Yes, I do Choose

Yes I choose, but sometimes the only choice is to endure.

Sometimes thoughts unbidden cloud my mind, and leave no choice rather than to let them fly their course. And feelings, un-invoked, wash over me sometimes like a sea. I am not an island, so self contained, that some choices cannot be forced upon me, some choices are no more than a Hobson choice. Yes I choose, and I think, and I feel, but I am not always the genesis of thoughts that runs through my mind.

Satisfaction , like comfort, is always fleeting. No more then obtained before it is gone to be sought again. I eat until I am satisfied, then hunger leads me to once again seek satisfaction. I find my comfort in my bed, but toss and turn all night leaving the spot that has become uncomfortable to seek it elsewhere. What suited us at one time is no longer the attraction it was, and we look to change things more to our suiting. The only thing certain in life is change.

I would rather do this than that, but circumstances conspire such that I must do that and let this go the way of an unfulfilled desire. I love her, but she does not love me, she loves me but I do not love her. Frustration not of my choosing, but of my choices. But really, do I choose who to love? Is that a freedom given unto men? Or is it the arrow in Cupid’s bow that decides?

I don’t like my job, it is a job I chose, and I can choose to leave it. But can I choose not to pay the rent, make the car payments, buy the groceries for my child? Must I not, at more times then not, do that which, if left to my rathers, I would choose not to do? The road before me chooses the way much more than I do, for I can only choose between the choices put before me. And each decision casts a long shadow into the future.

A decision to go to college or not, to marry or not, to be a Doctor, Lawyer, or an Indian Chef all lays out a different path. To choose is to determine what choices will be placed before you. So what freedom do you have been what you would want to be? A child born to a coal miner his path will be different then the path of a child born to a movie actor. Yes, some coal miner’s children become movie actors, but how many movie actors’ children become coal miners?

You are shaped and formed by every experience in the path you walk. Hard times, for some, shatter them into thefts, or welfare dependents. Easy time is the ruination of others. Those same hard or easy times yet for other build a foundation for success. Maybe not in a way they would have chosen if the choice had been theirs to make, but one that they, and those who know them, are proud they have found. This is where the adage, “The man does not pick the job, the job picks the man” comes from.

What is the difference between the doctor/lawyer and the theft/welfare cheat? This is not to say that all those who are on welfare are undeserving of the charity they receive. Well let me rephrase that, for no one is deserving of charity. To deserve one must fulfill a bargain, the worker is deserving of his pay, the employer deserving of the labor he pays for, but the man watching the work is not deserving neither the worker’s pay, nor the employer’s money.

Both, however, should be free to give to the non-worker if it is their free decision to do so, that is their choice. But when the government takes if from both the employer and the worker and give it to the non-worker, that is theft. For the only choice given to the employer and the worker is to give to the non-worker or go to jail or die in resisting the government.

But back to the question, what is the difference between the different outcomes, between the one who becomes a carpenter respected for his labor, and the decision he had made when the choices were put before him, and the bad check writer who decided that his need and wants are greater than the bank’s whose money he defrauded? They both start out on a path not of their choosing, they were born to whom they were born, and where and when they were born. Choices that they did not and could not chose were presented to them.

Nature or nurture? Your genes or your environment? What of the brothers that both were loved, went to the same school, and killed their parents? When next door all the children lived model lives. And consider President Clinton and his brother Roger, what explains the difference? Genes are demonstrable not the answer. Just as sure, as the Coal Miner’s Daughter shows, the environment is not the answer.

The answer must lie within the mind, the soul if you will, of the individual. According to their personality they chose between the choices presented to them, and react to them in the manner that their heart leads them. One to stay in school, another to sell drugs on the street. One to quite selling and using drugs, another to kill to keep his business. One to do their homework, another to think that school is a waste of time.

As we go through live on the path that God has put us upon we are shaped by our experiences, and it is our experiences that lead to or away form God.

Jeremiah 18-19:

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: "Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words." So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the LORD came to me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? says the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will repent of the evil that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will repent of the good which I had intended to do to it.

Romans 9:19-21

Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

There Was a Child Lost Today

There was a child lost today, Sixteen and dead,
Overdosed on pain pills she whored herself for.
She would do anything to get high, to get by.
Her mother was in jail for drugs
Her father sold crack to get his hits.
She had been out on the street
Since she was twelve,
Buying and selling herself and drugs.
She didn’t have a chance, and now she is dead.

A mom and dad hooked on getting high
Her mother sold her for ten rocks
When she was thirteen, told her to grit her teeth,
That it would not hurt much, and not last long.
She did, and it didn’t, and she learned
Better to be high then not, mother knew best.

Oh she could have been this
And she could have been that,
But she is dead, and none of that.
There was a child lost today.

Her mother is consoled,
But should have been dammed.
Who will speak for the child dead today?
Her father had to go home early to make a score.
Aunts and uncles knew, but no one cared.
If the school teachers didn’t know
Then they didn’t care either.

The friends she got high with
Left the funeral to get high,
The boys she slept with to get pills
Left to find another girl who will
Be bedded for pills.
There was a child lost today, Sixteen and dead.

His Image and Likeness

More times then not I find it hard to accept what I am not. For I would be that which I am not and striving to be that which I would, falling short time and time again. More kind, more forgiving, more perfect.

Sometimes it is no more then a dream, a concept. Yet other times almost achieved. But now it seems that I have came to this ends that I must begin again what it is I wish to be.

I, and only I, get to decide each step, but the path before me is laid by God or fate, and I only get to choice the choice placed before me. You came into my life through these words I send to the world, and the meaning is imparted are those that you choose to give them .

One, two, a hundred, or a thousand it matters not for I am me and you are you, if you exist. I know, “If I prick you, do you not bleed?” Well let me prick you and let us see. Are my words enough to bring forth anguish? Or must it be my slings and arrows?

I have lost myself inside of me time and time again. Have you not done the same, and go searching around inside of yourself to find you? You know you could be me, just another fascist. When you drop back deep within yourself do you not find a part that never changes? A part that is always the same, the part that picks and chooses, says yay or nay.

Its likes and dislikes that change, its attitude that changes, its understanding that changes, but the it that is I stays the same and always observing. From the time I was a child this has been true for me, and I believe that it is true for you as well. It is this in us that I believe to be the Breath of God, the part in which we carry His Image and Likeness.

Good Advice

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
Good advice,
We give it all the time.
But then,
More often then not,
We ignore
That sage advise.

Going into the book section
In the airport
Before out flight,
And what is it we look at
To decide which
Book to buy?
Why the Cover, of course.

We walk into the dance hall,
And watch them come in.
Too fat, to short,
Bad taste in clothes.
On and on it goes
Judging by the surface
And not the deeper person.

Why, pray tell,
Do we,
Time and time again,
Ignore what we know
Is right,
And do that which
We know is wrong?

Time! Time is the answer
My friend.
We just do not
Have the time
To read every book
Know every person
Well enough to judge.

So we do the best we can
With what we have.
Making snap judgments
On the fly
All the time.
And it for ourselves
That we make that admonishment:

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
For we know that we are
Deeper then we appear,
Wider, by far,
Then a brief introduction
Could ever
Reveal!

Sometimes Felling Sad

Sometimes felling sad is
better then the alternatives,
Sometimes feeling sad
is the place to be.
Just sitting around thanking it over
Just like picking a scab
When you know you shouldn’t.
Ahh, that sweet pain
That stab of pain that
Streaks across your mind
When you tear to deeply.
Bringing tears to your eyes,
Blinding you to here and now.

Sometimes felling sad is
Just better then anything else
That you can bring yourself to do.
Remembering the loss
Brings back the pain
Stabbing into your heart,
But you cannot forget.
And yet you wish
That it had worked another way.
In a way that would have
Brought you to a different day,
A day in which there would
Have been no lose, no pain.

But sometimes felling sad
Is all that is left.
Just remorse and condemnation
For decisions made unwisely
In a misguides search for happiness,
When a heart was given
But not accepted
Because of the strings
Tied to that heart.
Even though it broke your heart
To walk away, you walked.
Wishing with all your might
That there was a different way.

