Lovewillbringustogether’s Weblog

Largely by way of my more ’secular’ background and youth, i have never been ‘Big’ on Witnessing - also has something to do with my belief that the Way to God is a highly personal thing for each individual and i have little, if any, right to impose my beliefs upon others. (hard as that is sometimes to believe! )

Sometimes though, the Spirit just moves me and an irresistable thought comes into being.

Sometimes i even feel the need to share it. It happened this week.

There are a number of people lately who have had profoundly GOOD effects upon me and i am happy to have found them and happily give them Credit and credit is indeed well and truly ‘due’. (though none of them will believe that to be true, or ‘deserved’, i am sure)

So Alece, Darla and of course, Tam I stand in awe in witness of His Power and Glory that i see expressed through you to all those you are in contact with, constantly. I am in your debt.

And just so’s people won’t think me one who can only be ‘turned’ by a pretty face…

Brent and Chris - same goes for you, two, Dudes!

Hallelujah

There are others out there I am blessed for meeting, of course, - i don’t mean to diminish you any - but if i ever had to have a ‘last supper’ i’d choose to spend it with the five above ( ok - you can all bring your spouses )

 …and chocolate would be on the menu! Possibly as a ‘main’

..and it is a given that there will be Vege’s and they are to be finished before you get any desert! - I’ve seen the way some of you eat and you’re gonna have ONE decent meal before you pass on.

OK - Here’s the thing.. I hate it when a computer that does something perfectly well one day seems to do something completely different the next! It BUGS me and i try like crazy to figure out what happened and why. Some times i am completely baffled .

I have grown up using computers since my High School days (longer ago than i care to recall) and the days of punch cards and MS-DOS. I have studied various computer courses and languages including the original ‘BASIC’, Unix, Pascal and even a misguided attempt at C ++. I have lived through at least 7 regenerations of Windows from Ver 3.0 and Windows for Workgroups 3.1.1 (for those with memories that long!) so i believe i have a fair idea of what computers are and how they work, although i confess, Microsoft seems to me to be going where no man has any right to go in my humble opinion!

I have (and i am sure other WordPress users have too) noticed some weird stuff happening lately that it didn’t used to do - or maybe it always did it and i just had not noticed it fully - but Here’s the Thing - and forgive me if this is not as much news to you as it was to me but i must have missed the ‘information evening’ if there was one that told everybody this….

WordPress wants you to log in each time you ‘use’ it now.

The tricky part is - you can still use it if you don’t!! - and even trickier - it sometimes seems to do it for you ‘automatically’ without you having to do anything - or maybe that is just a ‘hangover’ from the last time you used it and it had not logged you ‘out’ yet!

I fear i am not making much sense… to fill it in a little for you…

You know the icon picture that usually goes next to your name when you comment? Well sometimes i see mine and sometimes i don’t! Sometimes i can see other’s icon’s and sometimes i can’t. - This sort of thing BUGS me as i said before…

NOW - i know why that happens (i think)… and a few more things (like comments not appearing after i write them - or having no trace of me writing one on my own dashboard under ‘comments’ etc.)

I HAVE to log in BEFORE my comments are ‘approved’ or before WordPress will ’show’ my picture icon!  If i don’t log in i can still leave comments on my or other people’s blogs as ‘lovewillbringustogether’ but they go to await moderation on someone’s email list before they will appear on their (or even my own!) blog. ( or perhaps they are even ’spammed’! )

I can read my own blog without logging in - i can add comments without doing so - but i cannot ’see’ my Dashboard’ unless i do and it will not keep track of comments i make unless i do!

This was not made clear when i was reading the initial ‘brochure’ before becoming a WordPress consumer (or maybe it did and i didn’t read all the fine print) - But i know it NOW!

And if you have read this far - hopefully now, so do you - Always Log In, People! 

Hint: - if you cannot see the blue (well mine’s blue anyways) menu bar at the very top of your WordPress window that shows things like ‘My Dashboard’ and ‘My Account’ then you ain’t logged in!

Go Here: logging page

I saw a mini-doco on the French town of Lourdes last night on TV and it got me a little mad, and also got me thinking - a dangerous combination to be sure!

You probably all have heard something about this place, now a ‘Mecca’ for the desperately sick and hopeful seeking cures for what ails them. Some EIGHT MILLION visitors every year, and growing!

I find it an interesting commentary on the ‘validity’ of Lourdes as being THE place where miracles are granted that, while, it has been a place of pilgrimage for over 150 years, Wikipedia declares the Vatican has confirmed that a total of 67! are ‘unexplained ‘ cures (man cannot explain them, so far). They are investigating another seven thousand or so claims ‘worthy of interest’.

Out of what must now amount to something near 100 million seeking their God’s sympathy and compassion (many of whom are repeat visitors coming once a year for decades in some cases) it is hardly ‘overwhelmingly’ obvious this is a place where miracles are granted. It is certainly a place where statistically there is a better than ‘usual’ chance of a cure simply by reason of the fact that so many sick people show up there - hope attached.

One of the things that got me feeling a little ‘mad’ (angry, even) was one ‘true believer’s’ comment that he was “110% positive that it was the spring and the waters that were the source of the miraculous ‘cures’ “

Jesus makes it clear to one and all in the New Testament that it is by our FAITH we are healed - if we had Faith as a mustard seed (a very, very tiny thing - but ‘alive’ and can grow into a full-fledged plant, full of powerful ‘flavours’) Matt Ch 9, Matt 17:20, Lk 17:6, amongst others.

Yet supposedly religious people who believe in Jesus ‘totally’ (and whom i am bound to believe READ their bible’s) can make declarations like the one above - it is the water that cured me!

Am I the only one who sees this as a kind of blasphemy - denial of The Saviour’s recorded word?

