Yep, this will be a picture post, but I have to set things up by letting the blog world know what the FB world knows. Namely, that Scrappy and I went to my niece Raine's place to take a walk with her and her pup Piper.
In addition to being the cutest little thing, she is an excellent swimmer, and the only beagle I ever heard of that hates taking the same trail twice- to the point she was digging in and refusing until she got enough leash that she could keep a close nose on Scrappy's butt.
They had a great time for 95% percent of the afternoon- then Scrappy went into his Bill Clinton impression and she wasn't real pleased.
Raine put a couple of pictures up as well...
...leading nephew Joey to go "OMG Why does Uncle Chris have a CANE?", lol! I'm going to send this post to him and about 2/3 of the way through, he'll figure it out...
So today was a wonderful day for a walk- warm, cloudy, a good refreshing breeze. As direct sunlight is kryptonite to those of us with black fur on their back (not me, thank you), Scrappy had plenty of energy for a good stroll through the woods. I soon noticed the camera was almost out of juice, so I had to make every shot count...
...so of course I started with fungi pics...
...and into the forest dark we went! Unlike Piper, Scrappy is quite content with the trail, be it the tenth time or the tenth time TODAY, but I thought a little EVA, forest style, was appropriate.
Follow the leash. Yes, that's what my dog thinks is a straight line.
And let's be sure to get into as much mud as possible!
C'mon, IPFW! Future scientists will think a very small glacier stopped there...
No autumn colors yet, Bobby, but plenty of lovely greens...
So here we have me trying to take a picture of 4 deer in the ravine, holding the button and shouting, "Come ON, you stupid camera, take the shot!" Followed by the camera going, "Uh, yuh talkin' ta me?", after which I got that.
Next up, suspended selfies...
Looks safe, right? But pan back...
Yup, the log I was resting my assets on was just a bit OVER the edge of the ravine...
...just enough to give you that SLIGHT funny feeling.
Now, here's the important part, Joey. You always need a walking stick...
...when you have a beagle trained from a pup to be an explorer...
Next, we went down to the Alumni pond...
This heron was very unwilling to fly away in the stiff breeze, and thus he let us get VERY close...
...even as Scrappy could care less...
...and I thought it would be cool to keep coming as close as we could and get him flying away. BUT, SOMEbody, thinking he had already shut the camera off (near-dead battery, remember?), shut it off for real just as the bird was about to amscray, and I ended up with this:
More and more lately, I find myself longing to speak out, only to have wisdom from outside make me reconsider what I want to say. I could write a book on my inner debates yesterday between apology and debate; I could pen a novella on my FB excursions today. In the end, I would just be a voice in a cacophony of similar voices, all making some kind of point. Unfortunately, voices do not have ears. Voices don't have hearts to turn, nor minds to change. And in the end, voices are just the background radiation of the universe, droning on while stars are born and stars die.
This is the Crab Nebula. A thousand years and change ago (by our time), it was a star. Man has only known it like this, except for the two seasons that the Chinese watched its explosive, dying moments. This is the after of someone's before. And it's all we know about it.
The voices in my analogy droned on when it was a newborn star; and still drones on 7,500 years after its death. The voices talking now have been talking for months; they'll still be talking a year from now when whoever wins the election is long since ensconced in power. And it doesn't really matter what I say, what position I hold. EXCEPT TO ME.
But what I DO, that may be a different story. See, the thing about that background radiation is, according to theory, at least the "accepted theory" on how the universe began, that microwave whisper should be uniform- but it isn't. There are clumps here, silent spots there.
So, say everyone has a voice. Spread uniformly across the spectrum, it just blends in, it becomes uniform. But a silence? Ah, THERE is the power to bring change, to have a ripple effect. But not a void silence; no, that would quickly be filled, because nature abhors a vacuum. But a PURPOSEFUL silence, that cannot be overwhelmed, cannot be filled in.
I have a voice. Some of its uses today I stand by, others I regret. I apologize if I have muddled in the after of anyone's before. At least in this spot today, I shall be silence. And maybe, just maybe, through what some might call a void, I can let some light shine through.
And you can't get to heaven on a pair of skates 'cause you'll roll right past those pearly gates. -The Deacon Went Down
So this week I heard a sermon on knowing whether you've been saved or not. The pastor spoke of the difference between being saved and having it make a difference in your life and just having an "emotional experience. And it made me think about the motivations one would have for coming to Christ: fear, as in Peter's realization of whom he faced; need, as in the many who were healed by Jesus; intellectual reasoning, like the Egyptian eunuch. Or needing to get out from under something evil that seeks to control you, which is where I fall in.
