7/9/99

The next question that logically comes to my mind is whether or not it is possible to have a common vocabulary with which to discuss this stuff at all. Right now, I think that in a world of egos and people who are so blind to the power and controlling effects of human conditioning, it might not be possible, that the best we can hope for is a close but imperfect common vocabulary. This is partly because of karma and the fact that no one can live the exact same life---and thus have the same karma---as another. The only way to have a one hundred percent true common vocabulary would be to have two people who have the exact same karma, which is physically impossible.

I think that this helps explain why people have so much trouble getting along in the world; we live in a world of egos, of different perspectives and understandings of everything in relation to ourselves, our egos. Though we may not necessarily think we believe in it, as egos we each become the measure of all things when it comes to our own conceptual frameworks, from which all of our ideas, beliefs, and actions come. But, the fact that we (as egos) might never really be able to come to a true common vocabulary need not preclude us from benefiting from using agreed upon terms as tools for awareness. Let's remember that vocabulary is not the sum of life. It is but one way to communicate. Love, connection, understanding (awareness), emotions, all elude and transcend vocabulary. Let's not mistake vocabulary for that which we use vocabulary to try to define, understand, and communicate.

-

Excerpted from my personal notes (1999 - 2003)

-

The Supreme Court ruled that a person has the right to own and use and have available common weapons, including hand guns, for the purpose of self defense. The local government in DC immediately (sort of) complied, by requiring those who wished to register their guns. They denied Heller (the one who’s case went before the Court) his permit because he brought a semi-automatic pistol to register, just like the one I’m wearing on my hip right now. They denied it because it was a ‘machine gun’ because it had a bottom-loading magazine (their definition). This demonstrates the law in DC (possibly) obeying the letter of the law of the land, but most certainly not its intent. I have no respect for those people, who think their opinion should be law.

It appears to me that there are people on both sides of the gun debate that are not willing to consider the other side’s viewpoint. I myself have no particular willingness to disarm myself to make the anti-gun crowd happy.

If you want to actually find out the truth of the subject, do some research with real statistics. Go to www.gunfacts.info and read some true, documented, undistorted studies and make up your own mind. I’m not kidding - the anti-gunners commonly lie, distort, and make up their own statistics. Many of them are debunked here. The info at the gunfacts.info site is the real deal. Study it, and then make up your own mind. I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who actually goes to the trouble to study the facts, and then wants to discuss it.

To make me happy (on this subject), all that is required is that you let me continue to legally keep and carry my guns just as I do now. Just leave me alone.

To make the anti-gun crowd happy, I would have to give up all my guns. So in short, they’re getting in my face; the opposite is not true.

There are only two possible reasons I can think of why the anti-gunners want to take away my guns:

1. They are afraid of me.
2. They are afraid me and all my friends are going to try to take over the country, or something.

It can’t possibly be about saving lives. If you want to save lives, go tackle the problem of the 42,000 plus people who die on the highway EVERY YEAR because of drunk driving. It’s a far bigger, more deserving, problem to solve. I suppose we could ban all the cars; or maybe all the booze.

I’m not going around shooting people, or even letting them know I’m armed; so what’s their problem? I’ve been through a deep security background check to get my license; the police are always glad to see my CHL because they know I’ve been through that check. In short, I understand why I carry, and I understand under what circumstances it is right to use it, and you are safe from me. In fact, you’re safer with me in the room than if I’m not. Because if someone evil attempts something awful, I will try to stop them.

So, gun haters; why do you have such a big chip on your shoulder about this subject?

-Popgun

This book offers an in-depth examination of what divine simplicity means for Aquinas and how he argues for its claims. Simplicity and other divine predicates are analyzed within the larger metaphysical and semantic framework surrounding Aquinas's philosophy of God. The work thus goes beyond the issue of simplicity to some of the fundamental tenets of Aquinas's philosophical theology and his views on divine predication. The author also engages with a variety of Aquinas's recent commentators, bringing the insights of this great figure to bear on contemporary discussions.

HT: Thomistica.net

. - . Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

(James Carr - Life Turned Her That Way)

Stalking The Heron, (infinite patience, immediate results)

'So his obsession for not leting go of anything finally caught up with him,' commented Yan Kan to himself, on hearing news that the Emperor had met with an untimely end.

