77 Scooter

The good news:
That's original mileage!
All the rubber it's in great shape including the tires.
Parts look plentiful and cheap!

The bad news:
Hasn't been run since 1980.
Still 2 stroke had in the tank.
Could mean some serious clean up/out.

Obey

There are those that, in their finite wisdom, feel compelled to speak on behalf of the Infinite.

God creating them in His image, they return the favor, confusing what it means to speak of God with speaking for God.

But in ever increasing numbers it seems are those who make no distinction between the voices of either and simply obey as though unto the Almighty himself.

God help us!

A Hole Does Not Need to Be Filled with Dirt

If I am an A hole, it's most often because I feel I have been left with no other option, if ever I'm not it is only by the grace of God.

Over the years I have learned how to reel that in, so whether I act on it or not, know that it is almost always my default mode of thought.

Don't believe it?
Push me beyond action into reaction.

I have often been dismissed as a lost cause for being so, however unintentional. It sucks. So I also have a high tolerance for those who share my affliction and rarely do I write anyone off for being so as well. But that's about to change soon enough. 

 The Rules

I like diversity it can be a great asset and I don't at all mind disagreement when it can be expressed in a manner that is constructive rather than destructive.

There are many, including me, that cannot at times make the distinction between the two, and so here we are.

There are a good number people in my life with whom I have less rather than more in common with. I feel blessed that they allow me to test their patience, and frustrated when they test each other's.

If we are corresponding in a public setting, and I am the only  common link between you and someone else, it would be safer to assume in your methods and means of communication that you have probably have even less in common with each other than I might have with either one of you. Don't be afraid to say whatever it is you have to say, but please keep this in mind when saying it.

In the exchanges between people that may not know each other except by me, I would ask you to listen beyond the words for the perspective each of the other. After having done so, consider it all the more before responding.

The perception of our motives can obscure our message to the point of alienating our audience completely. What is  heard is may not be at all what is being said, and therein lies the art of (and need for) listening to the heart of another and responding from our own hearts.

I learn a good deal from my friends who are most often articulate, educated, well informed and sincerely well intentioned in their efforts to enlighten others. That said public exchanges are exactly that, public, and the worldviews of the other parties who may be viewing (if not participating) should be considered when a public response is made.

I believe that everyone has a relationship to God, though many of the people that I know would not dare to identify themselves to be what they have come to know as "christian".

As is true with all relationships each rarely looks the same as another especially considering that not all relationships are the same in nature either. They are relationships nonetheless. Consider it then your obligation to build bridges and not walls in your communications.

Given the passion of some on varying sides of any issue and the complacency of others there is bound to be offense at one point or another. This does not bother me.

If this is the case, everyone's best interests are served to consider the nature of the offense internally rather than the catalyst for it externally. If this can be done and we find within ourselves some ugliness we had not previously recognized, perhaps offense too has its place.

Always assume the best of others, until it can be proven beyond doubt that it may be otherwise. Anything less is judgment.

In remembering that you may not to serve  common masters, expect that the courtesy will not be returned. This will lessen a great deal of offense and misunderstanding, not to mention the later need to apologize for being a judgmental dick.

People rarely apologize, ever.
Don't expect it.
You be happier for doing so.

It is not at all important to establish who is right and who is wrong. If your are right be secure in knowing so. Anyone who knows so will not be the one who will have to prove it so through arrogance.

Blame is only ever constructive as a means for learning though it is more often used for shame and to coheres others with the hope that we might minimize our own shortcomings.

If you are wrong admit it.
If you are right, no one needs to cry uncle to prove it.

Where diplomacy dictates apologize.

Especially in matters of the heart, most answers must be found rather than given, in order to be understood and appreciated.

Let people find their answers.
Guide them to answers.
Insisting that yours is theirs is almost never the key to anyone accepting it as so.

Even if other people believe the same as you, no one has experienced what you have. There is value in that if it is used as an instrument of teaching rather than a weapon to defeat your opponent.

