On Thanksgiving and suffering

I was on my way to reading something else in 2 Corinthians, but stopped at Paul's "thanksgiving" which follows his greeting, "grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." We hear that greeting so often, we sometimes don't even notice it. Christian pastors often begin their sermons with that.

I was writing in my gratitude journal; the words grace and gratitude are derived from the Latin gratis/gratus/gratia which means thankful. Eucharist derives from the Greek εὐχαριστία (eucharistia), meaning "thanksgiving," and root for "charity" is right in the middle.

Interestingly, in Paul's "thanksgiving" which I often skip to get on to the juicy stuff of resolving conflicts, and raising money, he uses the Jewish blessing "God of all encouragement" (consolation, paraklesis) ten times! And when does he encourage us? In every affliction. He mentions suffering or affliction seven times in this word of thanksgiving.

"Our hope for you is firm, for we know that as you share in the sufferings, you also share in the encouragement."

Although I never got to the verses I had planned to read, today I'm thankful for God's encouragement in a time of suffering.

https://www.wordsense.eu/grace/

I shared the above thought about thanksgiving and gratitude on my Facebook page, which allows others to respond immediately, not like a blog which has to be approved first.  A young Lutheran pastor from Texas, Phil Daniels, who a few years ago was a seminary student serving at our church, responded.  I don’t know when I friended him on FB, or how he happened to notice my little essay.

Philip Daniels: That is very insightful. I have noticed, as I have been working on sermons, how often I overlook those introductions in order to go onto the more meaty stuff ... and I'm a pastor! That has been something God has been teaching me both in my personal study and public proclamation: don't overlook those introductions. And I do love the word "Paraklesis" which has overtones of the word often used to describe the Holy Spirit. In the Septuagint we see Isaiah most famously use it in Isaiah 40:1: Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. The Hebrew in that sense is "Nacham." As far as I can understand, the word is tied to both breath and resuscitation. In Arabic, the word means "to breath pantingly." While, this misses the mark, it does give us a little insight as words of comfort are often felt like gasps of living breath to those worn out by fatigue in the world. Yet the earliest parts of the Bible seem to use it in the comforting after a death (i.e. Genesis 24:67b, "So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.")

Nacham therefore is best understood as a revivification after the loss of someone or some ideal dear. And, oddly, one wonders if one has to experience this death in order to have this new breath breathed into one.

This is probably overanalyzing Paul in this context. On the other hand, I am also sure Paul would not be averse to such thinking. These are people who can offer comfort because a new breath has been put inside them. A Comforter has been called beside them. They can now breathe new life into the lives of those around them since they have been "comforted" indeed we could say they have experienced "nacham." If we forget that we have been revived, that we too have looked upon the cross and the body placed in the tomb; we can also declare that Someone has revived us and bids us to GO! and share the good news that we have.

In any case, keep reading and don't be afraid of the New Life found each New Day in the easy glanced-over parts of this Book of Life.

Catering to the confused

Air Canada announced that it no longer will use the phrase “ladies and gentlemen” on board its flights, as part of a “commitment to respect sexual identity, diversity, and inclusion.”

What's the fun in that? What are the guys going to transition to if airlines (tech firms, big pharma, academe, etc.) wipe out all the differences? How will they join the women’s track competition if there are no women?  It might be PC, but it's not respect.

Downton Abbey—a look back

Downton Abbey was a delight as a TV series, and I hope to see the movie. But have you ever wondered why the Grantham family were living in an abbey? Definition of an Abbey: a monastery under the supervision of an abbot or a convent under the supervision of an abbess. I don't claim to know anything about the British aristocracy or what the titles Countess, Earl, or Lady mean, but I do know they aren't priests, nuns or abbots. Our status symbols in the U.S. are all about money and celebrity, not titles--Jeff Bezos for instance is the richest man the world--and that means more power than a title handed down from his father. Even the wealthiest and most admired dynasties in the U.S. disappear in a flash when the money is gone, or the government takes it away. Movie stars who have a different admired status become wrinkled and don't get the good roles.

So why did Anglican British royalty and lesser folk live in buildings built by Roman Catholics? It goes back to the English Reformation and is one of the nastiest and unloving chapters in Christian history. King Henry VIII stole the wealth of the monasteries, had the owners killed off, chased off or imprisoned, and gave the lands and buildings to his supporters. The church had traditionally taken care of the poor and sick (as Jesus told them to do)--they were turned out also, and we had the seeds of the terrible poverty, wealth and abuses of the industrial revolution.

Not a big crisis, but. . .

