apparently of a heart attack.  Terrible.

We've been here before.  My wife's father died suddenly.  He was healthy, then he was gone.

Just like that.  Eric was only fifty, Julie 73 or so.  Too young to go, at least in the eyes of those of us who are left.

It is not unwise to prepare for your end.  All of us die, you know.  What happens afterwards?  You have few choices.  Maybe there's nothing beyond the grave.  Maybe there's something, and you are insecure about what it might be.  Maybe there's something and you've been told how to approach it.

I am sure there is "something" beyond the grave.  Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No man comes to the (God) Father, except through me." (John 14:6)  He also said "He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die..." (John 11:25-26)

I used to know this guy who had an incurable disease, and so I went with a friend of his to tell him about Jesus Christ,  because he was checking out a whole bunch of different religions and thought on dying and death.  We told him about Jesus, used the verses referenced above as well as others.  We told him about forgiveness of sins, eternal life, the many promises made in the Bible, but he wasn't convinced. Finally I said to him, "Steve, do you really thing you're going to get a better offer?"

I don't know what Steve decided, and I don't know that he chose to follow Jesus.  I hope he did.

One thing about Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter what you've done, who you've wronged, nothing.  "Come as you are."  Have you stolen from people?  Cheated on your spouse?  Murdered someone?  Fill in your own blank.

You--are--welcome.

America's Eleventh Hour

I lived near San Francisco in 1989 when the Loma Prieta Earthquake occurred, and believe me, when something like that happens, you want to be somewhere else.

We were in our home in Santa Cruz that evening when everything started shaking.  It was  like being inside a piggy bank with someone shaking it for the pennies.  Our street rolled like an ocean wave.  Dishes were vomited out of the cupboards.  The electricity went off and the phones went dead.  When I finally got to my feet, I went out and turned on my car radio, and from one end of the dial to the other--nothing. All stations off the air.  It was frightening.

Our nation is undergoing a similar dramatic change. Institutions and ideals which have been standards for centuries aren't merely being questioned, they're being ridiculed and rejected. Things which have always been known to be wrong--even immoral--are now considered as normal.  Our nation's constitution, written to safeguard us against the excesses of government and the failings of human nature, is now considered by many to be obsolete and in need of gross revision, or trashed altogether.

 The United States, for all of its influence, power and wealth, is a nation in decline.  There will always be a United States, but it may well be an unrecognizable U.S. within a generation or two. The seeds of our deconstruction were planted long ago, but now those seeds have begun to germinate.  We have gradually and systematically  thrown away many of the traditions and institutions which have made our nation not just a great nation, but the greatest the world has ever known.

Many are the reasons, more than I have room here to discuss, but these listed are essential for our survival as a nation, none of which can be restored in a day, a year, or even a generation.  It's taken decades to destroy what has made America a great nation.  Likewise it will take decades to reverse the downward spiral,  and then only if we even have the will to do at all.

A nation is the embodiment of the uniqueness, identities, and institutions of the individuals that live there.  Borders are necessary to retain and protect those things.  Without an effective border, with unrestricted illegal entry, a nation will gradually lose its identity and take on much of the character of those coming in. They may indeed take on some of our identity, but we will take on much of theirs, simply because of the numbers coming in.  Assimilation is not a part of the plan of those coming in illegally today--they're here for jobs and/or benefits, but their allegiance remains with their homeland.  If assimilation was the goal, they would assimilate.

Worse, an open border is an invitation  to undesirables, criminals, even our sworn enemies.

A borderless nation is no nation at all, but because of politics, permissive attitudes, and greed, we no longer have an effective southern border.  And frankly, both of our majority political parties are to blame.