But as you look at all these stories, each one had the common thread: it started with faith. But as I searched these stories out, I found that there was a greater variety in the reasons why people thought they were right with God, but were NOT. In just a brief look through the book of Matthew, I saw several examples of why the Pharisees thought they were in a good place with God.
1- The company they kept. In Ch 9 v 10-13, they attacked Jesus for dining with tax collectors and other sinners rather than with, say, themselves. But Jesus explained that first you have to KNOW you need a "doctor"- and the Pharisees were all about telling each other, "How well you are!"
2- Appearances. Right afterward the question of fasting came up. The Pharisees made a great show of this, donning the sackcloth and ashes. But if you remember last week what Isaiah said about fasting- that it wasn't denying yourself, but denying yourself FOR OTHERS- you see that that was just a game.
3- Keeping the "rules". In the beginning of Ch 12, they get on the Disciples for plucking heads of grain to chaw on on the Sabbath. And just after, they attack Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. Now certainly by the LETTER of the Law they were correct. But Jesus showed them, both in the Word and in His deeds, that God is more concerned with the Law's INTENT.
4- "We know better". The 'arbiters of what's right' began to defend their way of doing things by contradicting what Jesus did. But it was hard to do this in a rational way when faced with what He was doing. So much so that it got to a point (Ch 12 vv 22-30) that they claimed He cast out demons by the POWER of demons. Jesus told them, using their own warped logic, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," which might be the world's most famous way of saying, "That just doesn't even make sense."
5- "If you were right, there'd be some kind of sign". At the end of Ch 12 as well as the beginning of Ch 16, the Pharisees sought a sign. But Jesus knew that it's more than just atheists who wouldn't believe a sign if it was right in front of them. Some people are either so convinced of their world view, or so subconsciously afraid of the consequences of their being wrong, they won't even entertain the notion that they have something to learn. They'll show you reams of material that "proves" their point and upbraid you for not reading it, too- when all you really need to know is in the Word.
6- Family connections. "I go to the same church my parents did. If it's good enough for them..." but was it? In the very end of Ch 12, Jesus' family (yes, Virginia, Mary had other kids later) shows up, but He tells His followers, whoever does the will of the Father is His family. Later on, the Pharisees would claim salvation from being "children of Abraham", to which Jesus told them he could make "children of Abraham" from the rocks in the road they walked.
7- Tradition. Oh, there's that dirty word. At the start of Ch 15, they attack Jesus because His guys didn't wash their hands in the correct manner. And He came back at them, explaining how their piously following traditions was the reason they were so far off track. They used tradition to explain everything, to a point where the clear command of God (such as "Honor your father and mother") had been riddled with loopholes. And if there was any doubt at how HE felt about tradition, He finished it off by quoting Isaiah: "...and in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the Commandments of men." Writer's note: It sure seems to me that whether you are a resistant Jew or a devout Catholic, the first thing in the Bible that gets ignored is Isaiah.
8- I paid at the church. At the end of Ch 17, they made a big deal over the Temple Tax. Did your Master make the proper contribution? You can feed a lot of hungry without faith. I've heard many times, "I can be a good person without believing in God." True enough. But being a good person and getting into heaven? That's where you have to quote the singer Cat Stevens: It's hard to get by, just upon a smile. Good looks won't get you into the movie theatre; and good deeds won't get you into heaven.
9- The final, chilling example on my list is the rich young ruler story from Ch 19. The man had kept all the Law from birth, and had really good intent. But Jesus asked Him to do one more thing- put God ahead of everything else, and follow Him. Well, there was a LOT of "everything else" in the man's life... and he couldn't "pull the trigger", at least not right then. Treating God as a hobby, a Sunday thing, wasn't gonna cut it. Jesus doesn't call all of us to "leave everything" as Peter put it, but He knows what you value more than Him- and THAT has to be put behind Him.
So, to sum it up:
Your associations won't get you into heaven.
Nor will your "best face forward".
Nor will following the rules.
Nor will standing on your self-image.
Nor will waiting for "proof".
Nor will what family you belong to.
Nor will the traditions you follow.
Nor will money.
Nor will your good deeds.