Sometimes, lost in that sadness
You dream of the happiness lost,
Lost before it ever really began.
And see the world through wet eyes,
Through sad eyes that color your world.
Drowning all hope of a brighter day.
Threatened to trap you in remorse,
And leave you in despair.
Deluding you into believing
That your only hope for
Happiness has passed.
But "don’t lesson to him Dan
He is a devil not a man."

A Famous Man Died to Day

A famous man died to day.
He was the same age as I,
But he made something of himself,
And I only made it to here.

A famous man died to day.
In time his fame will fade
Until in the end
He will be no more famous then I.

A famous man died to day.
He fought the good fight
Helped to change the world,
But he will find the same worm as I.

A famous man died to day.
Used to be he would have went
To join the majority,
But today the majority lives.

A famous man died to day.
Every day men die
And except for friend and family
We seldom note their passing.

But a famous man died to day,
And the flags are at half mast.
His passing mourned by more
Then our passing will be mourned.

A famous man died to day,
But I say, “let us rejoice”
Instead of mourning, for we all are
As the due on the morning grass.

Letter to a Lady

Time is not mine to give, but it is yours to take, so take as much as you like. I know that nothing is instantaneous, even love at first sight (I am sure it happens all the time) takes a split second.

While I would love to be in love again, to have that feeling that I had way back when, but I realistically never expect it but still look for it. Life jades and its hurts dull the heart’s desire to venture down such a path again. Too may primroses paths in the past that only led only to disappointment. Too many promises of forever that found there death with the rise of a new interest.

I venture forth now with no more desire then to find each day as the Lord give it to me. I never expect again to make the good friend as I made as a child. And I never expect again to make the hard enemies I have made in the past. While I have days yet before me, I have many days stretched behind me that laden me with memories.

I remember my first kiss from a girl. I remember my first kiss from a woman who was not my mother. I remember my heart breaking from her leaving. Leaving me for another that had more to offer. I remember the thrill of driving my first car, also the terror of wrecking my first car. Oh so many cars and women since then.

I imagine that you are like me, looking for what you want, but not quit sure of what it is you do want, hoping that you will recognize it when you see it. You say to yourself that you will not settle ever again, but then you look to the years you have left and ask if you can afford not to. Most of who we call friend are not friends anymore, they are just acquaintances. Fair weather friend that cannot be reached in hard times, but say hi with a smile and ask how are you with out the lest concern of how you really are.

Ah, a friend, a lover to whom you can depend upon to care for you, and you along. Someone who yearns for your body along, and would never betray you with another. Someone who would drop any and everything to run by your side in times of need. Well as someone told me, if you want all of that, get a dog. We dream of a prefectness that does not exist, only the young find the perfect one for them, and then they loose it when time open their eyes to the imperfections they were blinded to by young love.

I am not saying that happiness is not with another, what I am saying that when it is a settlement is made, a deal is reached, compromises are made. These compromises are not always with the other person, more often then not they are with oneself and the other person know nothing of them at all.

I know that I have lots to offer, but just as well I know that some things I cannot offer. I will never be young again. Short of the Lotto I will never be rich. I will not live in a city. I will not give up my horses short of death, and the money spent on them cannot be spent on the one who comes into my life.

My expectations in life come down to this, and that is I expect to do the best I can with what ever life sends my way, be it happiness or sadness. The happiness I will cherish, the sadness I will morn. To neither will I cling, but let the memories that visit me in the times my mind is not otherwise busy linger for a while.

I would love to have you in my life, To be able to hold you, to kiss you, to make love to you. But I am not sure, only hope, that I could ever be the one that you are looking for. Oh that binding, blinding love that will not let you think of anyone else, that will not let you consider any but a forever with that love. Juliet to your Romeo you dream to be, a one and only not to be shared or have to share.

That too is which I look to find, that binding, blinding love that once lived in my heart. But my eyes have been open the imperfectness that we all carry which some can only see in others and never in themselves. This awareness in myself limits my ability to believe that it exist in any person. Since the one I dream of cannot exist I am led into the world of settlements, Just what will I settle for?

Things I can settle for: Physical attraction, compatibility, an interest in some of the things I find interesting, likes to touch and be touched, will accept my help, will offer to help me, want to be with me, oh, and must love to dance and like horses.

They have their explanation,we have ours.

Let me prefix this with the assertion that I wholeheartedly endorse the scientific method, it is the beliefs of scientists that they are the one and only true way to see reality that I reject.

The History Channel’s videos on the origination of the universe speaks of six billion years of time for the universe to reach its current condition, and of the trillion of years that it will extend into the futures under different conditions. It speaks so assertively and presents such wonderful graphics that it as thought that only the narrator has personally observed the events he describes, and that the process he describes is the only possible explanation for the mechanics of the universe, but that you too are observing the very events he and the computer generated graphics are presenting to you as know facts.

The truth is that the universe has only been observed since Galileo and Copernicus, just a few hundred years out of all theses six billion that it is asserted to have existed. What this is is only an explanation that ties known facts into a theory of how things work. For example no one has ever observed two galaxies collide, what is actually see is a lot of different galaxies in different parts of the universe million and even billions of years ago (because no information can be transmitted faster then the speed of light). Looking at the images of these stars a story is created to explane how they got that way, and what the future hold for them. They cannot know this, it cannot even be known that the observable universe, except for our sun, as it only takes light 8 minutes to travel from it to earth, still exists. It is assumed to exist, or, if you will, taken on faith.

No one observed its creation, and for sure no one has observed its destruction. Those who claim so insistently that it all just began with a “Big Bang” spontaneously are still left with no explanation of how matter can spring forth from no matter. Their purely mechanical universe needs no God, it is its own creator and sustainer, and fully explainable by the human mind.

They believe in their explanation so strongly that they will banish you as a superstitious fool if you have the audacity to hold that there is a creator God who made the universe to His speciation. And if you actually believe that He did it in six days you are certifiably insane. After all they have the fossil records and their telescopes, no god could have created this all in such a short period of time because that just not fit into their explanation of how things came to be and what they will become. They conceive of a god of being limited in his power, their mind will just not hold the concept of an all powerful God who, with His spoken Word, could bring forth creation from the void.

Okay, this is an example:  “Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have obtained what is likely the first direct observation of a forming planet still embedded in a thick disc of gas and dust. If confirmed, this discovery will greatly improve our understanding of how planets form and allow astronomers to test the current theories against an observable target.”  Science Daily, Sun, 03 Mar 2013 12:57 CST.

So they found using ESO's Very Large Telescope have obtained a direct observation of a thick disc of gas and dust.  Does that mean that this blob is going to condense into a planet?   They sure hope so, but they fail to mention how long this formation may take.  From their own theories: “If the disk is massive enough the runaway accretions begin, resulting in the rapid—100,000 to 300,000 years—formation of Moon- to Mars-sized planetary embryos. Near the star, the planetary embryos go through a stage of violent mergers, producing a few terrestrial planets. The last stage takes around 100 million to a billion years.”

So what have they proved?  That planets evolve on their own with no need of a God?  No, if anything at all they have proved that they can see there is a gas ball out there near a star.  They have no more clue how it got there that you or I, but they do have a good story.

  

"So far, planet formation has mostly been a topic tackled by computer simulations," says Sascha Quanz. "If our discovery is indeed a forming planet, then for the first time scientists will be able to study the planet formation process and the interaction of a forming planet and its natal environment empirically at a very early stage."  Yeah right, for the next 100 million to a billion years they can watch all they want (their own time frame).

Chemists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Hawaii, Manoa, showed that conditions in space are capable of creating complex dipeptides - linked pairs of amino acids - that are essential building blocks shared by all living things. The discovery opens the door to the possibility that these molecules were brought to Earth aboard a comet or possibly meteorites, catalyzing the formation of proteins (polypeptides), enzymes and even more complex molecules, such as sugars, that are necessary for life. 05 Mar 2013

"It is fascinating to consider that the most basic biochemical building blocks that led to life on Earth may well have had an extraterrestrial origin," said UC Berkeley chemist Richard Mathies, coauthor of a paper published online last week and scheduled for the March 10 print issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

"Opens the door to the possibility" who are they kidding, they only allow for two possibilities:  1-Life giving amino acids squirmed together in the primordial slime.  They give zero probability that a creator God  made it all with His spoken word.  They have no problem believing that it all just jumped into existence all by itself with a Big Bang, but "Let there be Light" just boggles their minds.

