Another Child Lost

What is it, that people think it's somehow OK to harm a child?

Yes, little Sandra Cantu lost her life to the perversions of an adult. In this case, the arrested person is a woman, her neighbor, her friend's mother, a trusted member of the community.

The perverted desires of adults that lead to harming our precious children.

How could you hate a child so much that you could hurt her, kill her?

I'm not a big fan of the death penalty, mainly because too many innocent men have been sent to their deaths. Too many have come too close to dying for a crime they didn't commit, due to mistaken witnesses and railroaded by prosecutors determined to overlook all evidence of innocence. And then the justice system fails them again by refusing to look at all evidence, refusing to accept recanted testimonies, failing to account for the prejudice, bigotry, racism that still infects our society like a weeping wound of poison.

But to kill a child?

What would lead anyone to harm a child?

I think death is too good, too easy for people like that. They should suffer in isolation, in prison until the end of their days.

Yes, my heart cries out for death, death, death, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The Old Testament speaks to my desire for vengeance.

But that's too easy of a solution. Too easy, too convenient, too forgiving of the sin of murder.

Yes, forgiving.

Death is the easy way out.

Vengeance is mine sayth the Lord.

True punishment is forcing her murderer to live out her allotted number of days, alone, the only thing left for her to do is regret and repent of the deed that led to that lonely cell. Alone in that cell, just her and God together, for many long years.

Poor little Sandra. I pray that she didn't know what was happening, that she didn't suffer, that God gathered her Home quickly.

May God rest her sweet little soul and Jesus hold her close until her family joins her in Heaven. I pray that Jesus will continue to hold her family close in their pain and sorrow.

Another child lost.

Keep your children close. Watch over them. Cherish them. Pray over them. Love them. Love them forever.

Obama And The Pastor

Here we go again.

I read about this last week, but honestly, I haven't had a lot of time to write.

So I'll keep this short and blunt.

What the heck does Obama have to do with his FORMER Pastor's apparent affair?

Not a blasted thing!

The Pastor apparently has some moral failings, in the area of marriage and relationships.

But what does this have to do with Presidential candidate Obama?

Not a darn thing!

I would hope that most Americans are smart enough to know that just because someone you know, whether your Pastor, boss, neighbor or friend, cheats on his/her wife or husband, it doesn't have a darn thing to do with your own morality.

Unless, of course, you knew all about it and helped cover it up.

Which is not relevant to the Pastor's latest media uproar.

AND

While I'm ranting about this, yes, Pastor Wright was all wrong if he had an affair.

And so was the woman.

It takes one to sin, but two to tango.

Pastor Wright sinned the minute he conceived the seduction. (Or maybe it was Elizabeth Payne, if she seduced him.) But the other party still had the opportunity to say NO.

Just like Adam and Eve.

Eve sinned not by being deceived but by disobeying God's instructions. She could have been deceived but then chose to obey, just because God said so. She could've chose to wait and ask God what He had to say about Satan's deceptions.

But Adam then quadrupled the problem, because he chose to sin. He CHOSE to take the forbidden fruit. And then he CHOSE to blame Eve for his own failure, even though he was equally guilty of the sin. He disobeyed God. Instead of saying, "hold up here, let's take this back to God and see what He says about this situation" Adam just went ahead and ate that forbidden fruit anyway.

And didn't repent.

Didn't take it right to God and say "We screwed up Lord."

Nope, tried to hide themselves, tried to hide the sin, tried to blame everyone else but themselves.

It took two to get kicked out of the Garden.

The same as Wright and Payne.

Whoever started it, well then, the other STILL had the CHOICE to not participate.

So I return to the question: What the heck does Pastor Wright's alleged affair have to do with Obama?

Not a darn thing.

Oh, yeah, and I have little sympathy for her crying now about her ruined marriage and being banned from her church.

Like, duh!!

The wages of sin are death.

But not all deaths are physical.

Death of a marriage. Death of a relationship. Death of her church membership. A high price to pay for an empty promise.

So what was it I was saying?

Oh, yeah, what does all this have to do with Obama?

