“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

Deb (1godsgal) has kindly Tagged me.

It is up to each individual to decide for themselves what they are, and are not, obliged to do in their lives. So long as there is no deceptive intent, nor breaking of local or higher laws, we are free to follow our own conscience in life.

i choose this time to play along.

Apparently the following are required of all who have been tagged, providing the above paragraph is born in mind.

1. Write the title to your memoir using 6 words
2. Post it on your blog
3. Link to the person that tagged you
4. Tag five more blogs

So: the epitaph i would want on my memorial stone would be:

Lived Long;Loved and Laughed Lots.

It does not seem to be part of the tag to say who you have blog-tagged but the ones i would choose are listed ( in no particular order of rank or preference)

Ric Booth

In Worship.

Rick -Give Me Jesus

Kelly

Kim - life’s little stories.

(don’t be concerned if your name is not on my list - it just means i think someone has already tagged you ( perhaps several million times? )

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?

These are dangerous words.
Very Dangerous! You have been ‘warned’
I do not know if the person reading them will read them ‘rightly’.

Gamble Everything For Love

gamble everything for love
gamble everything
put it in a place you keep what you need
you can gamble everything for love if youre free
you gotta gamble everything for love

baby are you cold?
are you cold baby i could wrap you up
wrap you up in my love
if you wanna you can gamble everything for love
if you wanna you can gamble everything for love

tell me are you feeling lost? have you crossed
into places that you never knew to get through?
tell me are you gonna cry all night?
tell me the truth and ill tell you the truth
if you gamble everything for love
youre gonna be alright
alright

make a list of things you need
leave it empty
except for number one - write love,
gamble everything
keep it under lock and key
if you wanna you can gamble everything for love

love me with an open heart
tell me anything
we can find a place to start to gamble everything
we can set this thing apart
cos were gonna
gonna gamble everything for love

tell me do you lose your way each day?
are there people you dont recognize?
do they lie?
tell me do they make you feel too real?
tell me the truth and ill tell you the truth
if you gamble everything for love
youre gonna be alright
alright

you can go your own way
you can go your own way
you gotta go your own way
if you gamble everything for love
if you gamble everything for love

gamble everything for love
gamble everything
put it in a place you keep what you need
you can gamble everything for love if youre free
you gotta gamble everything for love

tell me are you getting hurt?
is it worth it?
tell me are the people strange?
do they change?
tell me are you letting go?
do you know?
if you gamble everything for love
if you gamble everything for love
if you gamble everything for love
youre gonna be alright
alright

The Video shows the ‘usual’ pop concept of Love - i would replace either the man/woman in the clip with God (depending upon if you are male or female).

God is Love.

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.

At Dana’s suggestion I managed to find this on Youtube (a friend sent it to me as a movie file) and thought you might all find it as amazing and amusing as i did.

They say a Dog is Man’s Best Friend, well this shows Dogs like women too - particularly as dance partners…

Let’s see a Cat do THAT!

 ( Response to comment on Mandy’s blog)

Our speech centre is located in the outermost (and largest) part of the human brain the Cerebrum. This has to operate in conjunction with other areas of the cerebrum to ‘control’ our thought patterns and regulate our ideas and feelings to see if we are behaving ‘acceptably’ - ‘Self-Control’.

In terms of distance from other parts of our central nervous system (CNS) that transmit commands from the brain to the various other parts of our bodies this is the MOST distant part and takes the longest for nerve impulses to reach from our five senses through which we perceive our world and others in it.

Less distant from the CNS are the glands in the brain that control the flow of hormones that determine our emotional reactions These are most closely connected to the cerebellum or ‘little brain’

And then closest of all to the CNS is the part of the brain associated with our most basic functions, heartbeat, blod pressure, breathing etc.

What this means is - there is a ‘heirarchy’ of ‘response times’ in our brains.

Fastest and most immediately ‘responding’ to our senses of hearing, sight etc are those most basic functions (that of old we needed to ensure our very survival from enemies or things like animals that could kill us… our ‘fear’ centre

Next fastest to respond are our emotional centres (governing our responses to things like happiness, anger, sadness, etc) and

Slowest and requiring the most time to ‘react’ are our ‘control’ centres for such things as socially ‘desirable’ or ‘undesirable’ responses to things other people say or do that are not life-threatening to us but which may require more ‘refined’ responses from our mind and body. More ‘careful thought than either our ‘fear’ response or our autonomic emotional responses.

In other words - we get emotional and respond to things BEFORE we have time to think them through - emotions get ‘hold’ of our brains BEFORE we can put on the brakes in many instances.

Need a practical example to make sense of the above ‘theory’??

OKie Dokie…

You are driving your car… and without warning a kid walks right out from betwen two parked cars and is 20 feet in front of you before he sees you.

First thing you actually do is determined through fear - a horrible feeling surges through you as the potential for disaster makes it’s presence felt and you may scream something out loud unintentionally.

Next thing you do is either jam your foot on the brake or steer away from the kid - or both (emotional, inbuilt, automatic, instinctive reaction to act).

The last thing you do is to try and decide carefully and logically what you should be doing to keep yourself safe, the kid safe and any other road users safe.

This usually only has time to come into your brain after the first two things have already happened.

Like… we most often think of the right thing to respond to someone or something AFTER we have already reacted emotionally (and frequently after the person we just offended or insulted ( or who insulted us) has left).

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

 Any of ’sensitive natures’ out there may want to skip this post?

I found this clip while looking for another one ( that is not there! ) and wanted felt compelled to ’share’… If you are wondering what the other clip i was looking for was and what or who (Thanks to Mandy and Alece!)  ’inspired’ it ^ click on the clip and look under ‘Never wear Panties’ in the music player list

Reasons to be careful what we say #313

Aww heck - i can’t leave you with just that one taste of Kacey - now can i??

Enjoy  Y’all ( those who ’stayed’ awhile - you know who y’all are)