It had been several years now since Yan Kan had fortuitously escaped the Emperor's wrath. It had been his experience of stalking the heron that had led him to see things in a different light. When water accumulates, it breeds predatory fish. And when rites and duties become decorations, they breed artificial and hypocritical people. The title that the Emperor had quickly invented and thrown to him that day, and which he had so obsequiously caught, were now empty and meaningless to him.

He had decided at that moment to apply his new found virtue of patience to more meaningful pursuits and departed the Court.

He would no more attach such importance to such false things. And he would no more suggest solutions that sought reward by pandering to the whims of another in authority. Any leader who demanded, needed or revelled in such bolstering was an insecure leader. How strange it is that when rulers have obsessions, thier subjects do a lot of posturing; when a ruler is crafty, their subjects are devious; and when a ruler is demanding, their subjects are contentious. Any ruler who blamed ill luck for the state of his kingdom and sought to determine outcomes by using his strength to hold on to something weaker, was bound to fall sooner or later.

Yan Kan felt no surprise that the Emperor had lost his life through his rigid attachment to his policy for growth and recognition. His wise friend Cai Tok had ben right: 'When political leaders ruin their countries and wreck their lands, themselves to die at others hands, it is always because of their impatient desires.'

Since becoming a merchant, Yan Kan had determined to himself that he would follow the sage-like philosophy he now knew to be true: 'To be able to use the power of other people, it is necessary to win people's hearts. To be able to win people's hearts, it is necessary to have self mastery. To be capable of self mastery, it is necessary to have patience.'

Yan Kan resolved to apply patience in everything, particularly when he encountered the obstacles which he had discovered were as much a part of business as they were of life.

'The ancients were certainly wise in creating writing symbols that contained the meanings of both crisis and opportunity. I will see every obstacle as a further reminder to be infinitely patient and unattached to any particular schedule. For in such flexibility lies the power to cultivate the hidden pearl of opportunity from the grit of adversity.'

I find fault with the most recent one, however. It claims "It is better to fall short of a high mark than to reach a low one." I don't agree with that at all.

I'm all for setting lofty goals. We need something to strive for. But it is a huge mistake to devalue the attainment of smaller goals. In fact, setting and meeting a series of small goals is often a good way to work toward meeting a much larger goal. And meeting the small goals gives you the positive feedback you need to keep making progress. If your entire focus is on only the very big goal, it is easy to get discouraged.

For example, i recently lost 20 pounds in about 20 weeks. I didn't start out focused on losing 20 pounds. I started out simply deciding that i would work to lose an average of 1 pound a week until i reached a healthier weight. So i only weighed myself once a week. Most weeks i dropped exactly 1 pound, which is fairly easy to do if you are deliberate about reducing your food portions. Some weeks i didn't lose anything; some weeks i lost 2 pounds. But i maintained my desired average of a pound a week, and reaching that tiny goal every week was very encouraging and helped me keep going.

If i had simply decided "I want to lose 20 pounds" and made that the focus of my efforts, i think i would have gotten discouraged when a month later i had only lost 4.

I think this applies to virtually any endeavor you could possibly pursue. Celebrate the small victories.

digg this

***********

Power can only be attained in this world when we give it away at the expense of our own self empowerment. 

Humanity has trudged a long and winding road through the darkness that fell onto this planet several millenia ago.  As we look back on the past twenty-five-hundred years alone we have seen Empires expand then collapse with endless carnage and debris from wars fought for domination and Crusading hatred.  The tremendous power of those who are wired to feed off the fear generated among the masses to maintain power and control has been part of the only reality we in this cycle have known.  I perceive that they are keenly aware that an extremely ancient global castastrophe so overwhelmed the psyche of the survivors as to carry down genetically to this day and use it to manipulate the planet.   A few scattered Enlightened beings have intervened in our long journey and endeavored to seek out those in the ongoing generations who would carry the torch lighting the way toward the Knowledge, Light, and Harmony that once existed for the ancients and will exist once again.  The realm of wired power mongers, feeders on negative energy, seized their messages and turned them into an entity called religion (supernatural constraint, perhaps from religare to restrain, tie back) in order to keep the thumb to the screw and the lid on the Truth.  Jesus, Ghandi, Quetzalcoatl, Buddha and other Enlightened beings had no intention of organizing their messages into a tightly controlled box.  They simply gave guidelines, road signs, and Faith to keep moving toward a return of Self-Realization of our own incredible Spiritual capacity. 