Faith, true faith- that is the one thing that will save you, and a lot of people that base their concept of faith on the things listed above will hear the words, "I never knew you." Have you ever thought about that verse? (Ch 7:22 BTW) Those people claimed to have prophesied, cast out demons, and did good works. But the man who is saved, truly saved, will be able, will WANT, to claim just one thing: and that is what the tax collector claimed in Luke 18: "Have mercy on me, o Lord, a sinner."
Today, we lurch into October 7th, 1962, and the big news today occurred on the game show What's My Line. From IMDB:
During the October 7, 1962 broadcast, an intruder made his way to the camera range while the panel was blindfolded for the mystery guest round (the mystery guest that night was Melina Mercouri). The intruder was quickly escorted off the sound stage by Johnny Olsen and executive producer Gil Fates. The only panelist who apparently realized what had happened was Victor Borge, who joked about it during his next turn at questioning. According to Gil Fates, the intruder seemed to be promoting a personal dating service. Fates wrote facetiously many years later, "I guess the cops eventually let him go, because as far as I know no one has ever made it a crime to deliver a commercial on television."
The gentleman on the left, there, tried to say, "I've come here tonight to talk about...", but Host John Daly said "No." I listened carefully to the video, but at no point did I hear Johnny Olsen ask him to "Come on down"... ah, the joys of live TV.
Welcome to Time Machine, where we shall have no such interruptions (As long as I avoid bringing in the Idiocy Prevention Bureau again), we have for your viewing pleasure 5 American top 40s on the UK list; the return of the Greatest American Hero (kinda); a Dick Clark cameo (again, kinda); and we see if a few weeks difference from when I was GOING to do 1962 keeps Sherry from being a landslide winner again! Oh, and those four songs from last week's M10 I said were great #1 candidates? Well, they are ALL in the top five- and ONE of them is the new number one! Put on your blindfold and make yer guesses, it's time to rock!
Before we kick things off I have a special treat. As you might guess, there are a lot of songs on my "top tens" shuffle that never quite make it into the M10. One such act is a young man who is a legend in Saharan Africa, Omar "Bombino" Moctar. He is of Tuareg stock, born in Niger, but has been forced out of his native land twice during Tuareg rebellions because "the guitar is an instrument of rebellion", sayeth the government. But on that second exile, to Burkina Faso, he got discovered- and he is a sensational guitar player. Here he is with the tune on my shuffle, Akhar Zaman (This Moment):
(Who says this isn't a multicultural experience here?)
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So our Panel this week is: WBBW Youngstown OH; KJR Seattle; WMCA New York; KRLA Los Angeles; WDRC Hartford; KUTT Fargo; WNOR Norfolk; WAKY Louisville; KFJZ Ft Worth; WARM Wilkes-Barre; KMEA San Bernardino; and KDWB Minneapolis. They dredged together 21 different songs, including our bottom charters: The Beach Boys' 409, which wasn't charting on Cashbox as it was the flip of Surfin' Safari, though Billboard had it at #78; and The Routers, an instrumental group, with Let's Go (Pony), which would eventually make BBs top 20 but was #107 here this week.
They also collected a variety of #1s, as it wasn't until the seventh station I checked that I got a repeater at the top! The #1s that didn't make the Panel Four were the Crystals' He's A Rebel (Seattle), Booker T and the MGs with Green Onions (New York), Chris Montez' Let's Dance (Norfolk), and Brenda Lee's All Alone Am I (Ft Worth). As for the Panel Four:
At #4 with 21 points and the #1 from Hartford, Bobby "Boris" Pickett et al with The Monster Mash, which was at #3 nationally.
At numbers 2-3, a tie. Each with 2 number one votes and 26 points. They are The Contours with Do You Love Me (#1s courtesy San Bernie and Los Angeles, and nationally #8), and Dickey Lee with Patches ( Fargo and Minneapolis, #5). Very strong geographic connections there!
And at #1, with 3 #1 votes and 38 points... I know you can guess, but wait for it anyway.
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Debuting at #10 on the M10 is a band from Philly who started out named after the one guy's ex-girlfriend, Joy something-or-another. She complained, so they changed to something completely stupid and politically incorrect. Finally, a bandmate said, "Why don't we just go back to being Joy again?" And thus they became Joy Again, and their song is this one:
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I really need to put more thought into who and what kind of quote I use to open this section. But since I didn't, here's some wisdom from John Cleese:
If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?
