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Addictive behaviors...

Job 31:1 NKJV - "I have made a covenant with my eyes; Why then should I look upon a young woman?

Job 31:2 NKJV - For what [is] the allotment of God from above, And the inheritance of the Almighty from on high?

Job 31:3 NKJV - [Is] it not destruction for the wicked, And disaster for the workers of iniquity?

NEWSWEEK:

Reliable figures for the number of diagnosed sex addicts are difficult to come by, but the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health, an education and sex-addiction treatment organization, estimates that between 3 and 5 percent of the U.S. population—or more than 9 million people—could meet the criteria for addiction. Some 1,500 sex therapists treating compulsive behavior are practicing today, up from fewer than 100 a decade ago, say several researchers and clinicians, while dozens of rehabilitation centers now advertise treatment programs, up from just five or six in the same period. The demographics are changing, too. “Where it used to be 40- to 50-year-old men seeking treatment, now there are more females, adolescents, and senior citizens,” says Tami VerHelst, vice president of the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals. “Grandfathers getting caught with porn on their computers by grandkids, and grandkids sexting at 12.”

In fact, some of the growth has been fueled by the digital revolution, which has revved up America’s carnal metab­olism. Where previous generations had to risk public embarrassment at dirty bookstores and X-rated movie theaters, the Web has made pornography accessible, free, and anonymous. An estimated 40 million people a day in the U.S. log on to some 4.2 million pornographic websites, according to the Internet Filter Software Review. And though watching porn isn’t the same as seeking out real live sex, experts say the former can be a kind of gateway drug to the latter.

“Not everyone who looks at a nude image is going to become a sex addict. But the constant exposure is going to trigger people who are susceptible,” says Dr. David Sack, chief executive of Los Angeles’s Promises Treatment Centers.

A covenant, or in Hebrew: bĕriyth, means alliance, pledge, usually between God and man.

It doesn't mean your not motivated.

It's kind of like knowing you can't be around certain foods, you can't be around drinkers if alcohol is your temptation. God does not "lead us into temptation," it is the evil one that does that.

We find ourselves more preoccupied with our online persona's, and that defeats our quiet time spent praying, reading, meditating...catching up OFFLINE with friends and family.

Here's the Newsweek article. My advice: don't get caught up, and if you are - get some help, fast!

[Is] it not destruction for the wicked, And disaster for the workers of iniquity?

Before your laptop, your text messages, your tweets and Facebook updates, we were once...human.

Uncle_______________

“The peanut-crunching crowd
“Shoves in to see

“Them unwrap me hand and foot—
“The big strip tease.
“Gentlemen, ladies

“These are my hands
“My knees.”

“Lady Lazarus” From Sylvia Plat: Her Life and Work. Copyright © 1973 by Eileen M. Aird

© 13 November 2011, the Griot Poet
1 Corinthians 13:11 - When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

His name is not important.

He, was my aunt’s live-in-boyfriend,

So, in the sixties, “uncle” worked for me.

His name is not important.

At four years of age,

He was a giant to me,

As I bathed in a bathroom sink in Washington, DC.

His name is not important.

My mother came in screaming,

Wielding a lead pipe

Striking my “uncle” across

His taller frame,

Bourbon on his breath

As his unconscious frame smacked the bathroom mat

We left DC on the next bus out (never went back)

My father picked us up in Winston…

My first meltdown was in front of a

Counselor that discerned the screen

I’d erected mentally

When I allowed myself to see:

I drank, I cursed, I swore, I whored... I screamed!

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

I have seen others like me, men and women lately

For whom their screens have been laid bare

By the worship of sports icons and demonology’s Mammon

I suddenly understood my favorite fiction hero:

The Dark Knight ™ became what he could not be

When as a child “all sense left his life”:

Strong,

Intelligent,

Disciplined,

Gadget(ed),

Martial arts; prose and technology…made sense to me.

At first,

My father was angry that I did not tell him before (nor did my mother),

I could not, nor could she

He was our protector

And he would have instantly become our avenger

And I wanted him as the father…the great father he’d been for me

In a ghetto where too many males

Knew their dads

Through barbed wire gates

And plate glass screens,

And mine was no longer opaque,

It was bare, clear, receded.

And in that light

I found a love that accepted me.