Just why do you think that they spend so much money on radio telescopes monitoring for some sign of code being transmitted?  Why is the main goal of the Mars Rover to find signs of life?  I will tell you why.  If you have saw the movie Paul about a space alien, you will remember the two geeks on the road and a the alien pull into a trailer park ran by a Fundamentalist Christian who had raised up his daughter to believe in the literal truth of the Bible.  Well when the cops arrived they snatched the girl and took her along for the ride.  She quoted scripture to Paul about creation, and Paul asked her, “What about me?”  Well that is why they spend so much money looking for life other than on earth, so they can say to Christians, “What about this?  Does this not prove that there was no creation, and evolution is the answer?”, and what you going to say?

They can have their explanation, I have mine.

Below is the video that TED's Chris Anderson censored Rupert Sheldrake, along with Graham Hancock, and removed this video and Hancock's from the TEDx YouTube channel. They dared question the Scientistic Orthodoxy, and for that they have been publicly castigated and defamed.

Presumably TED disavows any copyright claim, as they've disavowed association with the videos.

 In this video Dr. Rupert Sheldrake describes how science is being constricted by unexamined assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. These dogmas not only put arbitrary limits on the depth and scope of science, but may well be dangerous for the future of humanity.  

Go to minute 8 to skip his reiteration of the 10 dogmas that scientists hold as axiomatic.

Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D. (born 28 June 1942) is a biologist and author of more than 80 scientific papers and ten books. A former Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, where he was a 
Scholar of Clare College, took a double first class honours degree and was awarded the University Botany Prize. He then studied philosophy and history of science at Harvard University, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow, before returning to Cambridge, where he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where he was Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology. As the Rosenheim Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he carried out research on the development of plants and the ageing of cells in the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge University.

Partnership:

I just sit here a wondering if anyone ever get just what is they hanker after, or if compromise is the only way you can get from here to there? I reckon two people can only travel down the same trail together as long as the trail is going in the direction that both of ‘em want to travel in. But then, by Ned, you come to a fork in the trail, ain’t no problem as long as you both want to take the left fork, or you both want to take the righ’un. But if’n one want the right and the other wants the left, well then somebody has to surrender their druthers. If they both compromise then they have to set up camp and plant roots right where the trail forked. If one or the other get to pick the fork in is not because of compromise that they continue down the trail, but the surrender of one’s desire to the others.

I opine that it is importance that sets the stage for surrender or compromise. If’n it is important enough for one to ride down one of them forks, then regardless of how important it is for the other to ride down the other fork a parting of the ways is in the cards. A partnership can only last as long as the partnership is more important than the trail for at least one of the partners. If this is not so than not only is a parting of the ways in the cards, and that hand will be dealt at one fork or another, sooner or later.

It the old westerns there was always a sidekick, the man who always let his partner pick the way and the job.  He was always indispensably for things to work out right.  Don Quixote's Sancho had his Panza, Sherlock Holmes' Doctor Watson, The Lone Ranger's Tonto, and Batman's Robin.  Boyfriend girlfriends, husbands and wives are partners, and while heather has to be subordinate to the other one has to be the head else the body will dissolved in the corrosion of conflict resolution.

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Rexx

No Two Snow Flakes Are The Same

It started by my saying: SOMETIMES IT IS JUST THE SAME OLD SAME OLD.

“Now I disagree......…” she said, “There is ALWAYS something new in each day, its up to us to find it! Come on Rexx! If some days are the same old same old.......ask yourself why you have shut yourself off to the outside so you don’t accept anything new to come to you....because no two days are the same!”

Yes, no two days are the same, as no two-snow flakes are the same. But the uniqueness is muted in the multitude of its redundancy. Living can, and does, fall into the routine; it is in the routine that the redundancy of acts and choices that leads one into the same old, same old. True you may learn that a tree has a leaf that you have never seen before, or that a squire has put a nest in a place that was not their before, but unless you can learn something that can help you eliminate a whole class of mistakes, or direct you life onto an easier path, make your relationships better then the thing learned has little or no value, other then as voyeuristic.

You may spend you life learning, as some people do, every thing there is to know about Moby Dick, but what you have in the end is naught but an onanistic experience. The opportunity to learn anything that help you eliminate a whole class of mistakes, or direct you life onto an easier path, make your relationships better are few and far between, and your ability to learn them is dulled by habit and the routine. Ah, but their in lies the rub, habits and routine are very necessary things, they are tools to enable a better life, but at the same time tend to blind us to other options.

When you have set your life up to run a certain way, say working and raising a family. You go to bed at the same time every day, get up at the same time every morning, go to the same places every day, work, school, and home, eat at the same time, go shopping at the same places, and so forth and so on, it is into the same old, same old that you go. Going to the recitals, to the games, running to get an unexpected need for school, paying the bills, cooking, cleaning, and on and on. Live so often gets in the way of living, and living so often blinds you to understanding, and that is because you think you know. It is so hard for anyone who knows to learn anything new.

As I have said time and again, "Way too many times making a living gets in the way of living!"
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Rexx

One More

One more road to travel
One more dollar to spend
One more woman to love
Before I come to my end.
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One more for all times sake
One to share the adventure
One to come home with
Before the day is done.
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One to ride down the trail with
One that will take every fork
One that will follow every bend
Before the road comes to an end.
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One more time to be loved
One more time to be cherished
One more time to be held
Before time takes me away.
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One that will love me for my mind
One that will love my way with horses
One that will accept all the rest of me
Before there is an end of me.
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Rexx

Which Path

Since we only get to set foot on the path as we trod it one step at a time, and cannot ever re-trace the path and take the different forks, to say that another way would have been better is only speculation.



“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.”
From Robert Lee Frost's "You Come Too" 1916:

Now as much as I love Frost, this assertion that taking the road less traveled made all the different could only be know if both roads had been traveled at the same time and the results compared at the end. Each decision made opens up a completely different set of choices from which to chose than another decision would allow. The only way to know which path would be the best path would be to walk them all and compare the outcome.

Alas this cannot be done, thus we are left with making the best decisions we can at the time with the information we have available to us. That another is “wasting” his life is a personal opining that really states nothing more then the observers disapproval of how that person is living their life.

To claim that another caused one to waste their life is to remove the responsibility from that one for the decisions that they made to live the life they lived. If we are free beings, and are not coerced into a decision by force then the good or bad that comes to us because of our decisions are own responsibility. If we are not free beings then this speculation is pointless because then we would have no choice in the path we tread.

A path is a path because many have followed that way, had none followed it, it would be naught but a direction with many obstacles in the way. Our various religions are paths that have been trod by many before us, atheism is another path that some follow, but few of us get to trail blaze a path. Jesus, Mohammed, Siddhartha, and Ron L Hubbard are four of the few who have. Most of us track along following the way others have made. Some of these paths are so old nobody can be said to have blazed it, Hinduism for example. As to which past is the best is a matter of faith, not knowledge.
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Rexx

Time Marches On

The wind blows
Or it don’t
Time marches on.
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Rain falls
Or it don’t
Time marches on.
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The sun shines
Or it don't
Time marches on.
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You like today
Or you don’t
Time marches on.
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To the beat of a drummer
Or not
Time marches on.
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Day after day
Year after year
Time marches on.
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From childhood
To adulthood
Time marches on.
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In the morning
On all four
Time marches on.
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Then on two legs
We pass the day as
Time marches on.
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At the end of the day
With a cane, three legs
Time marches on.
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Until six carry us
To our grave as
Time marches on.
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It is given
One day at a time as
Time marches on.
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Some are allotted a few
Other many
Time marches on.
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Make important what you will
Just remember
Time marches on.
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Rexx

Bits and Peaces

In the fleeting time meaning of anything is only what you give to anything, and its value is only that which you place upon it. Like a water vapor your life will burn away in the heat of living and old age will crumble your bones, but do not bemoan what will be, rather rejoice in this, a day that the Lord has given.

Looking back always give just a snapshot of what you had to endure one step at a time, and while you may remember the kiss though you cannot feel the softness, nor taste the sweetness, of the lips that pressed upon yours. You recall the slap that left your face red from its anger but you have lost the sting that burned your face. Bits and peaces of this and that are retained to recall but most of all, all is gone like the mist to the midday sun. Sometimes this will make you remember that, even though you may wish that you did not. Memories are seldom controlled; they are evoked by the experiences of now.