Not a darn thing.

It's "just" another failed attempt by the media to make Obama look like he condones bad behavior.

Ummmm, yeah. Right.

Obama led his Pastor to sin? Really?

Ummmm, so do you blame your own bad behavior on the Twinkies you had with lunch? Or on the guy down at 7-11 that sold you the Twinkies? Or the food company that makes Twinkies?

Yeah, it's the same.

Obama doesn't have a thing to do with his FORMER Pastor's inability to follow marriage vows.

So move along now, let's get back to the issues.

Don't be distracted (and yes, this is deliberate distraction) from the issues.

Don't believe the hype. Don't believe everything you read.

A + B does NOT equal Z.

Wright plus Payne does NOT equal Obama.

NOPE, sure doesn't!!

The Minister Controversy

I've been catching sound bites here and there about Obama's pastor controversy.

OK folks, lets get real here.

The pastor looks like he was in the midst of a fiery sermon and someone took the worst of out-of-context remarks to make him look bad.

Typical dirty politics.

You know, I'm not even going to justify this with too long of a post.

Obama is not the same man as his pastor. I'm not the same person as my pastor. Like me, I doubt very much that Obama and his pastor share all the same beliefs.

Yes, we're all Christians, but we all process the Word in different ways. The Lord speaks to us, each in the way that we can understand and only He knows what that way is.

So I'm really not concerned at all about the pastor's comments.

Why?

First, I didn't hear the whole sermon, I just got a sound bite. Like I said, probably completely out-of-context. Therefore, as far as I'm concerned, it's not relevant to Obama's Presidential campaign at all.

Second, Obama is his own person. So to hold him to what the pastor said (in an out-of-context sound bite) is crazy. NO ONE truly knows another man's heart. We can only judge a person by their fruits. Obama's fruits look pretty good to me, he's a hard worker who came up from middle class America, lived in other countries, raised by a single parent who lived what she believed. His life experience is already a great asset to Congress and will be to the Presidency.

Third, this is dirty politics as usual. It ranks right up there on the stinkometer with the rumors of Obama being Muslim (so what if he was -- but he's not, he's a Christian), of not being Black enough, of being too Black, of not having enough experience (like being governor of Texas was enough for our current President?), etc, etc, etc. All a bunch of bull hockey.

So this latest "controversy"? They're having to dig hecka deep to try to find dirt to throw at the man. It looks pretty desperate to me!!

I'm not going to let some manufactured controversy throw me off course. Of the choices we have, Obama, Clinton, or McCain, each one would make a decent President, but I like Obama the best.

And that's Mom's rant of the day!

There's A Deep Wound Across Our Consciousness

Yes, there's a deep wound across our consciousness.

It's called racism.

Since I look "white", and was raised in a white society, it took me many years to comprehend some of the subtleties of racist behaviors. There are days I still don't "get it". I have to think and contemplate and pray on it, before it comes clear to me.

But you know, as a Woman, I experience similar behaviors every day. For example, if I go into Home Depot, men think nothing of stepping ahead of me when I'm trying to get an employee's attention. The same thing happens when I'm at the auto parts store, or buying tires. Unless I step right up to the customer service desk and get a manager, I'm likely to be ignored. And even then, while I'm being helped, guys will walk up and start talking to the manager, as if they're maneuvering around a tree or a post. It's like I'm not even there. I don't exist in their world.

Substitute racism for sexism, and the situation of my Brothers and Sisters of Color becomes clearer by the day.

Our society has a bleeding wound across it, and only if you actually experience it, do you even start to understand how deep, how ugly, how consuming it really is.

It's part of our society that the overt racists (and die-hard liberals, businesses, bosses, and individuals) don't WANT to understand. It's pervasive. It's an undercurrent in that deep river we call racism.

It's a crevasse that people fall into and can't get out of.

If you don't know it's there, you don't see it unless you really educate yourself with an OPEN mind and heart, and even then, you don't really understand it. You just may realize that it exists.

Unless you're POC or a woman who's experienced the situation.