As horrible and tragic a day as 09/11/2001 was, it also opened a doorway to Light that the "supernatural constrainers" in this reality would never have perceived since dark thoughts focus only on dark outcomes.  Until that day in Earth time, the revolving-door mentality still had the masses going in circles.  The schizophrenic dimensional split occurred that day and the revolving door began morphing into a Light-emitting open door.  It took a few years in Earth time to realize that we could even leave this contained circle dance and walk away and another few Earth years to have the courage to step into the Light and speak Truth to Power. 

I have witnessed a dramatic change in focus and attitude of people I know personally, those in the community at large, and those in the larger world and realize that a point of critical mass was reached about the beginning of our year 2006, and that forward swinging door has been swinging back to kick the Feeders on the Dark T-Shirt Team ever since.

I recall a thought running through my mind when I heard that the Human Genome Project had published its first draft report on the full DNA sequencing in April 2000 (official completion came in 2003**).  That thought was Oooh, the 100th monkey just might tip the collective flow of consciousness soon  (recorded in my diary). Odd thought, I know, but it occurred to me even then that with the DNA sequence essentially completed, the very manifestation of that knowledge would kick in soon....but I was not sure exactly WHAT would manifest.  After my "planes crashing in the East" dream and then the following day of 09/11/2001 occurred, I began to ponder this more deeply.

I am beginning to sense (and literally am witnessing in our culture) that unlocking the DNA in years 2000-2003 somehow began unlocking the sleeping  (or engineered damage of the remaining) DNA of Earth forms, thus allowing Light photons (via the Sun) to again enhance rather than damage dysfunctional DNA by having access to the correct coding (which I have a hunch is contributing to extinctions in some cases and new lifeforms in others). It has been a slow process from the point of view of Earth time but truly, I sense that the minds of darkness that have ruled endlessly are now being squeezed ever more between the twilight and the dawn of the human collective consciousness.  A day hardly goes by anymore without those in the public eye such as government/politics, religion, finance,  media, filmmaking, etc. who had carefully been able to conceal their dark intentions for humankind by throwing a cloak of glamour around themselves can no longer do so.  Why? Because there has been a massive shift on the collective level.  The masses are beginning to see the Light more than ever before...it is coming in leaps and bounds now.  Personally, I believe that the trigger was the completion of knowledge about DNA sequencing and the fired shot was 911.  I think the joke is on the Dark T-Shirt Team because the probable intention for this Knowledge was to have yet another point of control over Earth (biological weapons, viruses...***) but it is the White T-Shirt Team, the Lightworkers, who will be the beneficiaries. 

From my perspective, we are learning quickly how to step out of the circle dance and to Trust that Light in the doorway.  I suggest that our DNA is helping us in our baby steps.  As more and more pick up the Trust opened to us, the darkness between the twilight and the dawn will be subsumed.

There is always dishonor among thieves; many wannabe thieves will soon find themselves starving for Light as their cohorts go down one by one….it is the nature of the Beast. 

Collectively, we must overcome fear and turn off the human switch feeding the Supernatural Constrainers

Do not fear the Beast….defang it. 
BE THE LIGHT SOLDIERS!

**********

Defanging the Beast:
The rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say
(from previous post but re-posting here with updates)

CEO JIM ROGERS: Bernanke should be fired

ENGLAND: Blair Government Police Investigation for War Crimes
(Doubtful that you'll see this in the MSM)

BBC5 We Are With You Global March
(Ditto)

JAPAN:  Councillor (Congressman) Yukihisa Fujita
on 911
(double ditto)
Japanese MP Yukihisa Fujita of the Democratic Party of Japan, a member of the House of Councillors in the Diet of Japan is the single most important person to step forward to ask hard questions about 9/11 and the “War on Terror” this year.

