SAVE MORE CHILDREN

In the past four years of existence, Operation Underground Railroad has rescued 1,200 victims and assisted in the arrests of more than 450 traffickers around the world.

THREE MONKEYS

It was likely the Dutch that brought them to America. It was the Dutch who for many years served as our connection to Japan.

The meaning of the Monkeys is said to be found in Japanese Koshin belief.

They have names: Mizaru sees no evil, Kikazaru hears no evil, Iwazaru speaks no evil.

My impression was that the Monkeys were foolish, that they symbolize failure to take responsibility for one’s conduct.

Those were my monkeys.

Others, say the Monkeys are wise; wise because they avoid evil. They wish to have nothing to do with evil.

There’s little doubt that, at times, I’m foolish; but, I may have misjudged the Monkeys.

 

AN END TO VIOLENCE

Bath, Michigan School Bombing 1927 – Detroit Free Press

I don’t know the exact number; no one does. It’s estimated that there is a gun for every man, woman, and child living in the United States. That would be approximately three-hundred and fifty million guns. A number that continues to grow.

Today, in various cities across America people will be participating in marches demanding an end to gun violence. They have the right to do so.

I’d like to see an end to all violence.

Mass-murder generates headlines; however, in reality, it only makes up a small percentage of the number of people who die from gunshots on an annual basis. Some are by accident, but, the vast majority who are murdered are killed one at a time.

It stands to reason that guns are often used because they’re convenient. But, is it guns that cause people to be violent? The largest mass-murder of school children in the U.S. was done using dynamite and pyrotol. It occurred in a rural Michigan school district back in 1927.

Being possessed to do evil is a terrible thing. God says: to murder is evil. We were already well acquainted with murder when all we had was sticks and stones. It’s evil that’s the source of violence.

Be serious, banning the sale of specific guns won’t end gun violence. The only way you might end gun violence would be to repeal the Second Amendment and then somehow seize those three-hundred and fifty million guns without starting a war.

Quite frankly, if doing that didn’t start a war the Second Amendment serves no purpose anyway.

The First Amendment gives us the right to speak. There’s risk in a government letting its people speak; the people might say things the government doesn’t want heard. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution helps insure that the First is not interfered with. Without a means of enforcement, the “zone of free speech” would be as meaningless as simply declaring a place to be gun free, bomb free, or even violence free.

To protect freedom within a zone words aren’t sufficient; the zone must be made difficult to breech.

When a government is allowed to take away the right of the people to be armed, what line of defense remains to keep it from taking any other right?

Words on parchment can not guarantee freedom. They won’t guarantee that you can march, speak, or vote without the fear of violence. To maintain freedom you have to be willing to accept a certain amount of risk. You may have to fight for it.

Or, you could just do what you’re told.

 

THE LYNCHING OF JAMES CAMERON

Located in mid-northern Indiana is a town called Marion. Named for the Swamp Fox of Revolutionary Days; it’s just an hour and a half drive away. A place not much different from where I live. The people there seem pretty much like me.

In the summer of 1930, Claude Deeter was murdered in Marion during a robbery attempt. Three black teenagers, Thomas Shipp, Abram Smith, and James Cameron were arrested and charged. James claimed he’d had a change of heart and run away before Deeter was killed.

The suspects, quickly apprehended, were in jail. There was no reason for anyone to believe justice would not be served through due process of the Rule of Law.

How does one explain mass insanity?

Some estimated the crowd, which included women and children, to be as large as fifteen thousand in number. Fifteen from a county with a population of maybe fifty. Most of that fifteen likely thought of themselves as Christian. Yet, in whose name had they gathered; in whose justice did they trust?

Motivated by darkness, they were there to do murder. To: hang ’em on a tree!

The mob broke into the jail and extracted the three. One by one, they brutally beat and hung Shipp, then Smith. Cameron, about to die, prayed to God that his sins would be forgiven. With the rope starting to burn into his neck, James heard a voice say: he is not guilty. Suddenly, the noise, the frenzy of evil ended, and all became still; the rope removed.

In various accounts of the event, some said it was the voice of a woman, others claim it was a man; according to James, it came from above.

HALLOWEEN COSTUMES

If demons looked like this Halloween costume they’d be easy to recognize.

I wouldn’t be fooled. I’d chase them off my porch.

The problem is, real demons know my weaknesses. They disguise themselves as fun; they take the form of things I might think I want. Idols of desire.

I’ve been warned to stay away from idols, for fear that I become their slave.

Real demons have no wish to scare me. Alarmed, I might unmask them with True Light.

Their scheme is to deceive, to trick me with false treats.

 

SIN CITY

Back in 1929, my grandparents made a trip by automobile to visit relatives in California. A journal was kept that recorded a stop made at a small desert town to purchase gasoline for their Chrysler, sandwiches and some soda pop for themselves. There was nothing remarkable about the place back then.

In 1931, the state of Nevada legalized casino gambling. The name Las Vegas is Spanish for The Meadows, but many, today, refer to the town as “Sin City.”

Mass-murder has been added to its sins.

I’d like to believe that what happened in Vegas would stay in Vegas.