Exactly. Now, time to...
10- Adam Faith makes another appearance here, something he never did in the US of A, with his tune Don't That Beat All.
9- Ray Charles' You Don't Know Me had just dropped of the US chart last week.
8- Frank Ifield was at #9 here with I Remember You.
7- Brian Hyland peaked here at #3 back in July with Sealed With A Kiss.
6- Carole King with one of her early solo efforts, It Might As Well Rain Until September (never a good thing to say in October), which sat at #29 back home.
5- Little Eva had already been to the top and was on the way down at #25 with The Loco-Motion.
4- Also on the way down in the states at #11 was Tommy Roe's Sheila.
3- Where would we be without the English Elvis, Cliff Richard on the UK chart? He was up here with It'll Be Me.
2- The American Elvis, er, that is, Elvis Presley, was on his way down back home with She's Not You at #26.
And tops of the pops?
... the Tornadoes and Telstar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was three weeks away from hitting the American charts.
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The debut at #9 on the M10 belongs to music vet Benji Hughes with a very Gilbert O'Sullivan-esque tune...
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Remember The Greatest American Hero?
Maybe not the show (though I do), but certainly (if you're an old-timer like me) the #1 theme song, better known as Believe It Or Not. That was the one big hit for Joey Scarbury, though he'd been around a while by then. His next biggest song was an AC hit in 1973, a cover of the old tune I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Right Me A Letter. How old? Well, Fats Waller was the first to chart it, hitting #5 in 1936, followed by the Boswell Sisters hitting #3 that same year- the year the sisters retired and leader Connee Boswell went solo. 17 years later, she also charted it, hitting #29. But our key block here is one Billy Williams, who hit #3 in 1957. His rendition was the very first guest performance on Dick Clark's very first American Bandstand on August 5th, 1957.
Now, the very LAST guest appearance was a tune called Shattered Glass by Laura Branigan. She is better known for her hits Gloria and Self Control, the latter a tune recorded just before her by an Italian singer name Raf, and the two of them dueled across Europe in 1987- in fact, Raf's version hit #1 in Switzerland by squeezing in between weeks that Branigan's version was on top! The tune was later redone by an act called Infernal- in a performance our good friend Shady featured not long ago! This comes up because Infernal-ite Paw Lagermann helped Danish pianist Bent Fabricus-Bjerre- better known as Bent Fabric- on his 2006 comeback lp! And in case you don't remember just what he was coming back from, he had the 1962 international hit instrumental Alley Cat- which sat at #6 this week but got no Panel love.
Judy slips 4 to #8, but still gives Castlecomer the biggest of their 4 M10 hits.
In fact, the rest of the way to the top five is droppers- Shakes one notch to 7 with the former #1 Strange Tides, and Keane to #6 with last week's runner up Somewhere Only We Know.
Agnes Obel squeezes into the top five, up 2 with Golden Green.
Leaping 5 to #4 is Lucius with Pulling Teeth.
Holding at #3, Shakes back again with Tranquilize.
Slipping (for the moment, maybe?) to #2, Dent May with Face Down In The Gutter Of Your Love.
And the #1s? M10 says...
After a five week absence from the top, The Explorers Club leap from 5 to 1 for their second top dog, Quietly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And the Panel? C'mon, guys...
...the Four Seasons, nationally in their 5th week of a six-week run at the top, with Sherry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But at least this time it was a LITTLE closer...
Just kinda whupped today to go on about the way this society has eliminated our ability to enjoy clowns, or how our political choices ARE clowns, or how my company can turn a fifty-two inch long line on a piece of fabric into something that takes 7% of the actual time to cut the whole cover to draw, because instead of a line, it is 30 little +s that all have to draw twice. No, I'm too tired to go into all that. Why? Because we had Laurie drop us off at Shoaff Park, to make our own way back home. And so, I will show you views of that journey instead.
Here we are at the start of our trek around the Great Circle.
River's a bit up today.
The first part of our jaunt, there was plenty of shade and breeze to keep us refreshed.
The one goopy spot in our whole 3 5/8ths mile trek- and of course, we must wade into it.
The rarest of animal sightings- the American Golfer.
Hey, that was funny- got any peanuts? Bobby G always does...
Once around the far pond...
Okay, Woody, hand me my five-iron...
Building something at the front entrance, likely a "welcome to" sign. Your greens fees at work...