As crises go in the Bruce family, this was not serious, but my coffee maker died yesterday morning in mid-drip. So today I went to Wal-Mart after the gym to buy a new one. I finally found one that didn't look like the dash of my new Pacifica, but there were no boxes except on the top shelf labeled, "Ask for assistance." So I went to the front of the store to ask an employee for help. She didn't speak English, but after wildly waving my arms and pointing to the ceiling she nodded and set out to find someone. After about 10 minutes of waiting, I went back to find her and through sign language she told me she had asked someone. I kept an eye on her and saw her talking to the disabled door greeter. He very slowly came back to the H aisle and asked what the problem was, and I explained it. He was tall, but greeting customers was really all he could do. And bless Wal-Mart for giving people opportunities to work. He seemed confused, so I asked him if he could find another employee with a ladder. Another 5 minutes and he'd found a short, able-bodied woman who could speak English, and she knew where the ladder in dry goods was. She carried it over to kitchen appliances and climbed to the top of the step ladder (which you shouldn't do) and retrieved the box. I examined the contents carefully, and the four of us decided I'd buy the coffee pot.

I've now made one pot of coffee; it's very slow, and it sort of spits, but after that much time (good thing I'm retired), it's not going back.

Insurgencies, civil wars and conflicts in Africa

As fingers point and hands are wrung about 50 soldiers pulled out of the Turkey-Syria conflict where the U.S. is attempting to hold back ISIS, can anyone tell me why this particular civil war in Syria is so critical to American interests?  I’m not looking for snarky, ad hominem attacks, this is a REAL QUESTION.

It’s about Africa, not the Middle East.

There are civil wars, insurgencies and tribal/ border conflicts all over Africa. Except for Kenya (Obama’s relatives) and Nigeria (Boko Haram kidnapping Christian girls) the U.S. media and politicians  rarely pay attention to the slaughter and mayhem in Africa, particularly of Christians by Muslims. And please spare me the trash talking about European colonialism—a quick look  at Wikipedia shows wars, conflicts and civil wars going back 1500 years, and most of these are tribal or Muslim sects.

Here’s a quick check, according to Wikipedia. See that source for more detail:

• On going insurgency in Egypt
• On going South Sudanese Civil War
• On going 2nd Libyan Civil War
• On going ISIL insurgency in Tunisia
• On going insurgency in Maghreb (Algeria and Morocco)
• Ongoing insurgency in Somalia
• On going conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia
• On going Burundian unrest
• Ongoing Anglophone crisis, Cameroon
• Ongoing Northern Mali conflict
• Ongoing Boko Haram, Nigeria
• Ongoing Kamwina Nsapu Rebellion, Democratic Republic of Congo

Is it the color of their skin? American blacks don’t care about Africa if it’s not directly related to U.S.  slavery? The amount of natural resources?  The distance? Language problems?  CIA doesn’t even have Fact Books on some of these countries.

Reflection on Exodus 17:8-13, with apologies to Moses.

In those days, Cancer came and waged war against Phil's brain. Phil Bruce therefore said to his medical posse, "Pick out the best you have--surgeons, nurses, therapists, med techs, hematologists, cardiologists, radiologists--and go out and engage Cancer in battle. I will be standing on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand."

So the posse did as Phil told them: they engaged Cancer in battle after Phil had climbed to the top of the hill with his family Norma, Bob, Phoebe and Mark. As long as Phil kept his hands raised up, his body had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, the Cancer had the better of the fight.

Phil's hands grew tired so they put a rock, his church, in place for him to sit on. Meanwhile, his family, extended family and close friends--Ron, Keith, Carl, Tom, John, Sara, and many others-- supported his hands, some on one side, some on the other side so he remained steady till sunset. And the medical posse mowed down the Cancer and tumors with the edge of medical miracles swords.

Janice Fiamengo looks at space travel

As we honor the women in space today, let's take a look at what other women are doing, disparaging space travel and exploration as ableist, colonialist, white supremacist, anti-native American, with a panel of angry resentful "scholars" male shaming. "Discovery" in their view is a racist, exploitive word, up to no good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UACktweQ3s

Janice Fiamengo who's about the smartest woman on the internet comments and analyzes. I don't see her as often as I used to. The Left has quite a campaign against her that seems to be working. She lives and works in Toronto.

I'm not sure one of these panelists is a woman, but they take the feminist line and may identify as one; I'm also not sure one of them is black, but she seems to identify as one; also not sure why the whitest is native American, but that's what pays her mortgage. It 's not lengthy, but will demonstrate for you the craziness going on in academe as wokeness moves from the social sciences into space travel.

