Lovewillbringustogether’s Weblog

“We put a giant cross made out of Texas limestone that will serve as the altar, but also serve as a landmark on our place for years to come,” President Bush told Good Morning America Monday.

The problem ‘i’ have here is: This is not Cousin Merle from next door we are talking about. This is the ‘leader’ of the Free World - Billions of people watch his every move and some even want to be like him! They Trust this man! With their very lives and the life of their Country.

He is NOT shy about declaring Himself to be a Christian and people are inclined to think he is representative of the Religion and that he does things that are ‘Christian’.

How is the photo and quote ‘Christian’? will other Christains imitate him? (assuming they had the money to do as he has for his daughter’s wedding?)

19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Matt 5:19

Tonight I saw a Proud dad sharing with the Whole World his joy at the Imminent Union of his daughter to a good man in matrimony.

He even described something he clearly thought was Very Special of which he was also emminently proud. He had arranged for a Cross to be made out of ‘Texas Limestone’ which was to be used as an altar for the wedding service.

The man’s name was George W Bush - you might have heard of him?

He boasts of his Christianity a bit to the press and to the American God-Fearing people he got to vote for him.

I am not the greatest Biblical scholar - but when i read the Bible, most often important bits Stick.

Exodus 20 is where i HOPE most Christians know where to look for a list of the Ten Commandments given to mankind from God, via Moses.

What some might not remember is also contained in that Chapter are the following Verses. (feel free to look them up):

22 And the LORD said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.
23 Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.
24 An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.
25 And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt NOT build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.
26 Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.

In case there is any doubt it is repeated in De 27:5…
5 And there shalt thou build an altar unto the LORD thy God, an altar of stones: thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them.

Maybe Mr Bush should try reading his Bible if he’s gonna be shooting his mouth off to the rest of the world about His Little Girls bridal arrangements and still wants God’s Blessing?

Any other Christians out there happy to not follow Scripture and claim to be Christian like good ol’ George? Anyone got a church with an altar of chiselled stone? Anyone go up a step or two to reach it’s altar?

WHY?

Lucky Number
(Udy, udy, udy, udy etc…)

I never used to cry ’cause I was all alone
For me, myself and I is all I’ve ever known
I never felt the need to have a hand to hold
In everything I do I take complete control
That’s where I’m coming from
My Lucky Number’s one

I’ve everthing I need to keep me satisfied
There’s nothing you can do to make me change my mind
I’m having so much fun
My Lucky Number’s one
Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

Ay ay ay ay ay…
I now detect an alien vibration here
There’s something in the air besides the atmosphere
The object of the action is becoming clear
An imminent attack upon my HEART I fear
The evidence is strong
My Lucky Number’s wrong
Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

Something tells me my Lucky Number’s gonna be changing soon
Something tells me Lucky Number’s gonna be ow-e-ow-e-ow-e-ow-e-ow-e-ow-e…

You certainly do have a strange effect on me
I never thought that I could feel the way I feel
There’s something in your eyes gives me a wild idea
I never want to be apart from You my dear
I guess it must be true
My Lucky Number’s two

This rearrangement suits me now I must confess
The number one was dull and number two is best
I wanna stay with you
My Lucky Number’s two
Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

Number two… Number two…

Lovich/Chappell 1978

If you can sing along with this there’s a fair chance you were born in the 60’s! (or even earlier?

This song played on my radio today and took me back - a LONG way. It’s by Lene Lovich.

It also appeared in a completely new way to me now ( as so many older songs do these days)

I think it is a great Analogy for the way SOME people grow up…

only ever considering themselves and placing themselves as ‘Number One’! ( As can a child)

But then we feel a ‘change in the air’ (in the Spirit) and become aware of Another One - a Greater and Higher ‘One’. And suddenly we’re Number Two ( NO toilet Jokes, PLEASE!!!) - Number Two - along wih everyone else!

Ok - I started this and i’ve had it with starting things i don’t finish, so the sooner i get these over with the sooner i can begin dedicating this Blog to my first love - LOVE!

Bear with me huh?

The Third Sin, alphabetically, is Gluttony, which is not in my KJV at ALL?? (So why does the Pope insist upon making this an issue??)

Gluttony is defined as: eating and/or drinking to excess
- a greed for food.