It is our Faith - our heartfelt belief - that allows God to send us the ‘cure’ for what ails us… or rather, not send it to us, since it is there always, but allows us to accept it and not spend all our time rejecting the True and Faithful Word of God while we listen to our, and our friends, earthly complaints.

It is more than this though - we are ‘responsible’ for virtually everything that ‘befalls’ to us in our minds and bodies. While we do not ’cause’ ‘accidents’ ( some do happen) directly, we attract certain conditions to ourselves through our unending daily ‘choices’ we make in our lives - what we ‘choose’ to pay attention to and surround ourselves with.

God offers us an infinite range of choices and we ’select’ the ones that we do for all the many reasons that we have - often as a result of our ‘culture’, community and close human connections.

So is it necessary (or even helpful) to invest time and money visiting the place a 14 year old girl claims to have seen her vision (a total of almost 20 times)?

Or is our Faith something that needs to come from withinside of us - and not from a bottle of spring water?

Do we need to let Jesus and our Faith spring up out of and through us - not out of some Pyrenees soil.

Maybe by learning Humility and how to listen and pay full attention to the God Bandwidth that is there in our background ‘noise’ 24/7/365.25 we can avoid our own distractions and dis-ease..

 … accept the cure that is always on offer anywhere our hearts are allowed to feel it?

One other thing i think is important to consider…

While anyone who is ill usually asks ‘Why Me’? and wants desperately to be free of the pain or inconvenience or both their illness causes them…

How many of us ever think - The Lord allows me to be this way for a reason? Am i doing what His Will requires while living in this condition? or am i constrained wholly and solely by my own ‘will’ and my focus on the negative - wanting so much to be rid of what i find myself with - a burden - a yoke?

 Do we ever consider modifying our lives so as to remove the many things that lead up to the inevitable outcome of our present circumstances?

 If we live constantly in a ‘polluted’ environment - a cure for the illness caused by that environment is hardly likely to last very long - if at all.

“Meditation is not just a practice. Meditation is a natural state. It’s an actual channel in our consciousness, a bandwidth of tranquility, energy and joy that reveals itself when we learn to pay attention. Once you discover how to tune yourself to the meditation bandwidth, it will empower your life from within.” -Sally Kempton

It’s hard to fight an enemy who has outposts inside your head. - Sally Kempton

More on this as i research further but for now i would like to open your consideration to a possibility that God broadcasts to our minds every moment of every day on ‘The Meditation Bandwidth’ while each of us mostly receive and transmit on our own unique wavelength, Channel 7 say?

Do we just tune in to the bandwidth to grab the headlines? to get the whole editorial? or not at all, we just pretend we do to others? (and perhaps to ourselves?)

Can we fine tune our transmitting and receiving so that our frequency is 100% within the bandwidth 100% of the time (maintain a perfect meditative state on the God bandwidth)?

How much of our time would we require to develop such a level of perfect harmony with God’s Mind/Will?

Is it necessary that we do? Or is it OK if we spend most of our mind time solely within our own ‘channel’ providing we don’t do ‘nasty’ things to others?

What, if any, is a satisfactory mix of ‘us’/Him in terms of our mind’s frequency ‘tuning in’, that we are prepared to dedicate ourselves to fully working to achieve??

Do we, in our need to care for our family’s/self ever, or most often, consciously choose to place such activities ‘above’ that which we choose to ‘give over in ourselves’ to Him and His daily broadcast?

Should we learn how to be in a constant meditative state of prayer so that He is Always our first thought/priority??

Dare we?

Did Jesus?

(I believe He Did!)

While many may feel that prayer is their ‘contact’ with God (and indeed for some it can be) I believe it would be extremely impractical for most of us to stay in ‘prayer mode’ all day, every day. I do see a difference between what most of us think of as prayer and meditative prayer or a meditative state - a meditative state can be maintained while we engage in any and all activities - but only by those who have dedicated themselves to the ‘perfecction’ of achieving and understanding this fully.

 ( No - I do not claim to be one who has done so! However, I should like to reach such a stage one day.)

Much has been made of the British Royal, Prince Harry’s, ‘outing’ by foreign ( i.e. non-UK - read Aussie, German and US) press of his highly secret 14 week deployment to help fight the forces of evil in Afghanistan (Iraq was considered just to darn dangerous to send a member of Britain’s Royal family into actual combat, while thousands of non-royal families have no such choice).

Sadly for Harry and the rest of his UK regiment detachment it has been decided it is now too dangerous for him to remain on duty in Afghanistan with other UN forces, and his 10 weeks stay thus far has been terminated a month short of the tour’s expected completion.

I do not intend to denigrate Harry for what was, by Royal Standards, an exceptionally brave and unneccessary (in the sense that he could have easily chosen a far less ‘active’ roll to play in Britain’s Armed forces) act.

But since it was deemed ‘appropriate’ by both UK press and the royal family (whose permission most assuredly needed to be sought beforehand) to ‘embed’ a press detachment to accompany and record for posterity Harry’s Adventures in a foreign war zone, I find it necessary to point out Harry’s sometimes less than ‘appropriate’ sense of duty and loyalty to the Throne and his potential British and Commonwealth subjects.

Notice the flag under which Harry chooses to give interviews to the folks at home on his cap!

While not quite as ill-considered as his previous fancy dress outfit…

worn to a bash in the land of his birth (he had been clearly over-indulging in the ‘refreshments’ at the party but presumably was entirely sober when he made the decision to hire and wear the Nazi outfit), as part of a to-be-televised interview during his on-going deployment in foreign climes as a soldier of the realm i think it leaves a little to be desired in the ‘thinking - not drinking’ department.

Or maybe he just secretly longs to be a Bush and not a Windsor??

Still, a Neo-Con has to be an improvement over a Neo-Nazi - Right?