You have no opponents.
You may have an audience if you can mange to retain them.

You are usually your greatest enemy with the ability to inflict the most damage upon yourself.
Don't do it.

If you cannot make your case without stating your cause, people will generally question the validity of both.
Step carefully through that mine field.

If you can keep them separate both will be served.

21 Years

“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”  ― James Madison

(Since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years of existence. )

Everyone is Selling Something

Everyone is selling.
Everyone is being sold to.

Pay attention, listen and watch.

How are you being treated and why?

A salesperson wants you to buy something.
They want you to give them something.

If they can't treat you right before they have what they want,
why would anything improve after they have it?

Only the thought that there might be more.
Nothing else.

It's up to you:
Is the product is worth the price?
Everything costs something.

No refunds.
No exchanges.
Satisfaction NOT guaranteed.

The Trouble with Normal

Rejoice Friends!

Every Home A Prison - Cold Cut

Rejoice friends!

Big government is over.
From now on, instead of Community,
You will be left in the market place,
To fend for yourselves, claw for yourselves,
Stab for yourselves, guard for yourselves
What little money, savings, dignity and shelter You have left.

After your jobs are downsized and exported to Mexico,
Tennis shoes made by slaves in camps in Indonesia,
Computer jobs sent across the ocean to Indonesia...
You will be next unless you bow down in the garboots
And throw your benefits away, your raises away...
And this is all you have to look forward to,
Forever and ever and ever
As more and more benefits are slashed.

No more "tax and spend" welfare state.
The windfall from tax cuts for the rich is more
And more people out in the cold on the street.
Begging for money.
And when that doesn't work:
Robbing people
Car jacking
Home invasion.
Everyone taught that life is so cheap,
And there's nothing to look forward to,
Except what you can score
And smoke in a pipe

Ending welfare as we know it
Means third would crime
As we know it

So why is it all these young people today
Misbehave
Misbehave
Misbehave?

Don't they appreciate the world we've built for them?
Crappy jobs, dod eat dog, no compassion in the marketplace.
If you like school, you'll love work.
Instead they ditch school
And hang out on the street.
Yob culture, Young hooligans.
Everywhere you look, on TV anyway,
And in the newspaper,
More and more people
Will pour in the streets
As their rents go up
And job opportunities go down.
So we have to keep them down
Before they rise up and burn our
House of cards to the ground.

It's just the cost of doing business
In third world countries where we keep the peasants down.
We have to live in armed compounds, with armed guards,
Play tennis at gunpoint

A different route to work behind bulletproof glass each day,
But hey, the more the hordes hate you the more status you've got.
Why not do this with the whole world?
With GATT treaties, downsizing...
But what about those goddamned hooligans in the street?
We stole their future?!
It's all their fault!
We must lock them up
But there is no room in the jails
So the best way to sweep them away:
Make every home a prison today!
Curfew, Curfew!
Who cares how much our leaders are corrupt,
As long as they are tough on crime...
Curfew...
Keep them away!
Curfew...
No longer unauthorised activity

You can't leave your home without an electronic ankle bracelet.
Young offenders must be tagged and watched at all times.
Tag their parents with bracelets too if they don't obey.
For that matter tag them at work and make them stay...

The main enemy,
Terrorist threat,
Is your own children...

Think about it:
The music they listen to
That tells them the world is bad.
It's the songs that are the problem
Not the violence outside
Keep them locked up!
Keep them in curfew...
Put them away!
Don't let them out!

We are tougher on crime,
before the election.
We want a national law
Establishing children's bedtimes.
Bedtime Patrol,
We'll check up on you...
Bedtime Patrol,
Make sure that your bracelet is on.
The nanny state:
To reach down your pants and check to see if you've been
Moistening yourself with any unauthorised substance without permission

Tag them!
Curfew them!
Keep them down!
Keep them at home!
At school!
To rent a video on the way home
And stay home.
Just like at work...
Do not gather after dark...
Curfew!
It's such a family oriented word.
A much more acceptable smiling soft word.
A much more pallatable concept,

THAN MARTIAL LAW!