Despite; beyond my tears and screams…is freedom…is healing.

1 Corinthians 13:13 - And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these [is] love.

Millstone Prophecies...

Forgive me...to be an oURLife teacher, we MUST pass a criminal backgldround check! Period! The children at New Light will NOT be ministered to by monsters! Forgive my zeal...I am ANGRY! God forgive me...

*****

Matthew 18:1 NKJV - At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

Matthew 18:2 NKJV - Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them,

Matthew 18:3 NKJV - and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:4 NKJV - "Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:5 NKJV - "Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.

Matthew 18:6 NKJV - "But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Matthew 18:7 NKJV - "Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!

*****

Tribute to the Overweight Lover...

Cut down by pneumonia. It reminds me of the verses during Job’s travail:

Job 8:9 (For we [are but of] yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth [are] a shadow:)

Job 14:1 "Man [who is] born of woman Is of few days and full of trouble.

Job 14:2 He comes forth like a flower and fades away; He flees like a shadow and does not continue.

I have the unique recollection of being in high school (yes, I wasn’t born an adult) when the first rap song “King Tim the III: Personality Jock” (You Tube here; Wikipedia here) and the first rap album “The Sugar Hill Gang” (You Tube here, Wikipedia here) came out. It made my senior year in high school absolutely crazy. Everybody was rapping; everybody had a “beat box”; people were breaking their necks/winding up in ER break dancing.

It’s conventional wisdom that Sugar Hill invented rap. No, it had been around in Be Bop and Beat Poetry: The Watts Prophets; The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron.

It originally meant “Rhythm And Poetry.” Hip-Hop wasn’t a lifestyle or a culture: it’s what you did when the song played (as in danced). It had nothing to do with guns, gangs, sex or drugs. It did come out in 1979, 11 years after the death of Martin Luther King: I think we were trying to find our way as a culture, with grace and dignity.

As Heavy D described it once, Rap was our Opera, because like Opera it originated from the streets. It was meant to be our version of CNN, telling the real deal going on in the ‘hood without becoming a minstrel show. That ended when the record executives got hold of it; warped it and made it the parade of clowns dragging their pants below their waists it is now. (See the Real History of Sagging)

Heavy D was the “Overweight Lover,” giving dignity to plus sizes. He was losing weight for his health I heard this morning on the Tom Joyner Morning Show. But notice at the BET Awards: he’s not cursing, he’s not demeaning women, he’s not representing his ‘hood, he's not flashing sets; he’s not acting at all like a gangster: he looks as if he’s enjoying himself. Nobody's asking young people not to enjoy themselves. If you practice acting like a gangster, you will eventually be one, and part of the prison industrial complex. According to the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution: that makes you a voluntary slave.

Before you buy another CD or download another song: think about what you’re filling your minds with. You become what you meditate on:

Pro 23:6 Do not eat the bread of a miser, Nor desire his delicacies;

Pro 23:7 For as he thinks in his heart, so [is] he. "Eat and drink!" he says to you, But his heart is not with you.

Rest in peace with the Prince of Peace, Heavy D!

Tears of the Good Shepherd...

I'm talking about this...not because I'm complaining or "putting my mouth on the king," as Ecclesiastes stated. I am concerned that this may be the beginnings of the "Great Falling Away (2 Thessalonians 2:3)."

John 10:11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.
John 10:14 "I am the good shepherd; and I know My [sheep], and am known by My own."

John 11:35 Jesus wept.
John 11:43 And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
John 11:44 And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

No other title needed...

...ponder this:

Prophetic + Prosperity =...

1 Timothy 6:10 "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

"...love of money" = philargyria (Greek): avarice, avaricec.1300, from O.Fr. avarice (12c.), from L. avaritia "greed," from avarus "greedy," adj. form of avere "crave, long for." noun insatiable greed for riches; inordinate, miserly desire to gain and hoard wealth.

"During the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, Walter Rauschenbusch, a Baptist minister, inspired others to fight against the economic inequality of the time with the “Social Gospel.” Social Gospel ministers helped inspire President Theodore Roosevelt to break up business monopolies and abolish child labor, historians say.

"During the Great Depression, Father John A. Ryan built such a national following condemning the excess of capitalism that he was invited to deliver prayers at a presidential inauguration.