A billion can do a lot in DC guest blogger Jeffrey

Jeffrey Varasano: "I posted this earlier on a thread talking about people like Romney or George Will. There sure seemed to be people who claimed to be Republicans but undermine us from the inside. Why? Are they bought off? Maybe they were progressive loyalists from the beginning who were long ago tasked with infiltrating the Republicans or conservative media? Or what about blackmail? Maybe Soros digs up dirt on people and then uses them as puppets thereafter.

These things sound far-fetched until you sketch out what it would take. I've done this before with Christopher Buckley. Let's say that you wanted to buy control of the US government. How many people would you have to buy and how much would each cost? Let's do a back-of-the-envelope budget using $1B / year.

Just to use round numbers let's say you devoted $1M per year towards each House and Senate seat. That money could be split out. A no-show job for a congressman's kid for $300k, $50K each to 4 staffers, $100k to a private eye or honey pot operation. Dump the rest into campaign contributions. If it's a congressman you don't think you can control then keep the honey pot budget and give the rest into an opponent. So now for $535 million you've got your finger into every congressional & senate seat pretty good. Keep in mind that if a target is in a safe district and you've already got pictures of him with a naked 8 year old, your budget to keep him in control can go way down next year and you can put the surplus towards a different seat.

Now you make a list of other people you want to influence. Let's say you make a list of media people. On the conservative influencer list you start with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity at the top and then work your way down. Most people would be surprised how quickly you run out of recognizable names, especially in the pre-internet era. Pre-internet maybe 50 names. Today maybe it's a 100. Remember you don't have to control each and every one and the money can be spent either supporting them, ruining them, or even recruiting new ones.

Add another for a 100 liberal media people. So that's another 200 million bringing us to $735M.

Next up we take the remaining $265M and divide it into 2650, $100k buckets which we spread out through the bureaucracies AKA deep state. For sure a good hunk of that goes to the Fed and money supply people.

So for a billion dollars a year we've got our finger in just about everything.

From here out we can expand our influence without spending any more money but rather using money that falls out of the influence we've already bought.

Let's say you want to start "grassroots" efforts at all 3000 colleges, again spending $1M each. That's $3B, but you don't have to come out of pocket for that. All you have to do is bump some college subsidy budget from 147 billion to 150 billion, and then divert 3 billion. Then with each college you split the million with a 100k going to the Latino center, 100k to the environmental sustainability center, 100K to the women's center, etc.

So all you need to get started is a billion a year. But that's really chump change in an era when quantitative easing was pumping out 80 billion dollars a month. Who's to say if that defense contract is worth 43 billion or 65 billion? Certainly not the congressmen and media you own.

Keep in mind that big money players are simultaneously playing this game. The Chinese, the Russians, The Saudis, the UN, the Bilderbergs, Soros, etc. And all the bought off players agree on one thing: if you notice or talk too much about any of this you are a kook.

Does this president make me look fat?

Prof. Brittney Cooper of Rutgers has suggested Trump is making black women fat. No word yet about white women. So I decided I'd look up her research on this, but didn't find anything to suggest it is anything but an opinion. It's just a guess, but if she's researching gender in hip hop music, those hot babes in the videos would drive most women to poor health decisions. With so many crazy feminist theories out there, one really has to be outrageous to get attention. She's making the squad look normal.

"Professor Cooper is currently completing her first book Race Women: Gender and the Making of a Black Public Intellectual Tradition, 1892-Present. Her work focuses extensively in the area of Black women's intellectual history, Black feminist thought, and race and gender politics in hip hop and popular culture. She has two forthcoming articles about hip hop feminism in Signs Journal of Women in Culture and Society and African American Review. Professor Cooper has also published book chapters on Black women's history in fraternal orders and the Janet Jackson Superbowl incident. She is co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective blog, which was named a top feminist blog by New York Magazine in 2011 and a top race blog by TheRoot.com in 2012. She writes for the CFC as "crunktastic.""

Note:  I wasn’t familiar with “crunk.”

Crunk definitions aren't consistent. "A style of hip-hop music originating in the southern United States, characterized by electronic sounds, simple refrains, and a high-energy, heavily rhythmic beat." Another definition, "combination of chronic and drunk (on marijuana)" Another: "suitable replacement for the infamous seven dirty swearwords that they couldn't say on TV" Another: To cry like a crane. Can also be a verb: "Matzi was out on the corner with his homies, crunkin' to some tunes."