Put your bracelets on
You are safer when you are watched
Don't go outside
You'll set the alarm off!
Curfew
Forever
And ever and ever!

An Answer is Not the Answer

More accuratley what life with women has taught me about the human condition and communications.

Listen:
Don't think about your response in advance, where things went wrong, who or what is to blame, or how to solve anything. Listen, like it will never be your turn to speak.

NEVER look for your opportunity to speak:
You cannot listen and do this at the same time. That lack of attention will not be unnoticed and it says, "I don't really care.".

Understanding is far more important than being understood:
Ask personal questions, not situational, then again, listen.
If you can sincerely relate, or empathize from personal experience say so, but only after they are done speaking or at a natural pause. Be sincere. Be transparent. Be vulnerable.

You are both people but you are not the same people:
Never assume that your situation is/ was the same as theirs. You are different people with different lives, that should be enough to let you know that your answer may not be theirs.

When emotions are raw, offense comes easily:
Any answer given before full and attentive listening is often the best way to alienate people in a time of need. You will have replaced caring with judgement, however inadvertant, it is not always the thought that counts.

An Answer is Not the Answer:
If you found a way out in your particular experience, or have insight about how things might better find a way to express them as possible options to consider. The decision to accept or reject your suggestions is their decision alone. There may be factors at play you will never be aware of and how they cope says more about where they are at with the situation more than where they are at with you.

Remember it's not about you, it's about them:
Because your conversation has ended doesn't mean your opportunity to help has.

Initiate unprompted follow up and ask how they are doing.

Think about what helped you (or what would have helped you) and do that for them. A simple act of kindness goes a very long way, but don't place any importance on receiving credit for those things, that undermines the value of them.

. 

It's Party Time

Money is power, and where either are to be had, corruption lurks in the shadows.

The Enemy is Within (part 2 of 2)

There are people that are often inclined to disagree with my perspective on social and (only incidentally) political views. They are intelligent, articulate and thorough in making their points, and I appreciate their input and viewpoints. However, while I appreciate all these things it seems by their approach that often times the concern is not as much about correction as it is about exemplifying that they are correct. Perhaps better stated, doing right is a lesser concern than being right.

I say this because often I feel that their responses come before they have considered the entirety of the issue or question that I am addressing, and often I am forced to address issues that were never my intention to address in the first place and are often totally irrelevant to my point.

It is frustrating to say the least.

I understand that each of has a natural tendency to view the world through our own lenses of experience and understanding. Then I thought perhaps I too am guilty of the same though I might not see it in myself.

As I considered all of this, as I took my view on them and turned it inward, this is what I thought...

It is delusional for any of us to believe that our particular brand of spiritual self destruction is practiced with any less enthusiasm, frequency, self justification or impending judgement than that of anyone else.

We would be foolish to believe that our sins are somehow "better", that our faults are so minor that they should be envied by those whose faults and shortcomings are clearly worse than our own.

They certainly are not. They are different only in that they are our own and so more understood by us, but that is where the differences end. At their root, and in the end the offenses are the same and all exact the very same price.

It seems however that our words and actions betray us as somehow believing it to be so. That we ourselves do not see it, does not indicate that it is not seen by others, though they may not feel inclined to rebuke us.

I have to wonder if our tolerance for their existence within us can become so great that we are slowly blinded by them to the point that we no longer recognize the divine bestowal of grace and mercy that is generously bestowed upon us which was once so obvious and convicting.

I wonder of failing to recognize ourselves as the unmerited recipients thereof, we them become reserved in our dispensing of it as well. Feeling as though we require little ourselves we then afford little to others as well.

Lord have mercy on us all.
Solo Cristo Salva!

db

Timing is Everything

Know Your Enemy (1 of 2)

There was a point for us when things were really rough financially. Prior to that we did okay, and God saw us through, but it was scary for a while.