"The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spent the last three years of his life focusing on poverty. When he was assassinated in 1968, he was on the cusp of leading a nonviolent, interracial army of poor people into the nation’s capital to demand a fairer distribution of wealth."

These ministers who took on the big economic issues of the day were inspired by the example of Jesus, who angered the powerful by condemning the economic exploitation of the poor, religious scholars say. His teachings are seen throughout the New Testament in parables such as “The Rich Man and Lazarus.” From CNN's Belief Blog.

Jesus himself said: "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house." (Mark 6:4).

According to Judaism 101, "A prophet is basically a spokesman for G-d, a person chosen by G-d to speak to people on G-d's behalf and convey a message or teaching. Prophets were role models of holiness, scholarship and closeness to G-d. They set the standards for the entire community." (from the link, Jews apparently avoid writing the Name of God as Christians would to avoid the written name later being defaced). Women fulfilled this role as well!

Prophets are known for speaking "truth to power."Samuel prophesied to Saul when he used a medium after his death to speak with him; Nathan did to King David about his sin with Bathsheba; John the Baptist personified himself as Isaiah the, "voice crying in the wilderness"; Jesus sent the money changers out of the temple, their main interest profit, not worship.

In America, you will have the development of both archetypes of ministry models. I've often said prosperity is not a tool of the elite: it is what happens when you systemically don't allow it for the masses, and hoard it for the few.

I title this blog post as an equation. The conclusion I leave blank. I think it time we speak truth to power, while teaching our flocks not only to tithe, but how to manage the resources God has given us.

If you are giving your 10%; you're thinking of God first. That puts you into the mindset of thinking of others. In order to give your 10%, you "have to know what the other 90% is doing!" (Pastor Valerie). "There is money in the earth; no one has blown it up or burnt it up." (Bishop Hilliard) That is the result of speaking truth to power and turning away from men and institutions as gods...to the One that Sustains!

28th day...

The worshipers of mammon are clearing out the occupiers of Wall Street.

Crown publishing does a study on money management, practical and spiritual guidance for the church. Tithing is not just a "money scheme." It is a way for God to bless families and nations. Right now, we as a nation are not acting as "the blessed," and have made idols out of secular men and institutions that hoard wealth to themselves.

That's OK by me. According to the Word: they're just holding my money!

Rather than compose thoughts from the text, I'll let the text speak for itself...

Ecclesiastes 10:19 NKJV - A feast is made for laughter, And wine makes merry; But money answers everything.
Ecclesiastes 10:20 NKJV - Do not curse the king, even in your thought; Do not curse the rich, even in your bedroom; For a bird of the air may carry your voice, And a bird in flight may tell the matter.

Proverbs 13:22 NKJV - A good [man] leaves an inheritance to his children's children, But the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.

Matthew 6:24 NKJV - "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Matthew 6:25 NKJV - "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?


Luke 16:13 NKJV - "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
Luke 16:14 NKJV - Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him.
Luke 16:15 NKJV - And He said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.


1 Timothy 6:6 NKJV - Now godliness with contentment is great gain.
1 Timothy 6:7 NKJV - For we brought nothing into [this] world, [and it is] certain we can carry nothing out.
1 Timothy 6:8 NKJV - And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.
1 Timothy 6:9 NKJV - But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and [into] many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
1 Timothy 6:10 NKJV - For the love of money (philargyria) is a root of all [kinds of] evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.