AUSTRALIA: Australian voters throw Howard government out of office
"The vote represents a decisive repudiation of the Howard government’s record of lies and criminality."

PAKISTAN 03/24/08:  New Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani
"ordered on Monday the immediate release of all judges detained by President Pervez Musharraf after he imposed emergency rule in November."
throwing down the gauntlet to the US-backed leader Musharraf

CONGRESSMAN DENNIS KUCINICH: ...to Investigate 9/11 Insider Trading

CONGRESSMAN DR. RON PAUL: Constitution written to restrain government, never  people.
Sponsored a bill to overturn the Patriot Act

Eliot Spitzer Downfall: His Hypocracy or Politicorporate assassination?

BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT: Passes indictment of Bush and Cheney
"I hope the one thing that people take from this is 'Hey, it can be done,' aid Kurt Daims, 54, who organized the petition drive that led to the Brattleboro vote."

CANADA: 9/11 Petition Read in Canadian Parliament
"New Democratic Party Deputy House Leader Libby Davies delivers a Parliamentary Petition signed by over 500 Canadians demanding a new 9/11 investigation, in Canada's House of Commons during Routine Proceedings at 1:10 pm on June 10, 2008"

 VIDEO: TRUTH RISING
Alex "InfoWars" Jones
"Seven years after the attacks of September the Eleventh, a global awakening has taken place, the likes of which the world has never seen. As the corporate-controlled media dwindles into extinction, a new breed of journalists and activists has emerged. "

THATS THE SPIRIT! 

***** 

Finally, my Plea to Political Stepford Wives:
WAKE UP, ORGANIZE, and LEAD the Charge of the Wife Brigade!

Jersey Girls: Widows and Families of 911 victims Press for Truth!

America needs positive female role models, not mindless mannequins!  get REAL, pick up a torch, and Light the way!

** I find it interesting that the U.S. Department of Energy (Genomics Energy Gov) plays a big part in the application of DNA sequencing.
***Research into the "accidental" or "suicidal" deaths of way too many top-tier biological scientists since year 2000 is an eye opener.  What Really Happened (?)

I forgot the time
I forgot the present

I have no memories

Only thoughts

I worry of the future
I worry of the past
Troubles upon troubles

Forever are cast

Gone now are seconds and minutes
Hours and days

Years hold fears
Time holds tears

Tired and regretful
Panicked and fretful
Life is gone and left us in shadow
Yearning for now
Not for tomorrow

Turn around and around
A clocks hand and bell sound
Dizzy and loud
Time holds wickedly proud

Time is home to a prison
Light once forced to comply
 Since it has broken through
Light is a fugitive and eternally new

Light has gone to the end
Time has found no new friend

They will meet again
At a point where they are one
All is one at the beginning
Centered they see
One in one will they be

Not in prison

Endlessly Free

-focus neither on the present nor the past, live free and all will be as it is meant to be.

A Moment's Reflection

It strikes me that it would take to give myself a review, a where-its-at since I started looking into the possibility that Spinoza's lens grinding would have had a formative consequence on Spinoza's metaphysics, one that might again, bring his metaphysics back to us - us, the technology-users - in a new way. So much has unfolded, most of which consists in the realization that Spinoza was likely a hard-at-workinstrument maker, an investigator of optics, a process that ran parallel to his metaphysical architectures. Like Spinoza's postulate of mutually expressive Attributes, his engagement with lenses, in his mind, expressed in the "same order and connection" his engagement with ideas. And this co-habitation gave him a uniquely bodied conception of technological means. His approach to issues of invention and mechanization seem studied and cautious, probably shadowed by his pessimism of human knowledge, the often Joyful embrace that the kinds of ideas and freedoms that human beings are capable of are hard-fought and hard-won; they are not made with just with a new turn of a gear, or a lambent conception, but materially and collectively. His lathe was likely elementary, unlike the complex, august creations of most of the optical savants of Europe. He likely embraced somehow in his practice the archetypal relation between the spinning grind cup - exhibiting both change and fixity - and the transfer, under pressure, of its form to a largely transparent, though still clouded and straited, piece of glass: this he patiently, patiently held in his hand. It seems that he ground very small glasses for his microscopes, and if the intuition is true that he made single-lens type scopes, such as those used by Johannes Hudde, Van Leeuwenhoek, Swammerdam, at times Hooke, and eventually Huygens, his practice was most arduous and fine, at times narrowing his attention to pieces of matter, "transpartent atoms," no larger than a pin's head. How much can this care be analogized to the construction of the simple propositions in the Ethics, and how much can the Ethics itself be seen as one large grinding dish for the body/mind of its reader, is still open to the aptitude of future thinking. What does not seem in doubt though is that Spinoza invested daily hours in the craftsman's mediation of shaping semi-transparent material under a mathematical conception, to be placed in material assemblage with the body; and this practice surely both informed and expressed his philosophical conception of what is human, what is God, and the political. The frictions in life were the variable grits of an ocular becoming active, not so much as to crystallize the vision in a moment of clear apparition, but insofar as WE are the lens, our ocularity must be seen as an activity, a becoming clear, in the sense that a knife's edge is clear, clear in what it can do, yet only suggestive of what it will do. I do not mean this in a metaphorical way for Spinoza tried not think in metaphors, but literally. Ideas are meant to sharpen our activity.