You sit behind the wheel and remember how to drive, you did not think of driving before getting into the car, and as you leave the driveway you remember how to get to your destination. As you drive down the road your body takes over the mundane tasks of operating the car and you bran carry on with its thoughts that may or may not have anything to do with the trip. When you get back home, if asked you will remember what you have done with no effort on your part, it will just come to you. But as the days go by first the details of the trip will be lost, then even the trip will fade into all the other trips you have made and unless something remarkable had happen the trip will be lost completely to forgetfulness.

I dread the day I will no longer be able to drive myself around because of lost skills. But that day will come, and I will have to depend upon others to carry me about or not go out at all, like my dear departed aunt Elaine used to say, “getting old isn’t so bad when you consider the alternatives”.

I have buried both my Father and Mother and their memory remains strong with in me, but the memory of my childhood with them has faded to just a few that I can recall from six and before, even my teen years have slid into the darkness of “I cannot recall”. And more and more I find myself remembering things that others say just did not happen, not the way I remember them anyway.

Funerals are for the living, not the dead but nothing brings your mortality home like putting you parents into their grave. My mother, who always seemed so much older and wiser then me, was only seventeen years older then me, how long can it be before I follow her into the ground? Of course I know that she and I will be together again come the Resurrection, but the grief of not having her around will be a burden that I and my brother and sister will carry until we pass.

I was at my Grandfather’s grave the other day and found that my memories of him had withered to little more than of an old man sitting in a rocking chair. He passed these some fifty years ago. I remember him because he was my Grandfather, but I do not remember his father or mother at all, not do I know anyone who does. I do not even know how to find their graves. I do remember that my brother and I got sent out of the Church during his service for squabbling with one another, he says it was because I pinched him, but I don’t remember that.

After they lay us in our grave who among us will be remembered in a hundred years? What do any of us know of a hundred years ago that we did not read in a book? Bits and peaces of a hundred years ago have been recorded for us to peruse for out edification and enjoyment. That was when the last century turned; we remember Oliver and Wilber, Edison and Tessa, Bell and Morse, and if we did real deep maybe a few more we can dig up before we have to drag out the books, or look it up on the Net, but who know the conductor of the train that carried Edison to his first job, the ticket taker, his wife, their children, and on and on of all the people who are not even in the dustbin of history. But if they had not carried their load then there would be nothing for us to pass on to the generations to come.

I do not expect to be remembered beyond my children and maybe my grandchildren. The way that families, my family anyway, are dispersed across the face of the earth it might be a stretch to hope that even our grand children will carry a memory of us after we pass from this earth. Most of us will never have fame or wealth, we will, for the most part, do well enough, live a good life, do nothing remarkable and pass away without leave hardly a bit of our span on earth.

However, though we have little chance of making a big splash in history, we do contribute to the structure of now, and it is in the now that we grow from childhood into adulthood, and on into the twilight of our being. Like cells in a body we help make out society healthy and strong with the way we live our lives and getting old is no reason to withdraw from life. I still work and play to the best of my ability, offer my opinion to the youth who tend to dismiss my words as the ramblings of an old man, but some hear and learn to look at something in a different way.
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In Search of the Truth

A consideration in to what is true. One’s perspective can and does alter what is perceived. I would remind you of the old teaching story of the five blind men who were walking down the road to go to a fair when they encountered an elephant. One of the blind men felt only the tusk and said to his brethrens, “This beast is like unto a spear”. Another had grabbed then ear and said to friend, No, it is much more like a fan then a spear”. A third, holding its tail declared that they were all wrong that it was much more like a rope then anything they had described. Then the forth, who had his arms wrapped around one of the legs, chimed in, “Nope, it is much more like a tree then any of those things”. Finley the last one, who was standing with his arms up and his hands on elephant’s side said out loud, “My brothers have all gone mad, for it is plane to me that this beast is more like unto a wall then any of those other ideas!”

Then another said to the rest, "Agree or disagree we have to get on down to the fair before it closes" and off they went, each with a firm understand of what each had perceived of what a true elephant was. This is the state we all find ourselves in trying to perceive the truth, it is colored by the angle of our perception, no two people can see the same thing at the same time because each must, by the inability to stand in the same place at the same time, observe the thing from different points of view.

This is the state we all find ourselves in trying to perceive the truth, it is colored by the angle of our perception, no two people can see the same thing at the same time because each must, by the inability to stand in the same place at the same time, observe the thing from different points of view. Not only is our perception of the truth determined by the angles from which we look at it how much time we have to consider it, to alter our point of view also determine our ability to perceive the true nature of something.  Each mind that perceives is along in it perception and its reasoning based upon that perception is unique to the individual.  It is an amazement that we can ever agree on what the truth is.

Consider the rightness of smoking tobacco. From the time it was discovered by Europeans in America until fifty years ago it was considered not only a good thing, but a necessary thing in that a large part of the English’s making colonies in the New World was to grow and export tobacco. Many a person’s livelihoods depended upon its growth, processing, and sales. All of this was possible because of our angle of our perception was solely form the pleasure it brought to us. Pleasure both from the wealth it brought to those who provided it and from the ones who smoked, chewed, and sniffed it.  Now it is perceived as a health hazard  and to be avoided, and taxed to death.

Did not the way tobacco was seen change it from being right into being wrong? And did not this change in our understand of the goodness/badness of tobacco come from a changing point of view, a point of view focuses more on the negative consequences of smoking, higher incidents of cancer in users compared to non users.

Now if it is true that tobacco is good or bad is still dependent upon the point of view that the user/nonuser looks at the issue from, for some the good outweighs the bad and for others the bad is not worth the good.
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Rexx

Waiting

Waiting, amazing just how much of my life is spent waiting. Waiting for a red light. Waiting for the ground to dry so I can work a horse. Waiting for it to warm up before I go outside. Waiting for it to cool off so I can ride. Waiting for the race to begin. Waiting for the weekend so I can go dancing.

When I wait I do not wait like the fox stalking his kill. I wait like the hawk scoring through the sky waiting for his dinner to arrive on the landscape below. Scoring on the wind, riding the thermals his joy unbounded from the need of his flight.

The fox goes into a world of scent, filtering out any but that for which he is waiting to find. Then, intent upon his stalk, lets the whole world shrink down to the creeping of his movement. He devoting his entire being to not spooking his supper, as he move an inch here, a foot there. Then in an unleashing of all his purpose he lunges into the chase, and again dissolves into his pursuit. Knowing no world outside of the chase.

I imagine the hawk’s joy rather then know it, for how could anything so free within it limits not feel joy? Scoring, diving, and circling the hawk must survey the whole world to find that which he seeks. His waiting is done amidst the multitude of events unfolding below. Then upon spying the answer to his search, he drops into the focus that the fox was locked into until it has obtained what it was waiting for.

I, in my waiting, keep what I am waiting for firmly in my mind, but not the foreground. I turn my attention to thing that can give me satisfaction, if not the joy of what I am waiting for. I look for other people’s methods of horses training, and today I found the story of John Rayer. For you horse lover I suggest you put his name in your search bar and read a bit about this man, who was the original “Horse Whisper”.

I found him while I was waiting, waiting for the sun to set. Waiting for the race to begin. Waiting for it to cool down a bit, and it has and I am going out and work with a horse now, teach it to walk a strait line while I am waiting for the race to start, while I am waiting for her to make up her mind.

What race?  Any race.
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Rexx

The World Over

I am reminded of the story of the man who went the world over to find his happiness only to return home disappointed. Then much to his amazement and delight he found it next door in one who had never left home, rather she had pined for happiness in her own home town with out finding it until the wonderer came home.

What, you are tempted to ask, if he had just stayed home, and availed himself of that happiness his entire life at home, and why did she not see him before he left home in his search? Well it could be that she was too plain, not near exotic enough for his dream. And when she saw him he was just the boy next door, nothing to get excited about. Then as time marched on her knight never road up to her life to carry her into the happiness of which she dreamed, so she drowning in the mundane, settled for what was available, making a life for the children she had brought into the world as happy for them as she could until a divorce not of her choosing set her free once again to look for what she never hope to find.