Marriage and family are important to a nation's survival.   Marital commitment to each other and to the children produced by those unions is necessary for the health of the family unit and the health of a nation.  Families propagated by unmarried partners are by definition unstable.  The partnership is weak, no commitment made, and everything within it is at risk.  It's not difficult to imagine scenarios where a child or children of such flimsy relationships could end up in a home in which they are not related to any adult under the same roof,  both parents having moved into new relationships.  There is much talk about "love" today, very little about commitment.  But love and commitment should be one and the same--and in fact, they are the same.  Anything else is a cheap knockoff.  I submit that those who are not committed enough to make a vow to each other, are not likely to make commitments in other areas, including commitment to a nation.  Commitment demands "skin in the game."  No one reading this would dream of buying or selling a house or a car without a contract spelling out what is expected of both parties.  Yet, we enter into the most intimate of relationships without any commitment.

The government of the United States has spent itself into servitude to China, a nation that is not our ally or friend, giving to them, because of our financial dependence upon them, the power to influence our political decisions. This is national suicide.  If, at any time, China should decide to no longer lend us money, our economy would immediately shut down.  Our national debt is close to twenty trillion dollars. You want to know where we are headed with that?  Look at Greece, who must go to nations around the world with a tin cup, begging for loans to prop it up.

Finally, and this is paramount, we no longer have a spiritual dimension of any consequence in America.  We as a people no longer look to God as a supreme, authoritative being, an entity to whom we are responsible--if we even believe He exists at all. The individual is now the final authority over his/her morality, which is to say, there is no final moral authority; everyone is free to do what is right in his/her own eyes.  The correct standard is your standard, which might be said to be any standard, which means there is no standard.  When your morality and the next person's morality conflicts, then there is moral anarchy.  To not be responsible to a final authority--God--is moral anarchy.

Nations succeed when most of its citizens are pointed in the same direction.  In today's United States, we are no longer aligned. Yes, I know that the United States has had its share of failings in the past, as have all countries.  But until now we have been structured and united so as to be able to recognize and right those wrongs.  The future will see us as unable to make corrections.  This isn't merely our 11th hour, it's more like our last minute to midnight.  When nations start down these paths, rejecting the very things that have held them together--they fail.  I believe this is where we are today.  I wonder:  Is it too late for us?

A Warning on the Dangers of Political Correctness

Gotta love political correctness (PC).  It's the means by which people censor themselves out of fear of being ostracized.  The correctness, the acceptability of what you say is somehow determined by some faceless others with the assumption they are correct.  Sounds like an excellent way to do away with original thinking.  Nothing to see here, move along.

In part, political correctness is a substitute for what used to be called good manners--manners generated not from a heartfelt, internal morality, but from an external, legalistic sense of right and wrong--an imposed system.  And it's flexible; it can change any time the arbiters of the system decide to change it.

Politically correctness in language is just the beginning. We're already seeing the extension of political correctness past just a self-imposed gag rule.  People are losing their jobs, even being jailed because what they say or believe doesn't fit the template.  Freedom of speech--though inconvenient at times--is at the forefront of all of our freedoms.  Lose it and you lose more.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees, among other things, the right to free speech, that is, the government can't officially impose a ban on limiting free speech.  It's no surprise that, listed along with free speech is the freedom of the press and freedom of establishment of religion and the exercise thereof.  But the constitution is no help against being harassed by those outside of government.  And that will be the modus operandi until the First Amendment is taken away, a piece-by-piece chipping at our freedom.

It's not hard to understand that if we lose the freedom to speak our minds, the freedom of the press and freedom of religion and its free exercise would undoubtedly follow.

Nor is it difficult to extrapolate that those who are the greatest proponents of political correctness could also be those who could at some point argue for an official loss of our freedom of speech.  If that were to happen, we will have entered that hopeless place where we are governed by those over whom we have no control,  the very thing that caused our forefathers to break away from the despotic rulers over them.

It's all about losing our freedoms.  And in my opinion, it's a matter of time.

Interpreting The Bible

I read an article online the other day that had to do with some subject in the Bible, and one of the dissenting comments posted was, "Well, scripture is open to interpretation." Really? What verse says "All scripture is inspired by God and is open to interpretation"?