Mile and a half- break time!
Yahhhs, that's the ticket!
Okay, good enough. Let's go!
Beautiful day.
The front pond was kinda like an avian Hee Haw.
Nuttin' to say outta him...
We saw two black squirrels. This was the closest I came to getting one to pose.
And the big tree at the back entrance, rotten at the base, finally fell since last we passed this way.
Looks like the squirrels living in this tree overdid the insulation, lol
And here you have it, Farmer's Almanac is full of crap! Blonde wooly worm = mild winter.
For those not familiar, Ft Wayne has become the latest community swept up in this "creepy clowns attack" thing that is going on across the nation. (NOTE: This is not a political post, and has nothing to do with any current election race that I know of.) First, we had an apparent actual sighting by a bus driver of some brain dead costumed idiot scaring kids waiting to be picked up. That was all it took to set the more "creative" amongst the local student body to posting fake "attacks being planned by clowns. Classes were disrupted, teachers frustrated, and a climax came Monday when several local schools were "locked in" (i.e. not allowed to leave the building) because of these manufactured threats. Hope they enjoyed losing out on their occasional breaths of fresh air.
But kids were not the only idiots at work on the case. Someone set up a Wordpress blog using the logo of local TV station WANE to create a fake news story that quickly spread across the internet that one of these clowns had taken a bullet to the head here in town, and was in critical condition. It took a fair bit of talent to fake this false story as well as it was done, and frankly the "reporting" was of a caliber that WANE finds harder and harder to achieve anymore. Thus it was that they were soon fighting a losing action of trying to get the post removed from Facebook, even as it was being reposted from as far away as Georgia.
So we have clowns on the streets, clowns in the schools, and clowns with blog sites. But the worst clowns are those who cannot be bothered to check things out before re-posting.
- Check the link. I did, it isn't hard to do.
- Check the original source. Is there such a news story on the site?
- Do NOT use a potentially fake post to solicit information on its veracity. Another recent FB post- from an elected official in the area- showed a news story of dubious actuality, and asked basically, "EES EET TRUE?" And anyone scrolling down their FB feed will see such a thing and say, "Wow, the Mayor of Podunk posted this, it must be true." In this case, a FB buddy of mine took the official to task. Were they grateful? Did they say, "You are right, this looked bad. I shouldn't have posted this, I should have done my research"? Nooo.... They said in reply:
I was only asking for information. I'll be sure to not ask again. Seems everyone is an authority today.
"Asking for information". Uh huh. When I want to know if a story is true, I always re-post it, commenting, "Explain this!!!???" So now, I will crawl back in my hole and never show my shamed face again, boo hoo. And this person is a local Mayor. Sure glad I don't live there.
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Having said that, let's move on to more pleasant stuff. Like the big rain Scrappy and I got caught in last Wednesday. So we had just come out of the woods, and the sun was setting.
The setting sun was poking through the trees like the woods was full of stop lights, and the sky was fiery red. "Red sky at night, sailor's delight." A fat lot sailors know.
To the east, a great rainbow rose up. It had just started sprinkling. We were close to a group of small, close together trees, and at least a hundred yards from any defensible shelter. Then the deluge hit.
Kids on the soccer fields scrambled for cover as the rain went from "oh, we won't melt" to "holy crap" in about 2 seconds. I clambered between two trees- trying to get my dimwitted companion to join me- and called Laurie. She looked at the radar and pronounced (falsely, as it turned out) that we were going to be stuck for a while. I said, maybe you should come get us, and told her where to look.
Within about five minutes- she wasn't out of the complex yet- it slowed enough that we could make a break for the old barn. By this time, Laurie had found out that they had picked this rainy afternoon to close one lane of Washington Ctr to tear up a sewer deal and that traffic was at a complete standstill. I told her to abandon the trip and we'd hoof it, because by this time it had stopped altogether. Outside of two flooded out areas we had to cross- and one dimwit picking up someone at the Plex that thought a parking lot full of cars was a good place to fly past at about 50 MPH- we made it home wet and limping but alive. My shoes were pretty much a total loss, though,but I was replacing them Saturday anyway.
Today we took a walk around our usual path. We saw three kitties (all in windows), two bunnies, seven doggies, and this guy:
Also, near the bark park a couple pulled over to visit with Scrappy. They had just recently had to put down their 13-year old beagle mix and wanted to say hi. They travelled with their last bag of doggie treats (same kind Scrappy gets), and Mr Piggy got double his usual nightly allotment of treats- and before dinner, yet! Did it spoil his dinner?