Malachi 3:1 NKJV - "Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming," Says the LORD of hosts.
Malachi 3:2 NKJV - "But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He [is] like a refiner's fire And like launderers' soap.
Malachi 3:3 NKJV - He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, And purge them as gold and silver, That they may offer to the LORD An offering in righteousness.
Malachi 3:4 NKJV - "Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem Will be pleasant to the LORD, As in the days of old, As in former years.
Malachi 3:5 NKJV - And I will come near you for judgment; I will be a swift witness Against sorcerers, Against adulterers, Against perjurers, Against those who exploit wage earners and widows and orphans, And against those who turn away an alien--Because they do not fear Me," Says the LORD of hosts.
Malachi 3:6 NKJV - "For I [am] the LORD, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.
Malachi 3:7 NKJV - Yet from the days of your fathers You have gone away from My ordinances And have not kept [them]. Return to Me, and I will return to you," Says the LORD of hosts. "But you said, 'In what way shall we return?'
Malachi 3:8 NKJV - "Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, 'In what way have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings.
Malachi 3:9 NKJV - You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, [Even] this whole nation.
Malachi 3:10 NKJV - Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this," Says the LORD of hosts, "If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you [such] blessing That [there will] not [be room] enough [to receive it].
Malachi 3:11 NKJV - "And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field," Says the LORD of hosts;
Malachi 3:12 NKJV - "And all nations will call you blessed, For you will be a delightful land," Says the LORD of hosts.
Malachi 3:13 NKJV - "Your words have been harsh against Me," Says the LORD, "Yet you say, 'What have we spoken against You?'
Malachi 3:14 NKJV - You have said, 'It is useless to serve God; What profit [is it] that we have kept His ordinance, And that we have walked as mourners Before the LORD of hosts?
Malachi 3:15 NKJV - So now we call the proud blessed, For those who do wickedness are raised up; They even tempt God and go free.' "
Malachi 3:16 NKJV - Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, And the LORD listened and heard [them]; So a book of remembrance was written before Him For those who fear the LORD And who meditate on His name.
Malachi 3:17 NKJV - "They shall be Mine," says the LORD of hosts, "On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them As a man spares his own son who serves him."
Malachi 3:18 NKJV - Then you shall again discern Between the righteous and the wicked, Between one who serves God And one who does not serve Him.

Forbidden Fruit...

Peeps...

You're seeing a lot of talk lately about political figures having relationships outside of their marriage. For some that claim piety, the defense will always be "gotcha" journalism. As Ecclesiastes 1:9 stated: "there's no new thing under the sun."

Putting David's business out there:

2 Samuel 11:1 NKJV - It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out [to battle], that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
2 Samuel 11:2 NKJV - Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king's house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman [was] very beautiful to behold.
2 Samuel 11:3 NKJV - So David sent and inquired about the woman. And [someone] said, "[Is] this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?"
2 Samuel 11:4 NKJV - Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house.
2 Samuel 11:5 NKJV - And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, "I [am] with child."


In the book: "Temptations Men Face: Straightforward Talk on Power, Money, Affairs, Perfectionism, Insensitivity" (Saltshaker Books Saltshaker Books) [Paperback]," Tom Eisenman analyzed verse one of this chapter of Samuel. It was spring and kings were expected to go to war. It could have been that David "just wasn't feeling it," and Eiseman surmised why he wasn't feeling so conquering and kingly:

David had hit the big 4-0.

Granted, he had everything a king in his position could ever want, but his lack of certitude with his manly vigor made him hit on his best friend's wife! Uriah was so devoted to David, he wouldn't sleep with Bathsheba to cover up the affair and pregnancy (as David had tried to arrange). He was "forced" to kill his friend, then the Prophet Nathan stepped in...and jacked him up! (2 Samuel: 1 - 12)

Pysch Central blogs about the "Forbidden Fruit" hypothesis whereby ironically you basically want what you say you don't want. A concluding paragraph in the article (see link) states:

"Put with the existing research literature on this subject, the researchers suggest that when inattention to attractive alternatives is internally motivated, it leads to positive relationship processes. We have to consciously limit — and want to limit — our looking for attractive alternatives outside of our relationship."

Internal motivation:

Job 31:1 NKJV - "I have made a covenant [bĕriyth - alliance, pledge between God and man] with my eyes; Why then should I look upon a young woman?
Job 31:2 NKJV - For what [is] the allotment of God from above, And the inheritance of the Almighty from on high?
Job 31:3 NKJV - [Is] it not destruction for the wicked, And disaster for the workers of iniquity?
Job 31:4 NKJV - Does He not see my ways, And count all my steps?
Job 31:5 NKJV - "If I have walked with falsehood, Or if my foot has hastened to deceit,
Job 31:6 NKJV - Let me be weighed on honest scales, That God may know my integrity.
Job 31:7 NKJV - If my step has turned from the way, Or my heart walked after my eyes, Or if any spot adheres to my hands,
Job 31:8 NKJV - [Then] let me sow, and another eat; Yes, let my harvest be rooted out.
Job 31:9 NKJV - "If my heart has been enticed by a woman, Or [if] I have lurked at my neighbor's door,
Job 31:10 NKJV - [Then] let my wife grind for another, And let others bow down over her.
Job 31:11 NKJV - For that [would be] wickedness; Yes, it [would be] iniquity [deserving of] judgment.

