130418 Lightening Rod
Everyone has an opinion. Everyone discriminates. If they don’t, how is that there is more than one item on a menu? How do people get dressed in the morning without discerning one item of clothing as more worthy than another? Some decisions are easy, and others incredibly complicated. Then, to make matters worse, along comes political correctness with the diseased finger of pre-judgement. (See any recent news item.)
When I look at the crazy standards that this country and much of the world have, I am tempted to despair. I don’t, because I know that this will pass. Every generation thinks that their ideas are new, but there is nothing new under the sun, only new labeling over a fresh coat of paint. Progressive policy resembles what Plato deemed perfect. How long ago did Plato live? Did it work then? Did Utopia happen? Where is the Worker’s Paradise?
All things new are of God. Intellectuals have been taught to disdain anything related to God, and to embrace secular humanism. Humans stink, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Even a cute little baby has the decay of sin flowing through his or her cute little veins. Babies are selfish and have to be taught to think outside themselves. No one grows up being ‘perfect’, and perfect conditions cannot exist because of sin. We need a standard. God gave us the standard, and then provided the way to reach Him despite the standard. It was not anything we puny humans could do on our own.
Not just one train has busted through the station of my thoughts. Everyday, a new crisis emerges: gun (non)control, bombs that kill, redefining marriage, porous vs. sovereign borders, crime, debt, hedonism, disease, education, and on and on and on. Many Americans feel that we are losing ourselves. We have, only if we have completely lost God. God, however, works well with small, committed groups. A friend of mine posted a graphic. She may have made it herself, for it appears no other place that I could find. Here is the link to her show, and where the graphic, with this quote, was posted.
"If the Bible is just a book of fairy tales, why is it banned in at least 52 countries? No one goes to jail for reading the Illiad, the Odyssey, or Aesop's Fables."
Enjoy.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Saturday, April 13, 2013
130413 Alone
Today, I was alone all day. Since mid-February of 1994, 'alone' has not been my normal state. I was alone for a few weeks in 2010. THAT ended badly. Previously, I had been alone for whole hours at a time, but those weeks in 2010 (and today) were different. My future altered. Soon, I will be alone, because my children will grow into adulthood and devise lives for themselves. I thought about having a panic attack.
Agent spent the night with a friend, and is still out doing cos-play. I'll go get her in a few. I woke this morning with a sense of loss. She was gone, and I could feel it. Moon also went to work. After work, she went out with friends. I'm alone with the bunnies. Bunnies fail at companionship.
The national news is depressing. This is not helping that empty feeling. Historic forces cycle approximately every eighty years, according to a couple of historians who wrote an interesting book: Generations. If what they say is true, we are living through the equivalent of the Great Depression, and world affairs will become a lot worse before there is a glimmer of better. Of course, some camps proclaim that Obama in the Anti-Christ, or even Hitler. No, he's simply making a name for himself, and the US will never recover. Rights we took for granted may disappear forever in the name of 'safety'. Privacy and individual responsibility have disappeared from our society. My attitude is this:
1 Thessalonians 5:3
"For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape."
The only peace is with God, and freedom is not safe.
Agent spent the night with a friend, and is still out doing cos-play. I'll go get her in a few. I woke this morning with a sense of loss. She was gone, and I could feel it. Moon also went to work. After work, she went out with friends. I'm alone with the bunnies. Bunnies fail at companionship.
The national news is depressing. This is not helping that empty feeling. Historic forces cycle approximately every eighty years, according to a couple of historians who wrote an interesting book: Generations. If what they say is true, we are living through the equivalent of the Great Depression, and world affairs will become a lot worse before there is a glimmer of better. Of course, some camps proclaim that Obama in the Anti-Christ, or even Hitler. No, he's simply making a name for himself, and the US will never recover. Rights we took for granted may disappear forever in the name of 'safety'. Privacy and individual responsibility have disappeared from our society. My attitude is this:
1 Thessalonians 5:3
"For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape."
The only peace is with God, and freedom is not safe.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Essential Oils: Hubby's Headache Hurriedly Heals
Essential Oils: Hubby's Headache Hurriedly Heals
Can we say enough about peppermint? Peppermint was my first oil, and I used it for homemade toothpaste, then asthma. (I no longer need an inhaler.) Peppermint was my daughter's first oil, and she uses it for headaches without the carrier oil. (The article mentions almond.)
Carrier oils are many and varied. Most people already have olive oil in their homes. I use olive, coconut, or the Young Living blends V-6 and OrthoEase. Read Stephanie Castillo's article. It is simple and direct.
Can we say enough about peppermint? Peppermint was my first oil, and I used it for homemade toothpaste, then asthma. (I no longer need an inhaler.) Peppermint was my daughter's first oil, and she uses it for headaches without the carrier oil. (The article mentions almond.)
Carrier oils are many and varied. Most people already have olive oil in their homes. I use olive, coconut, or the Young Living blends V-6 and OrthoEase. Read Stephanie Castillo's article. It is simple and direct.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
130406 Intelligent Thinking
Not everyone is the same. This is good. It takes diverse talent to achieve ‘most anything, and no one person can know everything. Sometimes, I get so used to ‘dumbing down’ my speech so that others can understand me, than people think I’m dumb. When my thoughts move so quickly that my words trip over themselves, the same thing happens. Now that my children have reached a reasonable age, it gives me great pleasure to talk at length on certain topics that make other people’s heads spin. The elder and I discuss politics, while the younger and I discuss physics. It is glorious.