I've been reading and studying the Bible for over 40 years and I have yet to read anywhere in the Bible that it is "open to interpretation." Now, we may disagree with scripture, we may misunderstand it, we may bend it, we might even reject it. But before God, scripture is not open to anyone's "interpretation." It says what it says. Any misunderstanding of it, purposeful or not, falls upon us, so we had better be seeking the Holy Spirit to help us to not misunderstand it.

Another dodge is one I heard about the same time: "Well, Jesus didn't say such-and-such, so it's someone else's opinion or it's open to question."

No good. Jesus didn't say a lot of things. For instance, Jesus said nothing about using crystal meth, or texting while driving, but that doesn't mean such things are good ideas. The Bible does tell us that it is "inspired by God", and Jesus himself validated the Old Testament by quoting from it a number of times in the New Testament. Furthermore, he said that scripture "cannot be broken." Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus disavow anything in the Old Testament, so we can conclude that he accepted it wholly.

The New Testament is essentially the story of Jesus (as is the Old Testament, for that matter), written largely by his close associates (the disciples) about him and their their personal interaction with him, or by those directly acquainted with those associates. The point of this is, the New Testament was written by people who knew him intimately. Direct and accurate interaction leading to direct and accurate reporting. Because of this, we can assume their writings portray Jesus accurately.

If that weren't enough, remember that some of Jesus' people were imprisoned (Paul, for one), and some were executed (Peter, for another) because of their faith in Jesus, yet none denied their relationship or belief in him. It makes no sense to believe that anyone facing death because of a belief in a false messiah who didn't deliver what he said he would, would not deny him simply to survive. None did. They knew him, believed what he said, witnessed his death and resurrection, and continued in that faith, even unto death.

So, if it's in the Bible, you can "take it to the bank" as reliable and true. If you want to parse or add on to scripture, that's fine. If you want to limit your belief only to direct quotes from Jesus, you are free to do so. But you do so at your own risk.

Frankly, I think most of the time people use things like "open to interpretation" or "Jesus didn't say this" to appear sincere when they're actually looking for a way to exempt themselves from scriptural authority. If so, they have succeeded.

Oatman Massacre

Gazing outward from the lonely bluff above the Gila (hee-lah) River, watching a hawk riding the currents, and looking down the rock-clogged grade cut into the bluff, I couldn't help but think:  "What a lousy place to die."

Oatman Massacre Site

Just over a century and a half ago, the Roys Oatmans, one of a number of Mormon dissident families, travelled through here enroute from their Illinois digs to a new home in the perennial "promised land" of California.  What I see here today--virtually unchanged from what their eyes saw--is the last thing Roys and his wife and three of their children saw that 21st day of March, 1851.

The crude grade cut into the bluff by the Morman Battalion is still there.  Getting out of my air-conditioned truck and stepping onto the hard ground, I slammed the door on the twenty-first century and stepped onto what was then northern Mexico.  Nary a rock has moved in those 150 years.  Your ears strain to hear the nothing noises of now-distant modern life.  Just the wind and the heat and the witness of those damned rocks--they're all here just as on that awful day so long ago.

Ruts Worn Into the Rock by Many Wagon Wheels Long
Ago

The Oatmans weren't naive--they'd been on the trail heading west for months in the company of their fellow travelers.  It had been difficult.  At every hard grade and sandy wash they had to unload their wagon to ease the load on their team, but they were anxious to get to where they were going.  Against the good advice of others who warned them not to go it alone from their last stop near present-day Gila Bend, Roys made the decision for his family to press on.  And Roys was the boss.
And so for maybe the fiftieth time since they left their home, they unloaded the wagon at the base of the bluff, gee-hawed their starving oxen forward, and hand-carried everything they owned up the hill.