Then he, the wonderer, came back into her life, no longer the boy next door, but the exotic man who had spent a lifetime traveling the world living a life of high adventure. And she now appeared to him as the roots he had abandoned in his youth, and he now was able to see that what he had taken for plainness had just been his familiarity with her that had blinded him to her beauty and strength.

The moral is: there is no moral; sometime you have to live a lot to live a little.
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Rexx

Will of God

God’s Creation does not stop at the wilderness. His mountains are majestic, His oceans breathtaking, His sky grandiose, but is not the best of the nest builder yet too His Creation? And the ant’s and termite’s home a part of His Creation? Why then are not the cities of man any less the creation of God? Man can plan but God disposes, as He will. If He takes a mind He can stop any Tower of Babylon He wishes. So why do so many disdain the works of man as outside the will of God?

Cannot you find His plan in the ways of the people going about their daily lives just as well as you can walking in a park? By the way, that park is not natural; it is an artifice of man made to look as someone thought a natural area should look. God did not put those wooden planks on the ground that you walk on, nor did he pick the path the trail is laid out any more then He picked the twist and turns in the ant’s tunnels, but He did make the builder, and he does have a plan.

Is a hermit living in the wilderness somehow holier then an office girl making an honest living? What make denying your self a holey act? Was not the Last Supper a feast? Did not Christ perform his first miracle at a party, and made the wine so they could party on? I do not know how one could live a live outside the glass castle and not become a bit jaded. We sally forth with great expiations only to meet defeat time and time again. The victories that we do manage are dwarfed by the dauntless on the task yet to be realized, one day at a time, just one step at a time is the way of the trip, but we want the world, and we want it now. In is in the accumulation of small gains in which our progress is made. Got the kids through high school, paid the taxes, the rent is paid. Ah, life. Mundane and prosaic! It is in the details that we live, but in the dream that we score.

The dishes have to be washed, but to dance away the night, to watch the sun set over the Pacific from Hawaii. But tomorrow work, and another day spent just to get to the next day, into the boredom of existence because the joy to be found in the mundane is lost in the dream. The dishes are to be washed because a fine dinner was just eaten. You have to work to pay the rent on the house you wanted so badly. In your work is there not joy to be found in the serving of those who are willing to pay you to do what they cannot readily do for themselves or prefer not to do? To live a joyful fulfilled live, you must rejoice in the details, dive into where the Devil lives, drive him out and make it your joy.

If living outside the castle is hard, consider living in one, your privileges can well can lead you to believe that you are the source of your wealth and that you are the captain of your soul, and the maker of your fate. Even if God is not the Creator one can see, if one cares to look, that everything that happens was dependent on something else happing.

"You see, the past is past and the future is yet to come. That means the future is in your hands - the future entirely depends on the present. That realization gives you a great responsibility." -- h.h. the 14th dalai lama

If this is, as the 14th Dalai Lama asserts, true then the present is totally dependent on the past, and everything we do is determined by that which has passed before. You were set on the path that you now find yourself at the dawn of creation. Being born in the U. S. provides one set of actions that are not available in India. You are free to choose, but only to choose from that which is presented to you to choose.

The poor person choices are vastly different from those of a rich person but both are shaped by the circumstances they find themselves. The rich person may follow a path that leads his to desolation while the poor person may find a path that leads him to riches and fame, but neither is free to shape himself as he sees fit, rather his act are determined by what acts upon him.

If you find yourself having to “try very hard” to stay on the right path then you have yet to come to an understanding of what the right path is. And the problem with living God’s will to the best of your ability is that God does not choose, you do. How are you to know what God’s will is. Does He tell you? How? Through the Bible? Through preachers?  Through your parents? Do you truly understand scripture enough to take guidance from it? Does not the preacher’s have the same problem knowing God’s will as you? Are not your parents the children of their culture just as you are their child?

How many times have you heard a preacher praying for the forgiveness of sins? Is this not praying in vain? Does that question strike you as strange? Why? Why should you have to pray for something that has already been given? If Christ died so that your sins could be made as white as snow, what work do you have to do to receive this? Rather then asking God for something He has already granted, we should be thanking Him for so great a gift.

What can you, a mere human, do to negate the Will of God? If He has willed that your sins be forgiven what can you do to put this asunder, by not accepting the forgiveness? But Christ, Paul, and John say in the New Testament, the believers are God's elect. They are called the elect because God chose them to be saved Matt 22:14; John 6:37, 39; 15:16, 19 ; Acts 13:48; Rom 11:5; Thess 1: If God has chosen those whom He will save, how can anything you may or may not do changes God’s will?

What did Christ call upon you to do? He said that you were to accept Him as the Way, profess His name before men, and to treat you neighbor as yourself, and to love God above all else. Does this sound like a hard path to follow? And remember, you cannot work your way to heaven! If it is your acts that earn your salvation, then why did Christ die? If you acts cannot save you can they damn you?

When Christ forgave your sins by way of the cross did He only forgive the sins that you had committed up until you accepted Him? Or did He forgive all of your sins? If He forgave all of your sins how can you backslide? As Paul said, in Romans 11; v6, “Now if by grace, then it is not by works; otherwise grace ceases to be grace.“ And in v32 :”For God has imprisoned all in disobedience, so that He may have mercy on all.” And in Romans 4; v5: “But to the one who does not work, but believes on Him who declares righteous the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness.” And lastly in Romans 5; v14: “For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under law but under grace. v15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! v16 Do you not know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey--either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?”

It is not the act that enslaves you, rather your desire to do the act that leads you down the wrong path but how much is the choosing of that path is in the hands of the walker? “Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” Rom 9:21.

Black Pearl of Great Price

A long time ago I heard a story about a man who had learned of a black pearl of great price that had been lost on a particular beach (it could have been just as easily been a red ruby, a green emerald, or the girl of his dream).

The man after finding the beach walked it every day, picking up every black pebble, shell, or small peace of black jetsam he saw. Upon realizing that it was not the black pearl he would through it far into the sea in order to not have to pick it up again.

Years and years went by with the man throwing unwanted objects far into the sea, sometimes hundreds a day. Then came the faithful day and the man’s dream was realized, he stooped and picked a small black object and to his amassment he realized that it was the black pearl he had spend so much of his life looking for that he had just throw far into the sea.

I gained from the story that habit is a very strong master and one should be careful which habits one cultivates. Had the man developed the habit of collection all the objects he collected in a day search and putting them in a pile to remind him of his effort he would have been able to partake of the fruits of his labors, but as the story went he had only the memory that he, how ever briefly, had once held the black pearl of great price.

Hindsight is 20/20 but that does not mean that foresight is blind. Habits are necessary, and a good habit is a good servant. I remember the time back in my youth that I had damaged the left front quarter panel of my car. It was my intention to hit someone who ran a stop sign, or red light in front of me in order to have them pay for the repair. I was given many opportunities, but was unable to avail myself of any of them because before I could think that I needed to hit the asshole, my habit of avoiding collisions took over and forced me to swerve or break and I never was able to hit someone who gave me an opportunity to have them pay for my mistake.

Not all missed opportunities are a bad thing, but the habits we have developed over a life time can blind our eyes to them such that we do not even know that we missed an opportunity until it is way too late to do anything about it.
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Rexx

Happiness

Well I’m not one to judge other action unless and until their acts impinges upon my own freedom to act, or causes me to pay for their action. When that happens I tend to get riled. I figure what is important to another person is their business, and none of my own.

If they find happiness in old cars, then as long as I do not have to buy the car for them, more power to them. The same is true for skydivers, mountain climbers, skiers, and on and on. I find my happiness playing with horses, and have arranged my life to give me as much happiness as I can afford. I spend a lot of time on a horse, beside a horse, watching horses, camping with them, trail rides, horse shows, and so on and so forth.

If another finds his happiness in piling up success in his chosen career, be it a stockbroker, banker, doctor, or whatever how is that different from how I pursue my happiness? If they prefer the comfort of a large home instead of a pasture, or a fancy restaurant to a meal over a campfire, does that make their choices less moral then my own? If I choose to smile a lot, and they express their happiness in expressionless faces am I superior to them?