We women, of every color, experience being ignored while all the men are being helped, and the men just step up right in front of us, like we have no business being in the hardware store. Or the auto parts store. Or the workplace.

We women, we're supposed to act, talk, be a certain way and if we don't, then we get pushed aside and/or ignored. And if we demand better treatment, we're pushy, bitchy, or [gasp] lesbians. Because nice girls don't act that way...

HUH!

POC receive that SAME treatment, and people act like it's OK.

There's a little box that we're supposed to fit into, and we're not supposed to step outside of it. Never. Except maybe Oprah, or Magic Johnson, or Obama. But then, they're "different", they're "not like the rest of them". Compartmentalized thinking. But as a poster on another forum pointed out, back in the day, Oprah, Magic, Obama would've been sitting in the back of the bus with all the other POC. And they would've been equally at risk of the noose. The same noose that hung in the "white tree" in Jena, Louisiana just this past year.

Well, you know what, I'm standing up and shouting, "IT'S NOT OK!"

Not until society STOPS and takes note of the chasm that divides our country, do we have a prayer of throwing a rope to our Brothers and Sisters, our young women, who may still be lost in the depths of its despair, then we can close the wound, let it heal.

Our children are being lost in this chaotic undercurrent that's condoned by society. People shake their heads and tisk-tisk, but do nothing to see or comprehend the the root causes. Nor do they choose to step up to help promote change.

Oh, yeah, they're willing enough to call for banning rap music, or complain about kids' clothes, but trust me, they didn't pay any attention until THEIR kids started "acting Black". Then all of a sudden, they noticed that our society promotes violence, sexism, racism. It becomes a huge issue.

Ironically, these are the same parents who paid to see "The Godfather" movies, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "Tombstone", "Colors". They never noticed that American society has ALWAYS glorified violence. Somehow, they think that the violence of our past is OK, but suddenly the violence of today isn't.

America has always been violent. Always. Right from the beginnings, when the Europeans came to colonize a land that already had people living there.

You can't fix something if you don't know (or deny) its existence. Only when you acknowledge the REAL problem, not just the symptoms, then you can start working on the healing. And God knows, we need a healing on the psyche of this nation.

Too many Americans float through this life, denying that there's even a problem, and then when it broadsides them in their perfect little fantasy world, they blame the victims who are trying to speak out on it.

Sigh...

Too many Americans don't even try to peer through the glass dimly...
...and the wound keeps bleeding.

All The Children Of Abraham

In today’s world, the peoples who follow Islam are all too often vilified as followers of a violent ritualistic faith. Yet, according to Islam, they're the children of Abraham.

Hmmm, aren't the Jews and the Christians considered the children of Abraham? What's going on here? How is it that the three great faiths could all be children of Abraham? And why are we all fighting in the Middle East?

I can only speak as a Christian, and I think we should consider: If a person believes that the Bible is the literal Word, then how to understand the current crisis between Jews, Christians and Muslims? Bluntly, a true Believer would go back to the Bible.

So let's go back to the beginnings of the Great Faiths.

OK, not all the way back, we'll start with God's covenant with Abraham. I've paraphrased and condensed the verses, you can go back to your Bible to read the full text. Don't take my word for this, go back and read it for yourself!

In the Old Testament, God made a Covenant with Abraham, saying that his seed would be numbered as the stars in the heavens. Genesis 14:5

Now, Abraham was old at this point, he and his wife Sarah had no children. If you read Genesis carefully, they weren't always the nicest people, but they believed in God. That was their strength, they were Believers.

So when God said Abraham would have descendants, they Believed in God's Word. Over time, however, Sarah decided that if she couldn't provide an heir, Abraham WOULD have an heir.