People ask: What was this man’s motivation? Where should we place the blame? ISIS claims he acted on their behalf. Alex Jones suggests radicalization by the anarchist group Antifa for the “Deep State.” Keith Olbermann blames the National Rifle Association. Others speculate that the drug Valium may have been responsible. The President says the man was sick and demented.

Sickness has infected humanity from our very beginning. It isn’t necessary to take my word for it, history can show you the record. One might think the increase of knowledge in the sciences of medicine and human behavior would, by now, have found a cure. Yet, lying, deception, unfaithfulness, greed, cruelty, hate and murder is as much a part of life today as has ever been.

I place the blame for this sickness on evil. I blame myself, because I’ve been offered help to overcome the sickness; the evil that lives within me. The Trinity of the one God says the cure is to Love my fellow man. Motivated by Love and Goodness, It promises evil will be defeated. I just need to do my part. To make it the purpose of my being.

Faith isn’t forced upon me, if I wish, I can join those who continue looking for a more tangible solution. 

I doubt that it will be found in Sin City.

 

NATURE IS NOT MY FRIEND

ABC NEWS PHOTO

This physical world isn’t particularly friendly. One way or another it seems to be trying to kill me. Indications are it eventually will.

Be that as it may, I don’t consider nature to be evil. For example, mosquitoes transmit viruses that result in the death of millions of us every year. Does that make the mosquito evil?

Science studies and adds to my knowledge of things physical in nature. I doubt that my intelligence is superior to that of my ancestors. Without science I might have believed mosquitoes to be demonic. I might have believed hurricanes and volcanoes were demonic.

Today’s weather here in Ohio is quite nice, but for those in parts of Texas it must seem a bit like hell.

Science has given me access to a greater knowledge of nature. For that reason, I don’t believe the storm coming out of the Gulf of Mexico was caused by a demon.

If I don’t think Good and evil are physical in nature then what proof do I have that they are real; to believe they are forces of my spiritual being? 

Well, — I think it is the force of Good that motivates people to pray. To ask God to guide those in need. It’s Love for their fellow man that will cause many to help in whatever way they can.

Yet, there seems to be just as many who will not care.

The influence of Good and evil, I can think of no other logical reason as to why some Love and some don’t.

UNHINGED

That’s the claim. The Chairman of the Workers’ Party of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-un, is crazy.

Why?

Kim is an atheist; in my opinion, his actions are logical. Logical for an atheist. He’s not one to go around talking about doing this or that for the future good of mankind. The future good?  Why would he be concerned about the future? Why would he care about good? For him there is no such thing as good nor is there a future.

For an atheist to be concerned about the future, that would be insane.

Whatever entertains him in the here and now. That’s all there is.  

There’s not much one person can do without the backing of others. Others made Kim their supreme leader. If you’re supreme there’s no authority higher than yourself; you and you alone determine what’s right, what’s wrong. Family, his fellow man, you or me, the point of our existence is to serve Kim. We are expendable.

If more of us were like Kim Jong-un, with faith only in ourselves, I suppose there would be those who would claim the World was unhinged.

ANOTHER ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

At the age of sixteen, Joseph Stalin received a scholarship to be trained as a priest. Within a year he became an atheist.

A failure of faith that resulted in perhaps the most significant individual Anti-Christian of the past hundred years.

If you opposed Stalin you were an “enemy of the people.”

Stalin lived for the here and now. Personal power and gain his only concern; everything else was irrelevant. He lied, robbed, assassinated, executed, tortured and imprisoned. World conquest was his goal.

In 1917, there were an estimated 54,000 Russian Orthodox parishes, by 1939 there were almost none. In the purge of 1937-1938 alone more that 100,000 priests and nuns were killed. It wasn’t limited to the Russian Orthodox, all Christians, Jews, Buddhist and Muslims were ruthlessly persecuted.

No one really knows how many deaths can be credited to Stalin’s regime. Some have estimated it may have been as high as sixty million.

God doesn’t deal in estimates, He knows. 

Stalin modernized the Soviet military; with treaties and agreements, he waited like a vulture for Europe to die. When the time to strike was right his army of six million would lay claim to the carcass.

Hitler was motivated not to wait. Atheist against atheist for world domination. The vast majority of German casualties during WWII were inflicted by the Soviets. Several millions of Stalin’s army were lost to the Germans.

Here in the United States we respected the strength of Churchill and gave credit to ourselves for winning the war. As that war ended the shadow of a new one approached over a cold horizon.

Stalin took Eastern Europe for himself, but ironically he had been forced to help save what remained of freedom, Judaism and Christianity in Western Europe. Those who still had faith thanked God.

Those who still have faith thank God.

If your criteria for judging a person is measured by fame, achievement, power and historical impact, you’d have to say that Uncle Joe was a success.

However, to God, who knows the number of hairs that were on his head, Joseph Stalin may have been just another “enemy of the people.”

THE FUTURE AIN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE. – Yogi Berra

“Election Day” in the United States.

The next leader of the “Free World?”

Do I vote? Will I vote for what I hope to be the lesser of two evils?

God, help us.