Can I judge how happy they are or are not form the little I can ever get to know about them? Oh, I can know how they act around me, but just how far can I project that beyond knowing if I wish to be in their company or not? Have you never known the person who was so smug in their goodness, or the person who preached the rightness of their believe so obnoxiously that they were as insufferable as the vain self center egoists?

Let me tell you this I have been rich and I have been poor, and being rich makes being both happy and sad better. I would rather be sad in a nice bed then sad sleeping on the ground, and I have done both. I would rather have the means to share with my friends, and the occasional stranger then to be bound in my poverty to care only for my own needs.

Now, I normally do not toot my own horn about the good deeds I do, but for the sake of this story I will make an exception. Yesterday morning as I was walking the dog around the fence line I noticed a man going by on a liquor-cycle (for those of you outside the South, a liquor-cycle is a small motorbike like a moped that does not require a license to operate on the highways. They got the moniker because a lot of people who have lost their driver license on account of a DWI drive then to get to and from work.) Any way, I noticed that he was loosing power as he went by, and soon he was walking beside it.  I took the hounds to their pin, got in the small pick-up and drove up to where he was pushing his bike. I offered, and he accepted reluctantly to put the bike in the truck bed and a ride, about 3 miles, home. After dropping him off I gave him my phone number and told him that if he could not get it fixed before he had to go to work again to give me a call and I would give him a ride to work. I haven’t heard back, so I assume that he got it fixed.

The propose of this horn tooting? Well I do not expect others to find happiness in the things I find it in. Nor do I expect them to help me in anyway. They owe me nothing, unless we made a deal about something, then I truly expect that our contract be fulfilled by both of us. Should I find myself broke down on the side of the road with three horses in the trailer I have no ill felling for the stream of cars that whiz on by. I am nothing to them, and they owe me nothing. If my brother were to pass me by I would be pissed at him, for I am something to him, as is true for those who call themselves my friends.

If I choose to help another and receive pleasure from helping is that not my reword? Does that make me a more worthy person then the person who would have continued playing with his dogs and let the man push his bike home? I think not. All it means is we have different values find happiness and meaning in different way. Had I not given the man a ride would I have failed any obligation I had to him? Did he have any right to expect anything from me? Would he have any right to get mad at me had I stayed in my pasture?

My brother is my brother; he can live his life in any manner he wishes. He is under no obligation to conform his opinions to my own, find pleasure in what I find pleasure in, nor believe in the values I believe in. As my part in this, I am under no obligation to accept his worldview, and we remain free to criticize one another’s choices in any manner we may wish short of force.

I am a practitioner of the Hegelian dialectic process, that is, you present a thesis, I offer an antithesis that we may come to a coherent synthesis of our different opinions. This is the art of arriving at the truth by the exchange of logical arguments.
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Rexx

A Lost Soul

Sadness is not a balance to happiness! Pain is not balanced by no-pain. We may have to endure both sadness and pain just as we have to endure the rain, but rain is not balanced by drought. That they are opposites in no way imply a balance. Consider hot and cold, they are opposites but there is nothing to balance. Hot is molecular motion, cold is the absent of that motion.

Sadness is a state of mind, as is happiness. Emotions are more to be liken to an ocean then to a scale. Attainment of the heart’s desire brings blue skies and calm waters, but then storm of disappointment enrages the waters into crashing waves of discontent beating up on beaches of lost dreams.

The only balance in a weather system is in equilibrium, and this balance is only temporary lasting as long as no change in temperature occurs, no wind blows, and the sun don’t shine. In order to traverse the face of the deep one has to get a rudder, a keel, and a sail. The rudder is your worldview, the keel is your faith, and your sail your desire.

Now about desire, as the Buddha pointed out, it is not only the source of temporal happiness, but the source of sadness as well. It is not the desire itself that causes the sadness, rather our attachment to what it is we desire, that causes us such distress when we lose, or are unable to obtain that which we desire.

Now the really sad thing in this is that so many of us get lost in our sadness, and even become attached to it to the point that if we cannot gain the object of our desires we would rather remain along with our sadness then seek to put it behind us. We become morbid in out sadness, warring it like a badge of honor. We write songs to it, paint it, sculpt it, make poetry about it, and otherwise extol it unto the heavens as a virtue.

The results maybe great art and pleasure for us who cry to the song, weep at its rimes, marvel at the painting, but it comes to us at a great cost, the cost of a lost soul. I pray for them, and long for them to find their way home. But even more I pray for those who have no art other then the ability to wallow in self pity. Pray that they see the light.
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Rexx

Living In The Now

Living in the now without projecting to the future or past maybe Zen, and maybe attainable ever now and then, but to live in the mundane one must reflect upon the past to be able to compare where one is as opposed to where one wanted to be in the past. If mistakes are to be recognized, then the past must be analyzed. It is not being able to give up what never was obtained and never can be obtained, or be consumed by that which once was but can no longer be that one get lost in the past.

To be goal oriented required that one be concerned with the future. Often time the now must be delegated to a less importance then the future for the sake of plans yet realized. I know that we are admonished that the lilies of the field neither toil nor sew bur are closed in the finest of apparel, and that we are to take no thought of the morrow for, as the Lord feeds his birds, he will care for us. But this I know as well, the Lord helps those who helps themselves. If it were not for planning and striving for the realization of those plans where would we be? Still in the caves? A garden, if it is to be planted, a place must be provide for it, the field must be plowed, the seed arranged for, all long before any harvest may be obtained.

What one must realize is that all living is lived in the now, there is no other existence for us outside of now. If we pine away our lives over lost and furlong times, or if we obsess over obtain what is we have set ourselves out to do, then we loss the now in our awareness and our lives are wasted in dreams from which we may not awake until we are at our grave. Looking back on our wishing things were different then they were we will find little joy in the life we lived.

I have no advice, for as a master once told me, “He who tells, can’t know. And he who knows cannot tell.” The best you can hope to do is but point the way.
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I Look For You

I have spent my life looking for you,

What you look like I don’t have a clue.

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I just know my heart will stir

And it will render

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Me into your power

And cut loose my anchor.

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I will be adrift

In a current running swift

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With hope of expectation realized

Of a dream come true.

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All the places I have looked for you

My search has always been true.

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I have seen you time and time again

A long blond here, and then

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As a short redhead there,

Some times near, sometimes afar.

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Shot and tall, week and strong,

Short hair, and long

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Beautiful blue eyes

Lovely green, brown, and hazel eyes

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You have gazed at me

So many time, but saw me rarely.

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There you sit now

My whole being just shouted, “WOW“!

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But I turn, and you are gone

Leaving with no more then a yawn.

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I have to believe

That in time we will cleave

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One to the other

As we become each other’s anchor.

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Weave together as one

As we reveal what is hidden.

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The search has been so very long

But my need so very strong

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I look as hard as I did when I first begun

And though the outcome is not certain

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My hope is eternal

I just wish you would stop hiding so skilful!

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Rexx

A Creature Of Action

As a creature of action we tend to identify ourselves with our action. Ask a field and tract person who they are and the will respond that they are a runner or jumper. Ask an accountant and he will respond that he is a CPA. And so forth, a student will respond that she is a freshman as so on, ask the teacher and she will tell you that she is a professor at the collage.

To identify with one action is as old as mankind. The stalker saw himself as a hunter, the fighter as a warrior. Women accepted the role that was left to them, keeping the camp, skinning, gathering and cooking, and called them selves by the name that the tribe who gave that action called it, be it squaw or housewife.

One’s actions were once, and still are for many, limited to the action of making a living (staying alive) dominated the role the individual had to assume. As long as action is limited to the acts of survival the self-identification was limited. When one has to till the land the live long day he can only see himself as a farmer.

When one livelihood comes from the games he plays he will identify himself with those games. A Baseball Player, Football Player, Golfer and so on into the myriad of other games in which people have found to make a living. A pretender will call himself an actor; a person who gets his livelihood from a pension and Social Security will say that they are retired when asked what they do. Note that just about everything a person clams to be in one way or another reflect how they make a living. Even a housewife makes her living being a wife and a mother.