I didn't have a "real" job for quite a while, but I was never really out of work for very long. That's because no wasn't an option to me. I often took crappy jobs that paid crappy wages. We caught s*** for that. Clearly if I wanted a job I would have had one.

We weren't proud of it, but we had food stamps. We've always been thrifty shoppers with coupons and ad watching. We don't buy garbage for food, we didn't before and we don't now. We caught s*** for that. People often and freely remarked that we ate better than they did. I imagine the judgment and eye rolling wouldn't have been any different if we bought junk for food either.

We drove a newer car, that was given to us by generous friends. We caught s*** for that, and "helpful" people suggested we sell the car, buy a less expensive car and then we could use the balance of any remaining money. That's both ignorance and stupidity.

We didn't go without cell phones or internet connection, because I can tell you as someone who employs people it's a bitch to find a job without those things. We caught s*** for having such luxuries.

When things finally started going better, we got a tax return. So we paid off the balance of our bills and because our only TV was broken we bought a flat screen. I got a hell of a deal on it. Yep, you guessed it, we caught s*** for that.

I didn't dress like I was poor, nor did my family. Of course we caught s*** for that. Over time that might have changed, but apparently people think those who are not steadily employed should sell their clothes to dress in potato sacks I guess.

People don't realize it but living with very little money is much more expensive than living with a comfortable amount of it. 

For some reason the poor become fair game for judgment and scrutiny by those who have not known the same, and everyone has some great unsolicited insulting advice or observations. I can't imagine they'd see the sense of either if they were receiving rather than giving it.

We can and do judge by appearance. Often appearance is all we have to judge by, what is the point of judging when it is not in discernment or discretion, but only your own pride that hangs in the balance?

We fill in a lot of the missing details with our own imagination in leu of facts. We become far more quick to judge than we are moved to help. But why?

I've also driven like s*** overcome by emotion because of the death of friends, or because I've had to get to the hospital. No one else could have know my situation. So I try not to judge people who drive like s***. I have no idea what they may be going through either.

And that is my point. 

Compassion is most often compelled by virtue of experience, and the conviction that comes with it ask something of us.

Judgment most often comes by those things lacking within ourselves and asks nothing of us.

Occupying ourselves with issues of others allows us to not only avoid addressing of our own spiritual self destructions, but it somehow makes  them a point of pride that "we" are better than "them".

We drive the wedge of selfrighteousness ever deeper in order to separate ourselves from the lowly feeble minded sinners.

Solo Cristo Salva
d(-_-)b

The Theif

The thief might be a man who steals for the provision of his family, but this not the worst thief. That might be understood in a sense.

A thief of a lesser base might be one who steals for his own indulgence, but this too is not the worst thief. Though it may not be justified, he may steal for lack of legitament opportunity to do the same for himself.

The worst thief however, is the man who withholds from the provision of his family for his own indulgence. He taints forever the lives of those who could not understand or justify his actions. This thief steals more than money, he steals from his own the ability to trust in others.

To Anyone That May Benefit

There is a level of confidence and certainty about the world that is only afforded to those who lack the necessity of experience to understand that their world is not the whole world. 
Not unlike a person that would look at one piece of a complex jigsaw puzzle and presume they can tell you exactly what the picture is.

There is also a level of confidence and uncertainty about the world that is only afforded to those with the experience and hindsight that only time can afford us. 
Not unlike looking at a black and white checker board, as your distance increases you begin to realize it's really much more grey than it is black and white.

Even as a parent, I generally try to refrain from giving advice to other parents, simply because in large part there are no formulated answers. 
From the get go children have their own feelings, sensitivities and inherent vantage points in how they perceive and respond to situations. 

They are as we are, each unique unto themselves so that what may work for some does not at all work for others.

Over time I have come to the acceptance, as with most of life, that everything is just a phase.

Like a chapter in a book that takes far more than a lifetime to read.