I feel this probably also extends to ’spiritual food’ or a desire to sate our many other ‘desires that are of our ego and not of God.

I mention Spiritual food as i do not believe that eating TOO much of this at once is good for us - in the same way that we are only meant to eat a certain amount of ‘food’ at once to give us sufficient time to digest it all for our own benefit. Determing just how much of this kind of food is good for us at one ’sitting’ probably varies from person to person and how ‘familiar’ they are with previous foods of this kind.

I think the key thing to consider here is when is ‘enough’ truly enough? - At what point do we turn our ‘plate’ away while we gain the full benefit of ‘digestion’?

Ok - so remember the Point Here - which is to bring to mind our own ‘Sin’ or error we commit in this area (as y’all feel is, or is not appropriate) and ways we have found to overcome them - for the benefit of ourselves in our own lives and for the benefit of those who read and/or lurk here

I’ll go first: My most vivid memory of personal gluttony was back in my 20’s - I was working in an office and a lunch had been planned for a workmate’s celebration. We went to a Chinese Open Buffet at a very swish Hotel in the City, close to our office!

Did i mention i LOVE the many delicious flavours of Chinese food? and that i LOVE deserts and they had a wide range of the more ‘traditional’ desserts like Chocolate Mousse, cheesecakes, pavlova (Aussie Meringues which are Heavenly!) cakes and ice-cream and puddings and… you get the idea?)

I had a plate of ‘entree’s; i had two plates of ‘mains’ (and i mean plates made with MOUNTAINS of food!) I HAD SEVEN plates of desserts (a personal never-to-be-repeated record!)

I ‘waddled’ back to work about two and a half hours later (we only were allowed a 2 hour lunch ‘limit’ during which we were to have lunches spread over the whole office - half an hour was the ‘norm’)

I managed to stay at my desk for a full ten minutes or so in the afternoon before i found a very real and urgent need to sit at a much smaller ‘cubicle’ for the remainder of my ‘working’ day.

It taught me a valuable lesson and i never repeated or attempted to repeat the practice.

Gluttony has it’s own punishments for us humans.

Are we all able to pay them due attentionand LEARN from them??

Over to you.

This should be the FIRST lesson in ‘Witnessing 101′.

Why has it taken 2000 years for someone to write what is - to all atheists at least - fairly obvious, as plain as the nose on our face perhaps - we just ‘over-look’ it, it seems.

Thanks again Joe!

… and thanks also to ‘Ethel‘ (a Who in the What now?) for the re-jiggered link

A blogfriend of mine has written a thoughtful post - it has the benefit of being from a fresh perspective - one many of us may not be familiar with - but i think it contains much wisdom and we probably all can get something out of it - if we had not grasped it or looked at it like this before.

Thanks Brainy!

OK - So the first part in this shameless plug to pull in more viewers and comments did not go quite according to plan - this i feel was entirely my own fault for not doing sufficient intial (read: ‘ANY’) research and failing to clearly define what it was i was talking about at the start - my bad.

So, to hopefully make amends… on to what some (Catholic Christians who listen to the Pope e.g.) call the ’sin’ of Envy - when and where do we see it ‘popping’ up from within and what if anything do we do to control and repel it from us?

Firstly, though a brief ‘recap’ and definition:

The idea here is to help us see when, and if, we sin (do our will over/before that of His) and so lead to ways to overcome this particular fault of ours (if we have it - and i rather fancy if we look deep enough we’ll see all of the ‘Seven’ lurking about, waiting for the next time we let our ‘Guard’ down, somewhere’s in the recesses of our mind - in our ego!)

“Envy according to the aspect of its object is contrary to charity (also known as ‘Love’), whence the soul derives its spiritual life… Charity rejoices in our neighbor’s good, while envy grieves over it.” (St) Thomas Aquinas 1225-74;

 Envy: spite and resentment at seeing the success of another.  (thefreedictionary.com); or

‘characterized by an insatiable desire; different to simple greed, however, for two main reasons. First, greed is largely associated with material goods, whereas envy may apply more generally. Second, those who commit the sin of envy desire something that someone else has which they perceive themselves as lacking. Wikipedia - Seven Deadly Sins. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins ); or

‘envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you, that they who practise such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.’ - as Laz pointed out previously part of the longer list of ’sins’ we are not to indulge in. From Gal 5:21 (also: verses 19, 20 and 26)

Clear? good!