This action was and is the very essence of the individual, and to identify the self with the action was not just something the tribe imposed, as much it was something that the individual imposed upon the tribe. People tend to be proud of what they do and achieve, and they want the skill and expertise recognized by the tribe. That is why a Doctor insists on the Ph. D after his name, the X-ray tech in the hospital want to be called a Technologist, the biomedical tech wishes to be called a Technician. This is not trite, it is important because of all the time and effort they put into gaining the skills have acquired, and want their services recognized.

So many people condemn this self-imposed identity and tell them that they must give up, I assure you that is a lot easer to say then to do. People like to be known as a wife or a husband, a father or a mother. The names of what they do for a living gives them an identity, which can be expressed with few words but convey a wealth of information. True, we all assume different roles in our lives, at night we are the wife or husband, during the day we raise our kids and or go to work to support ourselves and out families.

However, if you ask a Dentist what he does seldom will mother or father, wife or husband is the first description given. Virtually without exception the Dentist will answer that he is a dentist, the Welder that he is a welder, the NASCAR Driver that he drives NASCARs, and this is true of just about, if not all professions.

Is this wrong? That which a person has to do well enough to support themselves has to occupy a lot of their time, both at work and after they leave work. The more satisfying and fulfilling the work are the greater the identification with the work will be. A hamburger flipper, or carwash worker will not identify themselves with their jobs near as much as a Doctor or Lawyer will.

I am confused in my identity, I want to say I am a horse trainer when I am asked, but I also want to be an author, and a husband, an adventure, a Wiseman, and maybe before I die I will figure out what I want to be when I grow up.
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Rexx

Blinding Desire

You know sometimes
You want it so
So bad
That you pretend that it is.
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The desire blinds
The eye by
Presenting a perception
That covers the reality.
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You fool yourself,
And sometime others,
But real is real
And pretend is pretend!
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Sooner or later
The real clashes with
The pretend,
And then. ..
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Rexx

Dreams Lived

Now it has came to me to have this to say,
So come to me and lend me your ears
Let me fulfill my destiny.
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Dreamed and foretold by me
That the day would come
When words of wisdom
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Mixed with entertainment
From my mind would tell
A story well worth hearing.
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I saw myself back then,
Even though I could
Hardly spell a word,
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A wordsmith crafting
My tell with pin and paper,
But it was the computer
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That brought the dream alive.
What with its spell check
And grammar checking ability
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I only have to get close
For it to suggest
My way home.
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I lived a lifetime
Not just learning the words,
But the feeling that
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Brought them to life
With the color of my past
Breathing in the pain and pleasure
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Hinting at the boredom
And despair
Like light and darkness
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Bring forth not only
All shade of gray
But the rainbow
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That is spread before us
Every time there is a storm
Repeating to us a promise
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That I paint in words
And throw to the winds
Of the Internet.
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Like petals of my mind
Carrying some seeds
That just may find
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Some lodgment
In another mind
And sprout and grow
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Way beyond
The dream I held
When I spew them forth.
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Ah, the audacity
Of my dream
That another could find
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Wisdom or entertainment
Within any words of mine,
For I see the great
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Talents spread before me
With their works
Sold in books
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Put into the movies,
And shown on TV
Every day of my life.
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How daunting it seem
That I could
In any way compare
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But in the most
Unfavorable light
Of those bright stars.
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But yet I am driven
To try,
To string my words
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Into what poems,
Stories, and instructions
As my mind can conceive
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And sent them out to find
What audience they may
Even though it may be
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Naught more then
Whistling by the graveyard
As I make my way to the grave.
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Rexx

Perception

Here is the thing; our perception is all we have. We do the best we can with the information available to us, and, if we open our minds to the possibility that our first assessment could have been wrong, modify our perception as new information becomes available. Kindness can be show for ulterior motives, perceived meanness can be no more then another just going about his own good.

The dead have no concern until the resurrection; all we do in life for the dead is for the living. If you look at it, everything a person does is for them selves. You do an act of kindness for another not because the other demands it, rather because you choose to for what ever reason you decided to act upon. Maybe it was because you just wanted to stop their whining, maybe it was that you remembered being cold and hungry, and helping another in that situation made the memories of those days a little warmer.

You develop habits of responses to certain situations. When a strange smiles at you on the street it is the habit that diverts your eyes, or spring the smiles to your face. Once a habit is formed it is hard to retrain. But if you do not like how you respond to something that is just what you have to do, for it is not the things that make you respond, but the habits you have formed around those things.

What different does it make what a stranger may think of you if it neither cost you money or pain? To let their opinion sway how you decide to make your choices is to give them the power to decide the path of your life, and no matter which path you walk, no one is going to walk it for you. If you stub your toe they will fell nothing, if you get lost they will not be able to find you, as this is true for you, it is true for others as well, no matter how much you may care for them. Behind our eyes we are all truly along.
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Rexx

Do Not Sorrow

Do not sorrow for those who go in harm’s way in the service of their country. They do this willingly and gladly. Everyone in the services today knew when they joined up, or reenlisted that the war would have a claim on them, but yet they joined. If they are at all like the young Marine that I was they go with a joy in their heart, and a song on their lips.

Those left behind may feel the loneliness of their absents, but they were unable to dissuade then from their chosen path, and now should let them go with their blessing. Right or wrong they do their countries bidding, not theirs to reason why, but to do and make the other guy die for their cause. And their cause is to either convert us all to Islam or kill us, no middle ground for them.

Free Will and Predestination Exist Side By Side

I am a rare breed in that I believe that both free will and predestination exist as controlling forces in our lives. Yes, I do believe that God’s will brought about the acts of Hitler and the sacking of Constantinople, as well as all the heroic acts by all the individuals resisting these horrendous acts.

It is the duality I see in God’s creation, His ability to plan the whole thing out, to have it scripted down to the smallest detail, yet God, in His omnipotent power is able to let the creature create itself totally while living its completed predetermined life. This is true of all the critters God gave a choice too, for the worm up to man. When a worm can turn right or left in its search for nourishment and sex, it must make the choice, and by so doing becomes that which God planed. I, no less then the worm, must choose each decision placed before me, and by my free-will decisions I become that which God has scripted for me. Once a decision has been made it cannot be unmade.

As I see it each decision was made once. And once only and came with God’s act of creation. Everything that exist, exist now, or it does not exist at all. All of time is laid out like the pages in a book or the frames in a film, form beginning to end; it is God’s awareness that brings the book alive as we pass that point in the story.

Let me reiterate, once a decision is made, it is made for all of eternity, not half of eternity. That means every decision I ever made had been made for all times sake on the moment of the decision. As I was created, everything I will ever be was created. Tomorrow does not happen be chance, it is the unfolding of the Story. It is line-by-line, day-by-day that I live, but the Story is whole and complete from its creation. From Everlasting to Everlasting never changing, it cannot change, because it contains everything that could possibly be. If it is not in the story it cannot be, not ever. The Story is longer and in more detail then we can ever imagine, for it is in truth the Never Ending Story, and every tell ever told, or ever to be told, is in the Story, it only takes the eyes of God and his Word to bring it to life. When his Words are spoken as his Eyes see the Story time is brought into existence and the Story is lineated into a time line. But because it is stretched in to a line for the telling and living, does not mean that all time does not exist at the same time, just as all the words of a song are present at the beginning of the song, still the song must be sung for the song to be experienced.

It through God’s plan that death came into this world "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality" (I Cor. 15:53).’
1Pe Ch. 1 v 23: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. v24: For all flesh [is] as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

Rev. Ch. 12 v17: And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Here in lie the basics of my argument: Adam and Eve were borne into corruptible flesh and to be born again into the incorruptible, Satin, at God’s command, went to war with the off springs of Eve, bringing death into the world, for without the fall they never could be a need for Jesus Christ, and the incorruptible would never have been obtainable. Maybe God could have done it another way, but He chose to do it this way, and all of history has been the working out of mankind’s salvation. No amount of additional faith could have prevented Adam from being tempted and bringing about the fall.
And as to whether or not anyone has a choice about being saved:

Isa 42:1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, [in whom] my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
Isa 45:4 For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
Isa 65:9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.
Isa 65:22 They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree [are] the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
Mat 24:31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Mar 13:27 And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.
Luk 18:7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
Rom 8:33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? [It is] God that justifieth.
Col 3:12 Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
Tts 1:1 Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;
1Pe 1:2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

Remember the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. His brothers, with evil in their hearts threw him into a pit, then sold him into slavery to be rid of him because of the love that their father had for him. Joseph was taken down into Egypt where, because of his attitude, dream interpretation ability, and demeanor he became adviser to Pharaoh and was put into the position that allowed him to save his family from the famine that struck the land for seven years. Joseph could have been all vindictive and mean when his brothers came before him, but you know the story, the tribe was preserved and Jesus was born. God’s plan for Joseph was worked through the evil in his brother’s heart. It is hard to see how Joseph could have went into Egypt, become Pharaoh’s right hand man, and put into a position to save his family’s life without first having been sold into slavery.