I have a cousin who ‘knows everything’ and lives in Liberal La-la Land. He fails to acknowledge that I might know a thing or two that he doesn’t. He and I studied quite different subjects in college. My majors centered in science and math, while he had a liberal arts education. “Liberal” used to mean generous, but in the US today, it means following a certain code that bypasses thinking and depends on feel-good assumptions. Facts and figures get thrown out the window when they don’t fit the litany. I know, because I have old BOOKS and don’t depend on the Internet for my information. I want to be the epitome of the former, but consider myself to be the opposite of the later definition.
My failure is that I expect people to think logically. It seems to be a lost art. I have altered my opinions and given ground when someone can show me why something is true, because I use my brain. One example is minimum wage. I used to like minimum wage, because it gave me a standard. Then, I took Economics 101 and saw how supply and demand affected the cost of goods and services. Minimum wage leads to unemployment. Which is better? Low wages, or NO wages? My younger daughter would get a job, but no one will hire her unskilled self at $7.25 per hour. Also, a superfluity of laws dictate what young people can and can’t do.
My cousin simply says that minimum wage has to be raised, because no one can live off of it. That may be true, but who takes those low paying, unskilled jobs? Not the heads of households, (except in extremely rare, but much publicized sob stories.) People used to find roommates to share expenses, but there are restrictive laws about this, too. In 1976, my very first job paid minimum wage. A year later, my second job paid twice minimum wage, because by then, I had gained skills. A mere four years later, my income exceeded the national average. That doesn’t seem possible today. Who will take a chance on a nobody? Bosses can’t even fire people anymore.
Today, I’m not working because I don’t want to work. Well, I don’t want to work if it means unrelenting pain from standing or stooping all day. Those are the most abundant jobs available, and I could work tomorrow at one of them. Instead, I signed up with Manpower, a great organization for people with certain skills, but they have no current assignments for me. In a sense, I am practicing some of those skills here today by typing. I like this kind of work, and it usually pays slightly above minimum wage. Employers, however, have become a little more skeptical about hiring unknowns. God can do anything. Now that I’ve made a decision, He will act. :)
I have a cousin who ‘knows everything’ and lives in Liberal La-la Land. He fails to acknowledge that I might know a thing or two that he doesn’t. He and I studied quite different subjects in college. My majors centered in science and math, while he had a liberal arts education. “Liberal” used to mean generous, but in the US today, it means following a certain code that bypasses thinking and depends on feel-good assumptions. Facts and figures get thrown out the window when they don’t fit the litany. I know, because I have old BOOKS and don’t depend on the Internet for my information. I want to be the epitome of the former, but consider myself to be the opposite of the later definition.
My failure is that I expect people to think logically. It seems to be a lost art. I have altered my opinions and given ground when someone can show me why something is true, because I use my brain. One example is minimum wage. I used to like minimum wage, because it gave me a standard. Then, I took Economics 101 and saw how supply and demand affected the cost of goods and services. Minimum wage leads to unemployment. Which is better? Low wages, or NO wages? My younger daughter would get a job, but no one will hire her unskilled self at $7.25 per hour. Also, a superfluity of laws dictate what young people can and can’t do.
My cousin simply says that minimum wage has to be raised, because no one can live off of it. That may be true, but who takes those low paying, unskilled jobs? Not the heads of households, (except in extremely rare, but much publicized sob stories.) People used to find roommates to share expenses, but there are restrictive laws about this, too. In 1976, my very first job paid minimum wage. A year later, my second job paid twice minimum wage, because by then, I had gained skills. A mere four years later, my income exceeded the national average. That doesn’t seem possible today. Who will take a chance on a nobody? Bosses can’t even fire people anymore.
Today, I’m not working because I don’t want to work. Well, I don’t want to work if it means unrelenting pain from standing or stooping all day. Those are the most abundant jobs available, and I could work tomorrow at one of them. Instead, I signed up with Manpower, a great organization for people with certain skills, but they have no current assignments for me. In a sense, I am practicing some of those skills here today by typing. I like this kind of work, and it usually pays slightly above minimum wage. Employers, however, have become a little more skeptical about hiring unknowns. God can do anything. Now that I’ve made a decision, He will act. :)
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Essential Oils: No Longer Need Daily Pain Patches
Essential Oils: No Longer Need Daily Pain Patches
I use therapeutic grade peppermint daily. My health is much improved.
What is therapeutic grade? It is the highest quality. There are several grades - the lowest is just smell, and can be simply chemicals and not the plant oils. Perfumes fall into this category. Middle grades contain those oils that one sees in health food stores. They usually have warning labels about not ingesting. Young Living sells only therapeutic grade oils. These can be ingested and have no side effects. If one does feel what seem to be a side effect from Young Living oils, it is from the poisons leaving the body. We may want those poisons gone with less ado, so slow down on the oils and drink more water!
I use therapeutic grade peppermint daily. My health is much improved.
What is therapeutic grade? It is the highest quality. There are several grades - the lowest is just smell, and can be simply chemicals and not the plant oils. Perfumes fall into this category. Middle grades contain those oils that one sees in health food stores. They usually have warning labels about not ingesting. Young Living sells only therapeutic grade oils. These can be ingested and have no side effects. If one does feel what seem to be a side effect from Young Living oils, it is from the poisons leaving the body. We may want those poisons gone with less ado, so slow down on the oils and drink more water!
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