It's beginning to look fallish

I drive on Henderson Road to get to the Fitness center every morning. It's really beautiful--lined with full Maples. We had a cold snap last night and suddenly the colors are running faster than a bunch of Republicans in Congress.

Phil Bruce

Latest photo, 10 days after surgery

The crazies in our culture

The Left is schizo and psychotic. What they are doing to children while screaming about priest sexual abuse (which is far less than that from teachers) and #MeToo is just bizarro.

• They offer underage children abortions then give them birth control;
• they promote surgery on genitals under the guise of "gender confusion";
• they pump children full of hormones to delay puberty which will damage them for the rest of their lives;
• they allow young girls to be intimidated and bullied by boys in their own bathrooms, locker rooms and athletic events;
• then they punish them if they use the correct pronoun.
• This is a political agenda. In Columbus it was being promoted on a local "news" show a few nights ago, as a medical and human interest story because a 3 year old thought he was a girl.

People. You've lost your minds.

And they call this "progressive?"

Saint Luke

Today is October 18 and the day the Catholics, Orthodox and many Protestant denominations honor St. Luke, author of 2 volumes in the New Testament, Luke and Acts. Luke was most likely a Syrian (something to remember, too) and didn't know Jesus or his disciples, but thought it was critical to do the research of what was already written down and being preached in the churches. He did know Paul, and I'm sure those discussions were magnificent. He gives us fascinating insight into our Lord's life and heart, and particularly has a tender heart for the poor and not so powerful. He also provides a lot of focus on women. No one but Mary could have provided the details of the Infancy Narratives. Thank you Lord for the words of Luke.

Luke is the patron saint of artists; bachelors; bookbinders; brewers; butchers; glassworkers; goldsmiths; lace makers; notaries; painters; physicians; sculptors; stained glass workers; surgeons.

And so St. Luke, take care of my sweet, darlin' bachelor and the surgeons and physicians who are helping him. (Had brain surgery Oct. 8)

https://www.liturgytools.net/2018/07/hymns-feast-of-st-luke-evangelist-doctor-physician-artist-18-october.html

"As Luke with courage went
to heal, restore and teach,
obedient to his Lord
in spirit, action, speech,
give doctors, nurses, clergy too
the healing power that comes from you."

http://jocelynmarshall.org/texts/hymn_for_st_luke.html

Turkey, the Kurds and President Trump

I haven’t done much research on this and may change my mind.  I did pull up articles from December 2018 when Trump announced we were going to pull out, and remember all the campaign promises he made, similar to those Obama made but he only expanded the war.  It is a fact that Turkey has been an ally for years, and is part of NATO. THE KURDS ARE NOT A NATION STATE.

Previous presidents have also pussy footed around Turkey and refused to do anything about its killing of the Armenian Christians 100 years ago (there’s a huge lobby in the U.S.) the first of the 20^th century holocausts. Not even Trump has touched that. I’ve never seen such hypocrisy on the part of Democrats or such lily livered, spineless behavior on the part of Republicans as this so-called withdrawal. It’s truly disgusting. 50 Americans are going to be home for Thanksgiving who might not have been there otherwise, and the wars in the Middle East, now 1000 years old, will go on and on and on.

Dave doesn’t vote

He’s concerned after watching MSNBC or some other anti-Trump source, that a woman of Ukrainian heritage lost her job in the administration and that Rudy was investigating corruption. But he doesn’t vote!  My response:

But you're OK with destroying the job of the Ukrainian prosecutor which Joe Biden bragged about (as a representative of Obama)? Biden demanded he be fired, or Ukraine would get no money to fight the Russians. He knew what would happen if the news got out about who was really manipulating the U.S. election.

Rudy was doing his job--investigating the corruption of the Democrats of the previous administration who tried to undo the election results of 2016.

You have a strange set of standards--don't vote, but support crooks widening the muck in the swamp. Voting is always a challenge--often the lesser of 2 evils. So is donating money to campaigns and candidates, but it's better than a monarchy or communism where there's no voting at all, or just straw man candidates. We see now Mitt Romney's true colors, but he still would have been better than a second term for Obama.

Thousands of years of human history under every imaginable form of government from human sacrifice to peasants rounded up from the fields to march to foreign wars, and the little guy finally has a say based on one of the finest constitution ever produced, and you thumb your nose at all the blood and treasure over centuries it took to get here because it isn't perfect. I'm shocked.

Milly and Jack

We live on a beautiful, ravined property with lots of trees between us, the ravine, and the houses on the other side. We've known Milly and Jack, residents on the other side, since they were college age. She was our daughter's confirmation sponsor, (about 38 years ago) so although younger than us, they are now grandparents. Like me, Milly is an early riser, and although it's too far for her to see me, I wave when I see her light on because I know she's reading her Bible.