It was predestined for Joseph to be in Egypt and have a position that would enable him to preserve the Chosen People, but the acts of Joseph’s brothers were act of free will, as were the decision of the slavers who decision led them to the pit that Joseph had been cast. What do you get when you have million and millions, even billion and billions of free wills trying to determine the course of their lives. Do you not get a lot of friction, confusion, and interference? You would if everyone truly had free will, but when you consider it, no one can have true free will because they seldom have anything to do with the choices that are presented to them after they pick a direction, and that direction is picked as they come out of the womb. They do have an illusion that they are the masters of their souls, but what person in his sixties dreamed of the place when he was twenty that he found himself today? Circumstances buffeted him million upon millions of times in his life. Coincidences shaped his choices time and time again. He was born in this country, what choice in that? He was born into that family, what choice in that? What choice did he have in the school he went to when he was a child? How did he decide to go to work or go to collage? Was that choice not made largely by the circumstances of his life then? Were his parents rich, poor, or indifferent to the value of an education? Was their a depression going on?

Either we believe that God has a Plan, and everything is going according to this plan, or Darwin is in charge and everything is as it is just because of chance. The kind act done to us, the forgiveness bestowed upon us, all the product of just random molecules that swarmed together and happen to start reacting together to make a star of just the right type, that some how spawned a planets with just the right size, temperature range, etc., that fostered life in a batch of chemicals that just happen to come together at just the right time and under just the right conditions, and in just the right portions to instigate an spontaneous ignition of a life then by accidental chance it continue to become more and more organized, more complex until man walked the face of the earth. And become good or evil all by chance.

But I regress, God had to get Joseph down into Egypt to save the Tribes of Israel in the future so he worked through Joseph’s brothers bad evil acts in order to work His plan. This begs the question of fault and blame. Again I ask are Joseph’s brother’s responsible for the evil they preformed if in their acts they were performing the Will of God?
Before you make up your mind go a little further into the story of Israel’s delivery into and out of slavery. When God sent Moses to Pharaoh with His demands to let his people go how many times did God harden Pharaoh’s heart? Is Pharaoh to be held accountable for defying God’s will when it was God Himself who set Pharaoh’s heart to do as he did? Taken even to the death of all Egypt’s firstborn sons, and on unto the death of Pharaoh.

Can Pharaoh be held to blame in any of the pelages that were called down upon Egypt? Did Pharaoh or Joseph have any free will to deify God’s plan? "And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay My hand upon Egypt, and bring forth Mine armies, and My people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch forth Mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them"

Some might argue that God did not plan for Joseph’s brothers to sell, but just worked through their evil to do good. How, pray, else was God going to get Joseph, an uneducated tribesman, with no ambition other then being a herdsman, from the Land of Canaan into the position of the second most powerful person in the greatest nation on the face of the earth? Consider the constrain which God has put on Himself to work within the framework of history to enact His plan. He does not resort to supernatural means to bring about very many events. Mostly God works within the hearts and minds of people to bring about His Kingdom. God does not go “Pooff” and change you from a truck driver to the Sectary of Defense in the wink of an eye.

If then Free Will is a demonstrable false idea why is held in such high esteem? It has dawned upon me that the reason we cling so dearly to the idea of Free Will is to be able to give credit and lay blame. To hold people accountable for their act through either rewards or punishment and balance out their account. But if the Glory is God’s then what part of doing good is to be credited to man, and by the same reasoning, what part of doing evil is to be credited to man?

If Darwinism is correct then this blame is a totally wrong-headed approach. To punish someone for acts they committed because of how their parents raised and treated them, or because of how their DNA predetermined their action is an evil in itself. What the Darwinist would have you do is treat the wrong doer as someone who had been made sick by circumstances outside their control. If you fix their environment, and give them good examples they will fix the error of their ways.

Most Christians pooh-paw this conception and condemn it as mollycoddling. When someone does wrong they want the perpetrator to acknowledge their wrongdoing, accept the blame, admit culpability, and be held accountable. If someone does something good they feel it is only right that person receives acclaims and kudos. In all of this they lay credit or blame up based upon the belief that the person acted under their own Free Will. Although many of them give lip service to the idea that God has a plan for mankind and works through man to realize that plan, when they see the plan in action they want to take the credit away from God and give it to the actors who follow his script. To God belongs the Glory and the Power.

Even the two prisoners who had been throne in jail with Joseph had to be scripted. One had stole the other had not. God sent dreams to each, Joseph interpreted both dreams with the abilities that God had given him. It was the cup bearing recounting of Joseph’s ability to correctly interpret dreams that took him into the position that enabled him to save his tribe. Had the one had hot been tempted to steal from Pharaoh, if the circumstances had not conspired to insured an innocent was arrested with the guilty (and not just any innocent, but one that had the ear of Pharaoh) then Joseph would have stayed in prison and the tribe would have starved to death and Jesus would have never been born. "Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: For God did send me before you to preserve life" (Gen. 45:5).

You have three ways you can look at that story: First you can believe the story is just a work of fiction and the plot worked as it did because it was wrote that way. Next you can believe that the story is true, but each event (being sold into slavery, being throne in prison, the innocent and guilty being put in prison, correct interpretation of the dreams, etc.) was completely true, but each happened accidentally with nothing to guide the juxtaposing of the events to the salvation of the Tribes of Israel but happenstance. Finally you can believe that God has a plan and each act was the enactment of that plan.

How you interpret this story determines how you view life, or is it that how you view life will determine how you interpret the story. The truth is you do not get to decide what you believe. God has given your beliefs to you, either by the world or by Jesus. Even if you are careful you can be blinded to God’s plan by you indignant sense of justice and see only the unfairness of the person who had to steal and be executed so Joseph could be placed in charge of Egypt’s grain production. Just remember, "For He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion" (Rom. 9:15).

If then, I know you will ask, if God has set us to sin then why does he hold us to blame for that sin? I will let Paul answer that question; “Nay but, O man, WHO ARE YOU that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, why have You made me thus? Has not the Potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?" (Rom. 9:20-21). "In Whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own Will" (Eph. 1:11).

The last nail in the coffin of Free Will is the belief that God has a foreknowledge of all that will ever happen. If God has an absolute true knowledge of the future then Free Will cannot order a change in God’s knowledge. If it is know afore then all that can be done it that which is know to be done. You can get around this by denying God has foreknowledge, but no other way. "Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, which appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. For that ye ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that" (James 4:13-15).

God made us as we are and we are weak in the flesh. If we do not get to decide what we believe then what are we but clay? It was from dust that we came and into dust, which we will return. Fatalism? Yeah, for sure! No need to try then? Just you try and get out of it! We will do God’s Will and happily believe it to be our own. You cannot choose to see the Truth, the Truth will choose you to see if it will. "Wherefore art Thou speaking in parables to them? ... To you has it been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of the heavens, yet to those it has NOT been given." (Matt.: 13:10-11).

That you have a will cannot be disputed, as discussed earlier, you must will all purposed motion of your body. You do not walk without an act of will. But as we have discussed before, all choices placed before you for your will to act upon is provided be a chain of events that at best you have only had marginal control over. How free can your will be when you have little choice in the choices placed before you is the question. If you ever did anything, then it was yours to do from the begging of time. And if you are ever to do anything it is not yours to avoid, just yours to do. Once something is done, it is done forever. There is no half of forever; it was forever long before it was done. How you react to the choices placed before you was determined for all times sake before you were born by the natural, God Willed, interaction between your strengths and weakness and the opportunities to do act according to your heart’s desire. Your nature has led you through the choice that have been placed before you until you find yourself in my vain glory reading these words.
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Rexx