The eye of course makes the most interesting of locations, for it is the site of very precise and incessant refractions, but also is one of the most emotively expressive nexuses of the body. Here the timbre of the tightening of a muscle can pull an object unconsciously into focus, or can reveal the subtlest grade of an emotional or conceptual shift to others. The two must coincide for Spinoza. As his driving hand (or his foot) felt the sensitive, resistant grind of the cup, as his ears heard the quality of the abrasive alter under its effect, and his eye picked up the clued traces of method, hour after hour, the glint, strum and lub must have enacted the clarity that was to be acheived, a wholly material, that is to say, physical, expression of craft and thus freedom.

Però, per contro è anche vero che:
se lo dici troppo spesso, fa meno effetto,
sembri infantile e dipendente
e alle volte le persone te le allontani
tanto, pensano, lui mi vuole bene ed è sempre disponibile. . .

C'est la vie.. non è uguale per tutti, ma sarebbe tanto più semplice se..

Vi Amo,
Manrico

There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination. —Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, 1995.

The notion of evolution can be seen as a psychological or hypothetical construct.  It's a mental representation that allows for the description of observed information.  In that sense, it can never 'exist,' because it is simply a mental heuristic to explain things.  We have to be careful to separate observation from constructs.  For example, a person who believes solely in naturalistic evolution, has a mental representation of how distinct observations are tied together (i.e., different types of fossils in different strata layers, and certain observations from biology).

So what is the difference in psychological constructs between someone who ascribes to ID theory versus naturalistic evolution.  If you use a purely ID based construct without theological elements, they may differ only in the assumption of design characteristics versus happenstance development of features and characteristics.  An ID construct may say nothing more than, an intelligence was involved somewhere in the process and therefore, the characteristics we see have a designated or designed purpose.  So the assumption of characteristics exhibited by life forms will be seen as serving some purpose (as if they have been created by an engineer).

With purely naturalistic evolution, the psychological construct leads to different conclusions, predictions, and a focus of research.  Purpose may be ascribed to mate selection, or selective advantage, or the purpose may be seen as a non-functional hold-over from a previous stage of the evolutionary process.  A person using an ID construct would not necessarily deny many of these things, but would also not make the assumption that all characteristics confer a survival advantage, increase mating fitness, or are 'hold-overs.'

I have a construct for evaluating science based on its practical and real-world implications.  So far, in my opinion, the naturalistic evolutionary schema has been applied inappropriately to a number of basic biological phenomena.  Purporting evolution to mere natural selection (i.e., bacterial resistance).  Up until recently, people using naturalistic evolutionary constructs have managed to delay advancement in genetics that may have led to cures of important diseases or improved treatments.  As an example, nearly all organs that were previously viewed as 'vestigial' or evolutionary 'hold-overs,' have been discovered to have important physiological purposes (e.g., appendix, junk DNA, or tonsils).

In my opinion, the design assumption is superior in its possibility for producing long-term real-world benefits to society.  Start with the assumption of design and purpose and think about biology as discovering that purpose.