Maybe they were just dog-tired, too weary to think straight when the Indians approached.  Or maybe they saw them too late.  They'd encountered Indians before, never had any real problems, so when they came seeking food, the Oatmans obliged them from their meager stores as best they could.  But it quickly went from cordial to pushy, the Indians becoming more demanding.  They began rummaging through their wagon, helping themselves to the precious supplies, and Roys got more threatening.  Finally the Indians withdrew, talking among themselves.  Maybe the Oatmans thought it was over--but it wasn't.

Suddenly the Indians rushed forward and attacked.  They beat Roys to death, and stabbed his pregnant wife repeatedly.  Their son Lorenzo was clubbed and tossed off the bluff, left for dead.  The three youngest children were murdered as well,  but little Mary Ann and fourteen-year-old Olive were captured and carried off by the Indians.  The bluff was quiet again.

The kidnappers took them miles away to their camp and the harsh fate of slavery.  Mary Ann, being the weaker of the two, died from starvation after a couple of years (it was a time of famine for the Indians as well).  Olive survived, and was traded to another tribe, who received her and treated her well, even as a daughter of the chief.  Her brother Lorenzo, left for dead that day, survived, and by his efforts Olive was eventually rescued after five years in captivity.  Her story is well chronicled in several books.

It's not a hard place to find, and the road's a good one except the last 3/4 mile.    It's worth the trip just to experience something that was as newsworthy in its day as any sensational incident is in ours.  A bit of scratching about and you can still find the nails that held the horseshoes to the feet of the  Butterfield Stage Lines teams which later used the road, the ruts still evident where their iron wheels ground into the rocky path.  And of course the rocks.  Nobody moved the rocks here.  They're the same ones that Roys and his wife and three of their children saw their last day on earth.

To find the Oatman site, take I-8 west from Gila Bend about 30 miles to the Sentinel exit.  Turn right and follow Sentinel Road about 1 mile north, then right on Oatman Road.  Drive 8.8 miles and turn left on the rough road and follow it as it wanders around about 1 mile (keep right at the fork).  A passenger car can make it if you go easy.  You'll see a sign in the distance, that's your goal.  If you rely on GPS, the coordinates are


                                                                   N33* 00.167
                                                                   W113* 09.603

Take plenty of water, and tell someone where you're going:  History under your feet.

The Oatman Massacre Site Monument

What's in Your Heart?

Want a laugh?  How about a tag on a freeway overpass that says "Do a flip, faggot," presumably to encourage gay people to jump and commit suicide.

Not funny. Writing such a thing is reprehensible.

A person posted on facebook that if Ted Cruz were elected president, he would pray to Jesus that Cruz would die while in office.  I recall similar things being said regarding Hillary Clinton and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, among others.

 Jesus doesn't hear such prayers.

Know what leads to attitudes like that?  It's bitterness, the father of hatred.  Doesn't matter who said it, or their motives.  In fact, many people who call others haters are themselves haters.

OK, we all have opinions.  I don't like the politics of the left.  I don't agree with Hillary Clinton on many issues.  I think she has some leadership issues.   If she's the nominee, I'll vote against her.  But I don't hate her.  If she's elected president--then she is the president.  May she serve her term in perfect health.

Examine yourself and think about where your attitudes come from: "...[H]ow can you who are evil say anything good?  For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks."

Oh BTW, Jesus said that.

Beyond Abortion, a New and Better Society--At the Stroke of a Pen

During this year's Super Bowl, a commercial depicted via ultrasound an unborn child reacting to his father eating Doritos as though it wanted some. A humorous attempt at selling a product.

But it took not even a day for NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) to protest that the ad humanized the unborn child by assigning to it human emotion.  How dare Doritos portray such  humanizing emotion to a mass of cells, even though done unintentionally.  The fact it took just hours for them to rip this commercial should help the reader understand how much they fear people will catch on that those innocent unborn children are truly human.