There will be difficult times and times of great joy, sometimes they will occur simultaneously.

Often in times of crisis or uncertainty we as parents need sounding boards.

Our emotion may cloud our judgement so that the recipients of our expressions may not be as selectively chosen as perhaps they should be and and helpful suggestions ensue by those with the best of intentions.

However well intentioned our audience may be however, what many fail to consider is that it's not always the thought that counts and the worst kind of advice is unsolicited advice. 
In those times rarely do I feel the level of confidence about accepting that advice as deeply as the one who is so generously doling it out. 

Whenever non-parents offer me parenting "advice", I try to politely smile, nod and thank them.
Just as I do with all people who do the same about other circumstances without the benefit or consideration of understanding the full scope of the situation. 

Then following their generous insight, I give them the future obligation to do the same (smile, nod and be polite) when one day they find themselves in the same situation...and inevitably they will.

Hang in there.

This too shall pass.

d(-_-)b

Two Wrongs Don't Make It Right

Wrong?

I'm no different than anyone else,
I mean when you get down to it.
So, why should I feel bad or say sorry?

Everyone does the same things I do.
Even if they don't admit it.

That's just people doing what people do to get by.
There' nothing wrong in that is there?

Wrong?

Well If you think I'm so bad you ought to look around this place.
If you did that you'd see that other people are much worse than I am!

Look at the kind of stuff they they do!
I don't do half that stuff.

Not on that level.
Not like they do.

I'm very different from anyone else
I mean when you get down to it.
So, why should I feel bad or say sorry?

Wrong?

I Did It

Two (Actually 3) Important Lessons

1. If you aren't willing to fight for what is  yours, rest assured that someone else will.

2. Sometimes you will have to take those things which should be given.

3. Don't be the catalyst for lesson 2. If you don't have integrity, you don't have anything.

Fartbook

Saving the OneBorn

If I didn't know better I'd say that Facebook is full of well informed, knowledgeable people.

Mostly though it's pop journalism with a definitive slant to appeal to certain audience, leaning certain ways on certain matters.

It might even be called propaganda or maybe more accurately advertising.

What most people know is what they've been told.
Which is really to say Facebook is really just full of people who are primarily ignorant about many things and are just passing along what they've been told.

Sometimes they're trying to help or advise, and sometimes they are just serving to underscore their own correctness. An ego stroke or a filling of the holes left by insecurity.

Some people think they're sharing truth, but if there is truth out there I'm hard pressed to think that anyone can do it anything but a disservice by fooling themselves into thinking they are capable of speaking it beyond a couple of sentences. (If that much)

There's always an agenda and the agenda is power.
It's always looks like that, but it's also about money, because money is power.

The bottom line is, someone wants your power or power over you, and they want your money. For anyone that spends time earning that money what all this means is they want as much of your life as they can get from you.

So when you read all this shit disguised as news or helpful information, ask yourself, "Why?"

Why was it important to someone to take the time to tell you whatever it is they're telling you?
Who is profiting and who is paying?
How can you be sure that any of what's being said is as close to truth as one can get in this life?

Well, I hope this gave you some food for thought.

For $25 bucks I'll send you more information on how to stop being a sucker.

Honesty

Issue: I'm interested in an article you sent, so I tell you I'll read it later.
Honestly: I'm not going to read that article later, but I still bookmark it with the hope that this time will be different.

Issue: I say, I read a book about that.
Honestly: I probably read most of that book, but rarely have I read all of it.

Issue: You send me a video link to watch.
Honestly: I'm probably not going to watch it. Videos make me feel like I have mental claustrophobia and I'm being forced to go mental spelunking as !y sole means of escape.

Not If, But Where

It seems to me that we often judge the goodness or badness of most things or events in our lives by the shadow it casts upon them. But any object, any event can cast a variety of shadows, depending on the angle of the light which is cast upon it. In this case it is both life and death.