Now, each construct has societal and personal implications with regard to theology.  Neither construct would speak directly to that issue, but they may be extended with additional constructs.  A person holding a naturalistic evolutionary construct may also come to the conclusion that God exists.  A person holding an ID construct may not believe in God, only that 'something' was responsible for the design.  It turns out that on a deep level people will be motivated to fill in those blank spots with faith (either faith in God or faith in the non-existence of God).  It just turns out that most who ascribe to purely naturalistic philosophies also tend to extend their constructs to include a construct for the non-existent of God and the reverse for the ID crowd.  Or sometimes, it can work in the opposite direction, the assumption of God leads to the construct of ID, or the assumption of no God leads to philosophical naturalism.  So, while neither theory speaks directly to theology, it is intimately entwined with both theories at their philosophical bases as an outcropping or the philosophical bases for these views is an outcropping of a more deeply held belief system (God's existence or non-existence).

I would be interesting in hearing opinions about whether you think it would be more advantageous to use a design construct when conducting research or a naturalistic evolutionary construct.  Naturally, I believe that the design construct is a superior approach in the long term for providing demonstrable benefit to society.

Philosophy, dinosaurs, and zombies.
My day has just been made.

Happy Friday.

I believe that to be alive is to have emotions.  Some of us are more barriered from our emotions than others, but I believe that we all have emotions, no matter how hidden.  Furthermore, I would like to experiment with the idea that this element of human existence is not something we can turn on and off.  We can block our feelings from being expressed outwardly, and can even block them from ourselves, but we cannot remove them or shut them off.  They are there.  Also, whether we block them (from ourselves) or experience them is not within our conscious control.  When we are ready to consciously experience an emotion, we will feel it.  It will come up.

Is it possible for any emotion to be neutral?  That is, can an emotion be both 'not positive' (not even slightly) and 'not negative' (not even slightly)?  It doesn't seem possible by definition.  Is it?  Is there anything about which you can say "I feel strongly neutral"?

The other possibility is that certain things stimulate our emotions, and certain things don't.  Anything that doesn't stimulate our emotions is neutral to us.  In this case the question is, can we experience something without even the slightest emotional affect?   That is, are emotions just one part of our mind that doesn't always get involved?  Or, are emotions more fundamental to our mind, ever present, and always 'touched', like the surface of a pond, by our experiences?

Yes, to a point you are correct. A Slavester has chosen his path, but that was before he (or she) knew what the path was. Once they have crossed the line, they no longer have a choice other than that of "life or death", they are captives of their own decision. They do not become "slaves" untill crossing that line, the point of no return. Think of it as a human drug addiction, only much worse and without the "high".

Thanks for your question.

-HeWillHaveYou

Because our own culture tries so hard to detach from God what happens in the "natural" world, reserving for him only private or distantly "spiritual" things, we rush to give naturalistic explanations for our wars and famines and plagues instead of at least trying to learn the lessons providence may be teaching us. I am not suggesting that it is easy to read providence. We have seen that Scripture itself warns us against trying to infer too much too quickly (Luke 13:1-5). Nevertheless, not to draw ay moral and spiritual lessons from disasters may be nothing more than an index of how far we have sold ourselves to the forces of secularization. We resolutely refuse to "hear" what God says when he speaks to us in the language of judgment--exactly the response of ancient Israel. Indeed, according to this chapter there was a hearty collection of religious leaders who denied any connection between disaster and divine judgment (14:14). It is ever so. So not only will prophets be held accountable for what they say and teach, but the people are responsible for what they choose to listen to.

Is it possible that God has given Americans $4 gas prices (which, by the way are still extremely cheap compared to prices in the rest of the world) to remind us that we are not economically omnipotent?

This doesn't necessarily mean that we should avoid trying to bring those prices down, but it seems that virtually all of the people I hear complaining about this issue (on both sides of the political spectrum) are assuming that we have an entitlement to cheap gasoline, rather than acknowledging thankfully the gift of having enjoyed cheap prices for so long.

No normal person I know likes to lose, especially when they believe or know strongly that they are right. But too many times, some of us win many, many battles in life but end up as losers.