Incidentally, these comments are not aimed at women who now realize they have been victimized by abortion.  My deepest sympathies to them.

Think about NARAL's view of the unborn:  A fetus isn't human, must never be thought of as a living being, and having no value, is subject to summary execution.  Nothing new here:  Throughout history the strong have traditionally devalued the weak and made them slaves or murdered them outright, often by decree.  Examples?  In early America, Africans were considered to be uneducable, and by such reasoning they were kidnaped and enslaved--often executed.  Jews, during the reign of the Nazis, were declared by the state to be untermensch.  The able-bodied were placed in labor camps to work until they collapsed, then disposed of.  The weak and sickly were sent immediately to the gas chambers.  In North Korea, even today, it's important to toe the party line, lest you and your family end up in a "reeducation camp."  If you don't play by the rules, think right thoughts, you're an enemy of the state.  If you're lucky, you make it out.  Many don't.

Do you see a pattern here?  Life is for normal people--you know, like you and me, subject to change, of course, without notice. Anyone who gets in the way is subject to whatever fate the prevailing power deems suitable.  Welcome to America. Welcome to abortion. Welcome to whatever might come next.

So where do we go from here?  Since we now know there is a thriving trade in the body parts of the unborn (they're not totally useless, after all),   I propose the following for the morally adaptable crowd:  There are thousands of Down's Syndrome children who have perfectly good hearts and lungs, etc., which could better serve those of us who are normal but in need.  And by ridding society of them or appropriating that which is useful to us, think of how much better our lives might be.

Or how about the mentally deficient?  Those with an I.Q.  score of, say, 70-90 might be assigned permanent jobs of menial labor serving the 'normal' people. Those with scores under 80, well...after all, they are a drain on society aren't they?  Hey, a better life for the rest of us.

And it would be so easy.  After all, the abortion issue was settled by legislation. So, too, the Final Solution.  Josef Mengele,  Margaret Sanger you would be so proud!!

Does reading this make you uneasy?  Relax, you're normal.  Today.

What IS Truth?

I've been re-reading a book titled "Twisted Cross".  It was written about twenty years ago by Doris L. Bergen.  It's a rather scholarly examination of the "German Christian" movement in Nazi Germany, and how that movement subverted people from following Jesus Christ and the traditional teachings of the Bible.   Instead,  they sought to make the church an Aryan church, a "manly" militant church, which glorified and supported war as a means to German greatness.  Hymns were changed or deleted,  Jewish Christians were kicked out of the church, and those who stood against the incoming tide were ridiculed--or worse.

As a follower of Jesus, it's a hard book to read, because one sees how easily the perverse Nazi philosophies corrupted that church.  Though German Christians didn't influence the Nazis, the Nazis influenced the German Christians and used them for their own ends.  The result was a weak, un-nourished, ineffective church, which was view with contempt by the Nazi party.

If we are true followers of Christ, we need to be careful of who and what we listen to. There's a lot of diversity in the Christian community,  more than we are given credit for,  but it's disturbing when I see those who call themselves Christians buy into beliefs that clearly deviate from the Word of God.  If we aren't under the authority of Holy Scripture, then we must be under an authority other than God.

           "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead,
             to suit their      own desires, they will gather around them a great number of
             teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."  2 Timothy 4:3 (emphasis
             mine).

As a believer in Christ, I must not first be a Democrat or a Republican, a conservative or a liberal.  I  must first be a follower of Christ, and the Word of God.  Period.  Every thought, every action, each belief must first pass through these filters.  My faith is not to be defined by my politics, it is to be defined by Jesus and Holy Scripture.  When we modify our beliefs to fit any political persuasion--we are on dangerous ground.

The German Christians allowed the tail to wag the dog.  Their ethnicity and spurious beliefs were put ahead of their faith, and thus dictated the shape of their faith.   The applications may be somewhat different today in our nation, but the results are always the same: a move away from God.  It cannot be otherwise.