As was the custom of that era, Sarah gave her handmaid, Hagar, to Abraham as a second wife, hoping for an heir. Hagar was also a follower of God, and in the midst of the turmoil that was caused between Abraham, Sarah, and herself, an angel of God spoke to her, ordering her to submit to Sarah. By her submission, God forged a covenant with Hagar, promising her that her seed would also be too many to count. Genesis 16:9-10

Then, when Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90, God again spoke to Abraham, promising them a son. God told Abraham that his first son, Ishmael would have many children, a great nation. Yet Abraham’s heir would be Sarah’s son, Isaac. Genesis 17:16, 20-21

Thus, despite her old age, Sarah had a son, Isaac. As was the custom, the son of the first wife is the heir, even if the other wife's child was the oldest. And unfortunately, human nature wins out over compassion. Sarah was jealous of Hagar and Ishmael. In today's words, she felt that they "didn't know their place".

After Isaac was born, Sarah demanded that Abraham put Hagar and Ishmael out. God reassured him that both sons would lead great nations, so Abraham did as his wife demanded. Genesis 21:10-13

DANG, Abraham put his own child out into the wilderness because his wife demanded it? That is some messed up stuff, now isn't it? Even if God reassured me about my child's destiny, I don't know that I have enough Faith to do such a thing. But then again, I'm a mom, not an old man with a big problem.

Hagar and Ishmael were cast out into the wilderness. Hagar was in despair, believing that they would die. Yet God heard her cries and His angel again reassured her that Ishmael would father a great nation. She opened her eyes and saw a well of water. They were saved. Genesis 21:14-21

Fast forward to the present:

Many Christians now accept that the Jewish peoples still have a covenant with God. Jesus said himself that he didn't come to set aside the law.

Now, if Isaac’s descendants are the Jewish people, then who are the followers of Islam? We already know that genetically, the Jews and the Arabs of the middle east are related peoples.

If we believe that the Arabic peoples are also descended of Abraham, then are they actually the descendants of the elder brother, Ishmael?

More than that, if the Arabic peoples are the descendants of Ishmael, then they are the brothers and sisters of the Jews (and Christians). According to Bible, Hagar and Ishmael also have a covenant with God, separate from Isaac's Promise.

Therefore, since all three great faiths of the world, according to their own beliefs, are descended from Abraham, the conflict today is far worse than the secular world understands.

From the ancient days, right to the present, the descendants of Abraham are still fighting over their place in God's Kingdom.

There is NOTHING worse than a family fight -- especially a family fight over an inheritance.

It's no wonder that the Middle East is such a mess. None of us can fully comprehend the good and the evil that happen when men believe that they are the single heir of God. God didn't tell Abraham, Sarah or Hagar any such thing, God said that both of Abraham's sons would father great nations. Ouch. Yes, one is "the heir" but the other also has a Promise. Ouch again.

Honestly, Sarah shouldn't have taken matters into her own hands, she should have left it up to God. That's what happens when we decide to push things along, instead of waiting on God's Time. But at this point, those thoughts are way too late. We can't change the past, we can only look to the future.

What future do we have if we continue to battle each other?

God has a covenant with each of the great religions. Yet we deny that. We deny our own Brothers and Sisters in Faith.

There is evil out there in the world that twists everything and everyone, until it seems that what's right is wrong and what's wrong is right. So, we actually assist the evil one.

When will we learn Lord? When will we learn the lessons You try to teach us? How long must Abraham's children pay for the sins of the father?

How many more years will we fight over God?

Until we stop fighting each other and begin to grow and accept that all of God's children, all of Abraham's children, have a place in the Kingdom, the world will remain in conflict. The Middle East will remain divided, torn by wars, as it has been through history.

How much longer must we suffer?

Until we stop letting the extremists reign.

Until we listen to the Father.

Until we follow His Word.

Until we have a family reunion.

Then we will find Peace.

Links:

Science Daily - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/05/000509003653.htm

The Scribe - http://www.dangoor.com/73page25.html

BeliefNet - http://www.beliefnet.com/story/136/story_13658_1.html

Ann Coulter And The Perfect Christian

Oh Lord, I'm praying that You'll give me self control!

What the heck is wrong with that woman? Does she even understand what she's saying when she says it, or is she just a mouthpiece for the ultra-radical right?

Now I do understand the context that she was trying to use the term "perfected". The proper context is that the [Jewish] prophesy of the Messiah was fulfilled in the perfect body of Christ and His sacrifice for us all.

