Good Times...

http://www.reverendfun.com/add_toon_info.php?date=20110815&language=en

I must admit: I LOVE this site. It's silly and fun, but in a respectful manner. It's a great combination. As silly as it is, I feel 100% safe recommending it to anyone.

To those of us that Need it this day.

"The gift of Jesus Christ is hope, not happiness." -- Vox Day

Or as I once told my brother: "Jesus promises paradise AFTER we die. Not while we're here."

Hold your loved ones close and let them know they are loved. You just never know.

He's a FUNNY God.

Last week, I was trying to get inside my house. My deadbolt lock on my side door was sticking. Now I have a front door, but there's a chair in the way of it opening very far so it's a pain to open and get through.

So there I was, jiggling the lock and trying to open it. It wasn't budging. I broke a key off in the lock a few years back so I'm very wary of trying to force locks.

Jiggled the key, shook the doorknob. Nada.

I rolled my eyes skyward and asked Him something flippant like "Can I get a little help here?" (I am a little bashful in admitting my prayers aren't nearly as formal as I would like.)

The very next TINY twist of my wrist opened the door.

Too funny. I think I laughed out loud too.

I thanked Him and went to get my toolkit to disassemble the lock and lube it good with graphite. Now it works great. (And it occurs to me I need to do the front door too.)

Coincidence? Luck? Maybe. But it's awfully strange to me that it didn't happen with all my efforts, even after I got a little frustrated.

I asked Him for help and I believe He helped me out, even in such a small thing.

He's a kindly God. Even to those of us that are far less than perfect in our observances.

See? Prayer Works.

http://www.aolhealth.com/health/feature/_a/i-was-the-supersonic-survivor/20090923160509990001

God be praised.

Praise Be To Him.

We live in a country where the law forces kids to leave their values and Bibles at home, learn what it's like to be a raghead and stuff propaganda down their gullets for 13 years.

That's why I find stories like THIS to be a rare joy.

Curses be on the ACLU and their enablers.

Nice Work, Satan!

I was talking to this ditz someone some years back. As was (is) often the case, there was downtime at my federal job and we were yakking for a while and the topic of money troubles came up.

She told me: "Go to church. God gave me lots of money." My immediate thought was that was rather obnoxious. Treating God like an ATM? I wasn't even a believer, but I was actually offended. (Fake seeming believers that can't think through their own beliefs have always annoyed me.)

This was a person that cut corners at everything on her job and seemed to be a crooked individual. Maybe sleazy is a better term. I got the sense that nothing was beneath her if it was to her advantage. Just a feeling, but when you have a number of folks saying someone's sleeping her way to the top you begin to wonder. Especially when she's as dumb as a box of rocks, constantly demonstrates her incompetence and rises so quickly.

She's since been divorced. And the last time I talked to her, she seemed to be the same way.

Just now, a post over at Vox' blog mentioned how things are likely to get worse for new Christians. I can attest to that, but I also wonder if deluded and/or superficial wanna-be Christians might not actually BE rewarded with earthly treasures.

By Satan.

As a means of duping the rubes into thinking "God gave us prosperity" and easing their way into Hell.

Just wondering out loud. That would be a very slick way to scam souls.

I guess I'm reflecting on that because I honestly feel that this world rewards greedy and stupid behavior (leaving the religious part out of the equation momentarily). And I sure seem to have had an easier time with it when I wasn't trying to be as responsible. Or a Christian.

Does God get Surprised?

Does He ever hear someone make a piece of music like the YouTube video I linked to a bit down and just be overwhelmed with joy at what His creations have wrought?

I really hope so, for His sake.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Steering away from my usual negativity and pissing and moaning like an impotent jerk...

I'd like to give thanks to God for his gift of life and letting me hang around this goofy planet some thirty-something years. I'd like to thank Him for my family and friends.

Some interesting Thanksgiving thoughts:
Some history on the origins of the Holy Day:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/galles10.html

And why we tend to be LESS thankful in MORE prosperous times
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north22.html
(or as I would put it, the Eddie Murphy "RAW" theory of Ritz crackers.)

Okay, NOW I'm Getting Pissed...

Consider a few facts...

A lot of Christians are married. A lot of Christians attend church and say they believe in the Bible and its teachings.

Then WHY! WHY! WHY! Can NO Christian that I've ever met (in person) get marital obligations right? Not a single one!

Ephesians 5: 20 - 33.

It happened again today at work. I was talking to a guy that had this all wrong. He said husbands are required to submit to their wives.

Typically, this comes up in conversations with women. They simply do not know or do not want to live up to their God-ordered responsibilities. I've had one dolt repeatedly tell me I'm wrong despite the fact that I've repeatedly given her the relevant chapters and challenged her to prove me wrong.

Pick whatever version of the Bible you like and read it. Don't think about what some pussy-whipped fool preacher told you to think. Read those very simple words and tell me what they mean.

The simple fact that Christians of varied denominations and both sexes think men are to submit to their wives is more than reason enough to PROVE to me that our preachers are completely falling down on the job when it comes to teaching simple Christian values.

Wives, submit to, obey and respect (or hold in reverence depending on the particular translation) your husbands. It ain't hard to understand.

Yet every single Christian I've talked to gets it 100% wrong!

The simple question I must ask at this point is: What else wrong are our "religious leaders" telling us? And what is the cause? Simple error, misled by greed or outright false prophets?

Please tell me... I'm at a loss.

Message Received!

So I was hard at work today, jamming to with a bootleg of Rush from the "Presto" tour, singing out loud and probably really annoying my neighbors. And "The Pass" comes on. And the lyric came up where Geddy sings "Christ, what have you done?".

As I sang those words, my brain felt as though someone had jammed a charged electrical wire into the base of my skull. The sensation left just as quickly as it arrived, ending when that line ended.

So... like I said... message received.

Techniques For LISTENING To Jesus?

I just noticed I usually use the term "talk to" instead of "talk with" or "listen to" when referring to my interactions with God and Jesus.

As usually is the case, I seem to be focusing on myself and my problems or prayer requests instead of trying to hear something.

Just talking to Him does help me sort out some thoughts and such. But it seems insufficient and even a little disrespectful in some way I cannot describe.

Even though I believe He's out there, I actively want to deal with my problems myself. I have some advising me to "put it all in God's hands and let him deal with it". First: that seems like a cop-out to me. I feel the heavy-lifting should be MINE since I put myself in this position.

Second: I know some folks have bigger problems than mine that don't work out even with a whole community praying for them. So it seems a little foolish to try and just duck out the hard work of fixing my life.

Ideas or suggestions?

That God...

He really has just no mercy on me.

I attended noon Mass today at St. Lawrence.

It was okay, except the fact that my singing voice grates even on me. And the pastor was an African (I guess) with a very thick accent. Even on a passage that I recognized, I couldn't understand him very well. But he seems passionate, which is a good sign.

Of course, I couldn't stop thinking of Homer (that's for you, Dave!).

Oh, and JD on Scrubs saying "I love me them church crackers!". Which were AWFUL, BTW.

And here I was worried about my un-pressed pants. Some folks were dressed for the beach. I don't get it.