We sometimes achieve our revenge, but end-up having more enemies than before. We work hard for the money and financial security and sometimes end-up with new troubles or even problems that the wealth cannot solve. We know, realistically, that this not always the case. But too many times it is.

To win in life comes in many ways. World political leaders often win an election or have the support of the military/police to sustain their power. Academics will research and find new cures for many diseases, and so on. Sports and entertainment “stars” will achieve success, but still end-up with more problems than before.

But in Biblical terms, losing will come if and when we are rejected by the Creator in the End of our days/lives. So even if we make it rich, famous, powerful, and so on in this life, if we are not preparing to win in the end we will only lose – and be losers. Easy to say and write, but very, very hard to achieve. However, some will say it is not so hard to achieve at all.

I am yet to meet someone who says being a Believer is easy. They will say they prefer to be or enjoy being one, but I have never heard anyone saying it was easy. Nevertheless, they continue because they do not want to end up losing in the end, while they win in this life (or appears to be winning).

How do we ensure that we will win in the end is not easy either. Of all the Bishops, Revs, Pastors, Evangelists, Missionaries, and so on that I have know, met or read about, none of them who have passed-on from this life, have been to heaven and returned to admonish us to continue in the path they took to make it there as well. We just have to trust God, the Bible as the True Word of God and live our lives as a way of life, not merely a religion. Others will have more detailed instructions or advice. But when we all look at our lives as Believers, the Bible is at the center and is the reason why we do what we do to end-up as winners in the end – we all hope.

Have a blessed day.

While it was archiving, I did a little net surfing, and came across the following:

FEIST- How many people remember the iPod Nano commercial that featured a video of this artist's song "1-2-3-4" as they kept removing the video Nanos from a pile one by one? ...

Great song... and it counts to four - so where else would it end up - but on Sesame Street!

Friend in need of prayers :  Regular readers have seen this lady's blog in my blog roll. I knew something was up when she didn't post regularly - and now we know why. This a painful time for her, and I ask that you send her your prayers and good thoughts. She's a very special lady, and has had a bit of a rough go of it.

And speaking of prayers... This article was linked off of one of my newsletters I get every week or so. Titled Top Six Reasons To Forgive, the author Michelle Beaudry does as good a job as any I've seen of explaining WHY forgiveness is such a great thing - not for the other person, but for yourself. Read and enjoy...

The litlest imp is off to swim at a meet today, while I may (or may not) have a play date scheduled today wth my friend Shoshauna and her whole passle of imps.... Have a good Friday, everyone.

One of the principle reasons for embarking upon this present series of posts emanates from a belief that as human beings we have inherited a tremendous potential, particularly when acting together, either for the benefit of over all human well-being, or indeed, to its determent.

A basic tenet of Leadership and Learning Pathways (LLP) is that neither the personality of the individual, and certainly the overall character of society is a fixed entity, both can, in general, be changed either in a positive, or negative, way.

LLP maintains that necessary and successful change is best achieved via shared contribution and investment by all concerned.  It is also achieved through the acknowledgement that each reasoning person has an important role in helping to shape the future of their society and their organization.

Living in a rapidly changing environment we need to learn new and coherent ways of seeing and understanding the world in which we all exist.

At the heart of LLP's philosophy is the belief that each person - and not just those in overall charge of things, or indeed those honoured by the state, academia or the media - is in many respects unique.

That each person has something to offer.  That people in general are concerned about others, that love is more productive than than indifference, that knowledge is more fun than ignorance and that the world can be a better place than that so often depicted on our television screens, or written about in the newspapers.

You can visit LLP's soon to be finished website at:

http://www.leadershipandlearning.org

Bodhi Nite 2008: Seeds of Tomorrow, Blossoms of Yesterday.

Intriguing theme for Bodhi Nite 2008. Not quite sure what is the message behind this year's theme.

A simplistic view of the law of Karma, our action will produce a reaction. The seed that we planted yesterday, may blossoms tomorrow. Is Bodhi Nite 2008's theme consistent with the law of Karma?

I just bought this flower from the florist today. It is fresh and beautiful.

Photography Equipments

Canon EOS 350D
CANON 50mm f/1.8 II Lens