And since we believe in Christ and accept him as the Lord and Savior, we are perfect and thus if everyone believed exactly what we believe, the world would be better too. So according to her, all the Jewish peoples need to become perfect Christians.

AYYYY! What is that woman thinking?

I find that so incredibly disrespectful to pretty much everyone, including other Christians!

First, of course, the Jewish peoples have a covenant with God. In fact JESUS was a Jew! Ann seems to think that Jesus wasn't a Jew, that He was a Christian. No, no, no. How incredibly ignorant! Jesus was a Jew. Period. He came to Save us all, but He was born and raised in Judaism. Not Christianity.

Next, we consider ourselves as Christians to be the next step in the Path that God laid before us all, BUT do the Jews? No, I don't think so. I believe that God's covenant with the Jews was not replaced by our new covenant with Jesus. And so it's not our place to be judging Judaism. God will decide, not me, not you, and certainly NOT Ann Coulter.

Now, let's move on. Where the heck did she get the idea that all Americans have to be Christians? OK, look, I'm a Christian and I think it'd be great if everyone was Saved. BUT, but, but, this is America, where we all have the freedom to Believe or not as we choose. You know, that Free Will thing that God blessed us with...

Our whole country was based on the idea that we wouldn't allow a State religion. That was the point of separation of church and state. However, we still have that human impulse to be prejudiced and bigoted against anyone and anything that's different. Our prejudice even includes those who practice different forms of Christianity. Look at JFK for example. People were just having fits because he was a Catholic, and "you know how those Catholics are, always following the laws of the Vatican and the Pope..." Even today, I cringe when I'm at church and I hear someone say, "well, I'm a Christian and he's a Methodist". Oh my, what is God going to say to us when we move on from this plane of existence??

Please people, use those brains for more than a hat rack! (Not that Ann wears hats, she probably could use one to keep what little is left of her brains from frying in the hot sun.)

And while I'm ranting, what the HECK makes her think any of us are perfect Christians? No, no, no, we are most definitely imperfect! Jesus was the only perfect human ever, and He's the Son of God. Hello???

We Christians are NOT perfect, we're NOT going to be perfect, that's the reality of being human. As a Christian, I'm held to a higher standard. It doesn't mean I'm perfect. It means that I'm supposed to try harder to be that reflection of the perfection of Christ.

Am I going to miss the target? Heck yeah I am! Many, many times. I struggle against my own base nature every single day. And all too often, I have the privilege of picking myself up, dusting myself off, apologizing, and trying to get back to work.

Now, unlike some of my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I'm not going to go utterly ballistic and accuse all of the GOP of being as small minded, bigoted, racist, etc, etc, etc, as I consider Ann Coulter to be. No. That would be unfair to all the good hearted people on the other side of the "line". And since I wobble back and forth in the middle, honestly, there are some topics I'm over with the more conservative middle-of-the-road folks. But not this one.

Ann Coulter is NOT the example that we should follow. She obviously thinks she's perfect. Huh.

The rest of us, we know we're not perfect and we're not going to be perfect, we're just striving, like everyone else, to do better.

So what's my opinion, as a dedicated middle-of-the-roader, former Republican, currently a Democrat?

Ann needs to get down off of her soapbox and stop with her pseudo-intelligent farce. The woman is a major embarrassment to the American people and Christians everywhere. As long as we let Ann and the people like her go unchallenged, we will continue to face the walls of prejudice, bigotry, closed-mindedness, of hate. We will continue to allow Satan to do his work here on this earth.

This country still has freedom of speech, she has the right to say what she wants, but WE also have the freedom and the duty to tell her that she's wrong, loud and clear, without any hesitation. And refuse to buy her books or support her positions in any way.

It's up to us -- especially we Christians -- to keep extremists like Ann from painting our Faith with the same brush that they use to paint swastikas and hate onto the walls of our churches, the synagogues, the mosques, the temples of America. It's our duty to be right in all that we do. And that includes stopping hate in its tracks, wherever we find it.

It's our duty.