This past year their deck was being enclosed to make a large inside space--not sure it has a name since they already have a family room and a study. It allows them to be inside while enjoying the outside is the best description I can think of. We couldn't see much of the transition--too many trees, but we know the contractor and could see little figures moving around and could imagine the process. This morning I looked out and the whole addition/house appeared in a blazing light because more leaves have dropped making it visible. I could almost see the outline and complexity of the new space.

That's what our life is now. We see the light, but we're in the dark, and others are out there keeping watch for us.

Gratitude

I keep a "Gratitude Journal." I saw the outline (6 items) in an article several years ago, and I've revised it a bit to suit my needs. The main part is writing down 3 things from the previous 24 hours for which you are grateful. Most days, our life is so pleasant and delightful, I have to think hard, and occasionally had to resort to "beautiful weather for a walk along the lake," or "modern technology."

Since our son Phil's diagnosis of brain cancer two weeks ago, finding things to be grateful for has been no problem--some days I can record 15 and bust right past three. From Ron Brown calling the squad, to Pastor Margo's faithful visits, to borrowed walker, to visits from loyal friends, some going back to his childhood, it has been a snap. And as you've noticed, I write a lot (always have). It's not a method I'd recommend for writer's block, but I think I'm not the only one who takes life for granted until we're shocked back to reality.

 

Phil (left) one week after surgery with friend Craig

Our country’s religious foundation is crumbling

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other,” said John Adams in 1798. Some things don’t change, even after 221 years, and Attorney General William Barr quoted Adams to say so in a stellar speech at Notre Dame about American politics and our crumbling moral foundation.

Barr, a devout Catholic, made the case that modern Americans have replaced dependency on God with dependency on government. He also argued that modern secularists are not merely non-religious; they are outright hostile to religion.

“The campaign to destroy the traditional moral order has coincided [with] — and I believe has brought with it — immense suffering and misery,” Barr asserted. “And yet the forces of secularism, ignoring these tragic results, press on with even greater militancy.”

He wondered, “Among the militant secularists are many so-called progressives. But where is the progress?” Worse, he implied regression: “The secular project has itself become a religion, pursued with religious fervor. It is taking on all the trappings of religion, including inquisitions and excommunication. Those who defy the creed risk a figurative burning at the stake — social, educational, and professional ostracism and exclusion waged through lawsuits and savage social-media campaigns.”

In any case, says Barr, the government is a poor substitute for true religion. “Today, in the face of all the increasing pathologies, instead of addressing the underlying cause, we have cast the state in the role of the Alleviator of Bad Consequences,” he said. “We call on the state to mitigate the social costs of personal misconduct and irresponsibility.”

“So, the reaction to growing illegitimacy is not sexual responsibility, but abortion. The reaction to drug addiction is safe injection sites. The solution to the breakdown of the family is for the state to set itself up as an ersatz husband for the single mother and an ersatz father for the children. The call comes for more and more social programs to deal with this wreckage. And while we think we’re solving problems, we are underwriting them. We start with an untrammeled freedom and we end up as dependents of a coercive state on whom we depend.”

Wow.  The Leftists are sure try to impeach Barr now.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/66120?

Glory be to the Father

Have you ever wondered why we say, "world without end" in the Gloria Patri? Me neither. I guess I've said or sung it so often I'd never thought that it meant the world would go on forever and never stop. But someone did ask (on radio), so here's what I heard. It's a very awkward idiom that comes from Hebrew, then Greek, then Latin, then squeezed into English. In other words, a bad translation for "will be for ever." In none of the other languages does the word world appear.

Found a longer explanation. https://nathanlemahieu.weebly.com/gloria-patri.html

Junior Bacon Cheeseburger. A blast from the past

We bought our Lakeside cottage in September, 1988, and thus began a weekly (usually Saturday since we both worked) trip to clean, paint and remodel (I watched, Bob worked). On the way through Bucyrus we'd stop at Wendy's and became very fond of the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger with a small fries. Our children were shocked because "fast food" certainly hadn't been on the menu when they lived at home! I was such a mean mom. I probably haven't had one in over 20 years.

Yesterday after we returned to Canal Winchester from Phil's doctor appointment in Westerville, he treated us to lunch--Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger and fries. Probably we aren't eating as healthy as we could be, but it was fun to enjoy one again. Sometimes you just need comfort food instead of a salad.