Our life sentence is inclusive of a death sentence. This much is an inescapable fact: All of us will die at one point or another. Some of us sooner than others but the length of time between birth and death is of no real consequence, as it will always seem too short to someone that cherished it. 

Life I believe is measured more by the impact it has had on the lives of others than by the length of it, and any life that impacts another will be seen as loss by those who remain to feel the void that life once occupied.

I have found over the course of my years that it is primarily my lack of understanding God that causes me to question him, but I also think that any faith worth having is also worth questioning. Anything less is superstition. Certainly we cannot hope to understand everything but we should understand what we can, and everything else is faith at some level, even a non-faith.

As for prayer, its place and purpose, it is in large part to me a great and wondrous mystery, but I will say a couple of things. 

As I think about prayer I feel that is it a monumental endeavor for any of us to recognize or even understand the answers to them, when we can barely fathom the many facets and magnitude of so many of our questions. Thankfully, in my experience God is more likely to give us what we need rather than what we ask for.

If there is an all knowing God that allows us to petition him, but then gives us answers that seem to defy our logic perhaps it is wise for us to consider that it is not the wrong answer being given in the larger scheme, as much as it may be the wrong question (or emphasis therein) that is being asked.

I  was once asked by a good friend, who has since passed, why God does not seem to answer his prayers sometimes. As with much of my pondering about God my only response was that of considering it from the perspective of a father... This much I have come to know, that sometimes silence is the greatest grace we can hope to receive when the answer as such, is probably more than we can bear in our current state.

Christianity is a religion of seemingly contradictory logics, among those is that death is not at all to be the end of life but the beginning of it. 

I too have lost parents, children and friends but I consider that when Jesus wept it is clearly noted that he did not weep for the one that had gone on but for those who remained behind.

Just some things to think about.

 I have.

The End Is Near

You will find it pointless, mundane.

You will come to resent having no choice, simply wishing it would end.

You will eventually accept it however.

You will, with the benefit of hindsight,  come to see the value in it.

You will wonder to yourself why you ever resisted in the first place.

Over time you will embrace & even enjoy it.

You will be glad you had no choice, looking back on even the worst of it with a certain fondness.

You will even come to look forward to it...

...and that is exactly when it will end.

Watch "Zach Gill - Party Hard" on YouTube

ADD & Me: A Perspective

Watch "ADHD As A Difference In Cognition, Not A Disorder: Stephen Tonti at TEDxCMU" on YouTube

A friend of mine shared this TED video with me. 

I don't know quite why, but I'm glad he did.

Before I had the chance to watch it, I wrote my own thoughts down based simply on the title. Interestingly we pretty much hit all the same points (although I envy his scholastic and domestic experiences) I suppose this really only speaks to the both of us having the same condition.

The best thing about this video for me, isn't the thought that the world might care about any of this. Nope, the best thing for me was the therapeutic value of knowing there are others out there in the world that I might understand... that might understand me. That's a rare thing. 

My  commentary, before watching this is below in blue. My post viewing addition is in red.

One large problem I have with the oversimplified "blessing" (ADD as the source of simply being labeled as a difference in perspective, conducive to seeing what the rest of the world doesn't) is that it fails to recognize that it also comes with the "curse" of being blind to what the rest of the world feels is obvious. Consequently those of us surrounded by "normal" people are then mislabeled as stupid or forgetful, etc. and are written off as a result.

I've found that many people have a tendency to misinterpret and/or disregard as fiction those things that they don't understand for lack of personal experience. These are the people who also want to dismiss the value of medications. To an extent medication is like any tool: The tool doesn't produce anything in itself, it simply gives you the means to do it. What happens after that is up to the user. However, ADD medication did for me what a crap load of anti-depressants never even seemed to touch and turned everything from a singular, ever growing, insurmountable problem into a series of problems that could be resolved individually and in their own time. That's a hell of a tool!  

