Retired & Thinking

Check out Rob Harrison's comments on the video below for he does a very good job of asking the difficult questions about it's content and purpose. My comments after the video. In light of the Gospel of John which they are handing out should this surprise any follower of Jesus. 18 “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. 19 The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. 20 Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to me, they would listen to you. 21 They will do all this to you because of me, for they have rejected the One who sent me. Are there other cities with such restrictions? Heck yeah! From Boston's recent protest of a church training event with Exodus International to confrontation of Gideons handing out New Testament...

One of the nice things about a personal blog is that it can be, well... personal. Many people have asked, "How are you doing" as concerns my mom's death. The easiest way to answer that is to say, "I'm doing ok...but." The ok part is that I understand the issues involved in grieving and my slips in memory etc. don't bother too much. I know that there's a bunch of stuff to do and most times, I feel just too overwhelmed to even start, let alone finish projects. The "but" part has been a journey. My mom had a stroke about 6 years ago. Where my mother is concerned, dealing with her post-stroke became my focus. I realize that a big part of me had simply shoved the other times we shared aside so that I could work on the situations and get things done. As I've thought about the trips dad, mom and I took I can recall many better than good times. I can relive some of those jokes she told me. I can smile at her exploration into doing "color c...

My mother passed from this life to eternity May 23rd. The cause of death won't be known till the toxicology screen is back from the coroner's office. We got the news of the fire in her mobile home as we were waiting to return from our vacation. It had been a time of celebration and relaxation up till the call. One night home in our own beds then off to Sacramento we drove. Many people in Portland and elsewhere were praying for us as we started the process of dealing with the details of her death. God answered the prayers of people. God used my mom's chief care-giver Christina to do so much it's amazing. God oversaw some the issues with my mom's CD's as well as with the insurance she carried on the place. All-in-all it the last week has been a heck-of-a lesson on watching God work. Is there more to do? Sure. Will there be set backs and road blocks? I'm sure there will be. But the fact remains that God's in charge and that's the best news we can hear n...

So, I've got a new toy/tool which has taken me a bit more time than I wanted to get tweaked. Found the jump to Windows 7 to be a bit of a learning curve since everything else I have is XP or older, but I'm moving up the curve. A couple of things I've discovered with the new computer: 1. The handwriting recognition is much better on Win 7 than XP and it wasn't too bad on XP. If it can read my scribbling it can read anyone. 2. I'm not putting all the programs I've ever owned on this one. It's getting the necessary ones-- Office; Logos 4; Nero; Acrobat; Avast; NIV Study Bible and a couple of others 3. I hate the HP junk at the beginning of the boot up. Desk management or whatever they call it is "fill-ware" [there are other names for it]. I'd be willing to do an total reinstall if I could get rid of that stuff. It's a nice computer. Hopefully it will let me do what I need it to do with less hassles than the old Motion 1400 [it is now a home ...

After last week's Cartoon Network cave-in to Islamic hate mongers the way is open for followers of Jesus to also demand their time of censure. Perhaps Jon Stewart's spin is right; it was done to protect the creators. However even among the Muslim community there are those who called this a " distraction ". Perhaps vague threats against shows that take pot shots at Jesus, make fun of Christians, use the name of God in vain or which promote witchcraft and the third-date rule. But alas that won't happen because in spite of the aberrations among those who call themselves Christians; Christianity is REALLY a religion of peace and love. Aberrations like white supremacists wand those who bomb abortion clinics and murder in the name of God are the exception not the rule. Followers of Jesus do not crash planes into Mecca on Hajj. Presbyterians don't plant car bombs outside of Baptist Churches on Sunday mornings. Lutherans don't gather in mobs and beat Catholics or...

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God wants to inform the ecumenical community of some upcoming plans which may affect their service. These changes are currently slated to begin Memorial Day weekend however some within the church may notice a change sooner. 1. God will not be present every Sunday at worship. He needs time to recharge His batteries by going to the lake, beach, mountains and camping. God wants the church to understand that he needs time for Himself too. 2. God will not be blessing His people during much of the summer months. He will try to be regular with His giving but sometimes there are unexpected events cause Him to run short or simply forget to pour them out. If this causes a problem please just "trust God to provide". 3. God will also not be offering forgiveness those weekends He is away. He asks the church to save up our sins the weeks He is not present and He will get to them once school starts. 4. God will not be doing much "saving of souls" during the summer. His busy s...