A sermon I heard Saturday got me to pondering on what really should be going on during prayer. Now, if we have bothered, we have all read the details around Jesus' teaching of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, but you folks who haven't don't feel left out, because I realized as well as I know this passage, I've never gave it the "third degree of looking at the references my Bible hooks up to it. So I did and learned what I am going to call the 16 brief lessons about prayer.
1- Did you realize that Jesus' discourse on prayer was sandwiched between two other items, all of which we are admonished to do privately, and not for the eyes of man? The first was charity; the last was fasting.
2- And if you look at the references to each of these- I was given Luke 14 for the first and Isaiah 58 for the last- that they are VIRTUALLY the same thing? Luke has Jesus describing charity as that what you do for those that cannot pay you back in this life; Isaiah describes true fasting as the things you do for the downtrodden and oppressed- both for strangers and for your own family.
3- And as we enter the plane of prayer, the first keyword is, in truth. My Bible notes that hypocrites (as in do not do as the hypocrites do) basically means "pretenders". Prayer is more than just bowing your head with everyone else while you figure your lotto numbers. You wonder why some of the people praying around you as a leader prays are saying, "Amen" a lot? Because they are praying the words with him. "A moment of silent reflection" in which there is silence in your thoughts is a waste of time.
4- The reference when Jesus tells you to go up in your room and pray in private is in 2 Kings 4- the story of Elisha raising the widow's boy from the dead. From it we gather several points, starting with this one- Seek out what God wants (which was actually the point of the sermon I mentioned). The whole story begins with Elisha telling Gehazi that it was "a matter the Lord had hidden from me." "A prayer that is just us telling God what we need," the pastor said, "is half a prayer." Find out first what God wants from YOU today.
5- Next keyword is involve. Elisha's first attempt was just to send Gehazi ahead and lay his staff on the boy- and nothing happened. Elisha couldn't mail it in- he had to be engaged in what he was praying for.
6- In Private is next. Elisha put everyone out of the house but himself and the boy, and shut the door behind him. The point being, he needed to concentrate and be away from all distractions.
7- Repeat. It took more than one round of the most intimate of prayer to get an answer.
8- Persevere. Elisha got up between rounds and "walked around inside the house", gathering mental and emotional strength before attempting a second time. That gives a good indication of the effort he was putting in.
9- As the passage in Matthew goes on, we come to the part about "vain repetitions". And that section is hooked up to Ecclesiastes 2, from which we can draw three more lessons. The first comes from the line, "Do not be rash in your mouth..." In other words, Think before you pray.
10- Respect, the next line being "...and do not utter things hastily before God..."
11- Realize, because "...for God is in heaven, and you on earth. Therefore let your words be few."
12- This passage also hooked up to Elijah's victory on Mt Carmel in 1 Kings 18. After spending an entire day in "vain repetitions", the prophets of Baal sat down while Elijah made his preparations. And when he was ready his was a simple two point prayer. The first point was God's glory, as he noted that he wished to make known that the Lord was God, and he his servant...
13- ...and the second was confidence, praying that God was not just about to turn the hearts of the people back to Himself, but that He HAD done it. Then came the fireworks.
14- As we turn back to the main passage, we note that the next keyword is assurance- Jesus says, "For Your Father already knows what you need. So stop wasting time telling Him, and spend more time THANKING Him for it!
15- Goals. The Lord's Prayer itself should be a guide to your goals in prayer. First Praise, then obedience to His will (which would require you to come back to the sermon point which was "get to know what His will for you is"), provision, forgiveness, protection, and praise again.
16- And finally Jesus re-emphasises that WE need to forgive, making our last key making an effort to come with a clear conscience.
Wow, that's a lot at one sitting, but the wonderful thing about the Bible is that each time you hit a passage, you can draw something new, something different, something necessary to your circumstance. So you take what you need from it, and maybe the next time around you grab something else. Those who believe the Bible is a mere collection of stories don't get the point that it is a living, breathing document, that as God wills can talk to you in many voices. Which do you hear today?
A lone man looking for means of expression in a tsunami of information. Seeking truth justice and the American way in the perspective of a Nixon conservative. And the Commissioner of the free world's smallest and best fantasy football league.
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