I imagine the speaker and I have a pretty good difference in age. Our culture's awareness, understanding and compassion has expanded about ADHD since I was a kid. My childhood was a little more complicated (a little uglier) than his, not caused by but certainly complicated by ADHD. When I was kid, I never heard anyone mention anything about ADHD and I didn't get medication if it was available. 

The speaker here rightly notes the physiological concerns involved in medicating children. What I would add however with the benefit of retrospect, is the great personal value that came as the result of learning to first cope with my condition before I could take any medication for it, because in reality it's only a temporary relief that delays its inevitable return.

People don't generally understand that ADD has many manifestations far beyond those few obvious ones I am at ease to kid around about. There is a good deal of chemistry/science backing the cause of ADD and it's relation to Autism, Alzheimer's and Schizophrenia. So while it may not truly be defined as a disorder per se, for those of us forced to live among those considered to be "normal" it is certainly an affliction of sorts. It's not easy for you, but it sure ain't easy for us... It takes a good deal of self awareness and self discipline to amend what comes so naturally. For those of us with the "H" in there it's even tougher because (contrary to popular belief) the "H" is more about impulse control that hyper-activity.

It's commonly acknowledged that most artists (whatever their caliber or medium) have at least some level of ADD at play in their creativity, but most artists worth their salt aren't people you really want to know. For me, part of growing older is accepting who I am and learning to use what I've got to work with it when changing it takes more time & energy than it's worth. It's taken a good deal of experience but I've found that what I see when I'm not on medication, I'm then better able to communicate when I am on it. People generally recognize that taking Adderall makes me more tolerable to them. The benefit is mutual because what most people don't / can't understand is that it makes them more tolerable to me as well, because those differing perspectives can make for some difficult and trying communications.

So once more blessing or curse?
Depends on the approach I guess, but they are usually one and the same in their source.

So that pretty much ends it. He's on the money.

 

Formica Counter Tops Pt 2

The continuation of an on going conversation.

The issues here are:

1. The perceived cruelty of God, as Father, toward the individual man in allowing suffering.

2. The murder of the innocents, in the plagues of Egypt.

Hope that helps...

One great paradox of parenting is that just as the joy of the child is the joy of the parent, so too it is true regarding their pain as well. In avoiding pain for our children, we also avoid pain for ourselves.

So yes, the natural tendency of a parent is toward the protection of their child, but to spare a child from every pain in life is also to rob them of every lesson that comes with it.

In short, you can only tell a child so many times that the oven is hot. They can know that you're right, or they can learn that you're right, and those that must learn by experience will do so.

I generally try to avoid the rabbit hole of OT deaths that people find objectionable, simply because of the time involved and the Pandora's box we potentially open. But here I'll take exception.

Let me start by saying that many people not following their logic to its conclusion like to say that God can do whatever he wants and so because something isn't done it is simply for lack of want on Gods end. This is untrue.(Of course this presupposes that what we see is all that there is, which we have already acknowledged to be untrue.)

I suppose in a sense God can do anything he wants, but only because what he wants does not violate his own nature and that is the thing he cannot do or he is not God at all. So God as the source of the law cannot be in violation of it, or again he is not God.

A forced love is no love at all, so we are given the choice to love God or rebel against Him, but there is no middle ground.

We are allowed reason and freewill, both serve as blessing and curse, and God sometimes spares us the folly resulting there from, but allows us to suffer the consequences resulting from them at other times.

The extra mile always becomes the expected mile I have found, so the view is more often that we are  suffering some divine punishment, more so that realizing the grace afforded us when we are spared from our own undoings.

All that said, and as previously noted, those who choose to live in rebellion against God are not innocent and as harsh as it sounds,  suffer as those who are not innocent.

Which brings us to the paradox of being a child, that they benefit and suffer for the decisions of their parents and those before them.

That is the best I can do here for now, and it's not a very good at that,  however here is a link to a pretty extensive and insightful article about this very subject: http://christianthinktank.com/killheir.html

I have a half am hour left to sleep, please stop making me think.