What do i envy of others? Truth be told it is money, mostly. Rarely, it is having someone close who truly Understands me and with whom i can share ‘life’. I don’t of course envy the long hours some (most) have spent previously earning their money or the many tribulations that often come along with living with someone who is not exactly like you in every single respect. This tends to lead me to remain ‘envious’ of those two things until i can figure out a way to ‘cheat’ - or to just knuckle under and do whatever it takes… or learn that neither of those two things will, of themselves, make me in any way any more full of Joy and happiness (not on their own at any rate). 

What do i do to overcome it? Hmmm…Try to observe it as it happens - see what starts it off. then try to understand why i ‘want’ a thing i am envying in someone else. See what has lead me to that ‘desire’. then study that desire and want and find what is at it’s ‘core’ - then eliminate the false ‘need’ from within me so that the True inner ‘need’ can be revealed, claimed and owned. In Jesus Name - Amen.

I don’t personally feel I’m all that ‘big’ on envy but this post is hopefully not just about me and my ’sin’ but about you and yours (such as may exist? )

OK - over to you all ( Sorry Mand!)

“For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.”

or as Chris put it:

“Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”

READ what Paul says there. St Paul who was the greatest single contributor to our New Testament Scripture (in terms of number of books Authored).

There can be NO DOUBT that Paul had received the Gift of Holy Spirit - that He believed on Jesus - and yet what did he write of Himself???

“ALL THAT I NOW KNOW is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely!!!”

Let no Christian fool themselves they are greater than Paul was in his writing of Our Scripture.. He knew everything INcompletely - and that includes Jesus.

Our Understanding is INcomplete! That which we believe in IS complete - we are not - yet!

One of my favourite bloggers, Christian, recently posted something i have often read and now have on my Blogpage as a creed for me to always bear in mind and do my best to follow.

The PROBLEM is - when i tried to find it in my searchable pc Bible (the KJV version)…

it simply did not EXIST!!!

It seems that the difficulty is a transposition of a single term…

The KJV says all those Good things that Love is… are really all what CHARITY is!!!

How many of you see ‘Love’ and think ‘Charity’ - or vice versa’??

Oh sure - we’re all so wise AFTER the thing has been pointed out to us

OK - i said a little while back i would explain more my ‘thoughts’ on Anger and why i included it ( incorrectly as it turns out! ) as a Deadly Sin when i meant to refer to the D.S. of Wrath (why His Holinesses, the Popes, refer to Wrath as a Deadly Sin when the Bible often refers to the Wrath of God i am not fully sure - seems it is ok to do as God’s Son does - just not as God does?? But Jesus IS God ?( I get so confused by Religious dictates sometimes!).

I was recalling that the Lord hates Seven Things and assumed without checking that these would equate directly with the Seven D.S.’s - but i was yet aghain - wrong there.

Proverbs 6:16 - 19 tells us those seven are:

17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

Clearly these don’t match with:

Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Slothfulness and Wrath (Anger).

In Fact swift feet and slothfulness seem diametrically opposed and lying is mentioned Twice as a thing God hates but is not mentioned as a D.S.??

Ok - so a bit of confusion in my mind (as normal! ) and as a few kind people have also pointed out - God ( and even Jesus) get Angry from time to time (The Lord of the OT gets angry quite a lot of the time it seems?)

So why is it NOT OK for us to get angry?? ( or we should at least ‘rein it in a little’ and get SLOW to anger!)

Because - when we HUMANS get angry - pretty much most of the time we ‘lose’ (some or all) self-control - and that is a VERY bad thing to do indeed in my humble opinion.

When we get angry we leave ourselves Open to attack by - for want of a better word - Satan.

He uses those moments, and similar ones - when our emotions can just ‘run away with us’ and lead us to do less than Christianly things to one another - or ourselves, or to any living creature, to establish himself within our minds and digs down into our subconcious where he lurks - biding his time.

Anger is a sin - a time when we operate more from selfish personal ego than from Chraitable Christian Faith - it may not be a Mortal sin - but for us - it is a very dangerous one that we rarely ‘use’ in anything like ‘God-like’ control.

I don’t recommend it and advise doing all we can to remove it from us - as difficult as we will all find it while living in a less than perfect world.