Romans 7:21 KJV - I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Romans 7:22 KJV - For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Romans 7:23 KJV - But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Romans 7:24 KJV - O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Romans 7:25 KJV - I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

No New Thing...

Ecclesiastes 1:9 NKJV - That which has been [is] what will be, that which [is] done is what will be done, and [there is] nothing new under the sun.

1 Corinthians 14:34 NKJV - Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but [they are] to be submissive, as the law also says.

The second is a VERY controversial statement, and some denominations have staked their dogma on it. However, there may have been a more PRACTICAL reason Paul wanted the women to go mum. The Greek word we translate to "keep silence" is sigaō literally meaning "hold your peace," i.e. temporary, conditional for the times and the place Paul was trying to plant a church...

The Religion Of Corinth

In Corinth you could find the cults of the gods of Egypt, Rome and Greece. The temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, stood atop the Acrocorinth.

"A famous temple to Aphrodite had stood on the summit of Acrocorinth in the Classical Age... It had fallen into ruins by Paul's time, but successors to its 1,000 cult prostitutes continued to ply their profession in the city below. Many of them were no doubt housed in the lofts above the 33 wine shops uncovered in the modern excavations. Corinth was a city catering to sailors and traveling salesmen. Even by the Classical Age it had earned an unsavory reputation for its libertine atmosphere; to call someone 'a Corinthian lass' was to impugn her morals. It may well be that one of Corinth's attractions for Paul was precisely this reputation of immorality." (The Biblical World In Pictures).

The city was filled with sailors who gladly spent their money there. The name "Corinth" became a synonym for immorality. This temple gave Corinth it's reputation for gross immorality of which Paul often spoke (1 Cor. 6:9-20; 2 Cor. 12:20-21).

"She had a reputation for commercial prosperity, but she was also a byword for evil living. The very word korinthiazesthai, to live like a Corinthian, had become a part of the Greek language, and meant to live with drunken and immoral debauchery ... Aelian, the late Greek writer, tells us that if ever a Corinthian was shown upon the stage in a Greek play he was shown drunk. The very name Corinth was synonymous with debauchery and there was one source of evil in the city which was known all over the civilized world. Above the isthmus towered the hill of the Acropolis, and on it stood the great temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. To that temple there were attached one thousand priestesses who were sacred prostitutes, and in the evenings they descended from the Acropolis and plied their trade upon the streets of Corinth, until it became a Greek proverb, 'It is not every man who can afford a journey to Corinth.' In addition to these cruder sins, there flourished far more recondite vices, which had come in with the traders and the sailors from the ends of the earth, until Corinth became not only a synonym for wealth and luxury, drunkenness and debauchery, but also for filth." (William Barclay, The Letters To The Corinthians, p. 2-3).

Ref: Corinth, Greece in the New Testament

..."[there is] nothing new under the sun"...in Arizona.

"No Future Without Forgiveness"...

Wisdom...

STAY in school; PAY attention; TURN off the cell phones/I-pads/I-pods.

"S/He who solves problems gets PAID!" Bishop Hilliard

Pro 3:13 NKJV - Happy [is] the man [who] finds wisdom, And the man [who] gains understanding;
Pro 3:14 NKJV - For her proceeds [are] better than the profits of silver, And her gain than fine gold.
Pro 3:15 NKJV - She [is] more precious than rubies, And all the things you may desire cannot compare with her.
Pro 3:16 NKJV - Length of days [is] in her right hand, In her left hand riches and honor.

Grandma's Got it Good...

I declare to you: YOU can have it better!

The country added zero jobs in the month of August. For some, that's a call to panic, point fingers, place blame.

Yo...it's been worse:

2Ki 6:25 NKJV - And there was a great famine in Samaria; and indeed they besieged it until a donkey's head was [sold] for eighty [shekels] of silver, and one-fourth of a kab of dove droppings (ahem: bird doo-doo) for five [shekels] of silver.
2Ki 6:26 NKJV - Then, as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, "Help, my lord, O king!"
2Ki 6:27 NKJV - And he said, "If the LORD does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?"
2Ki 6:28 NKJV - Then the king said to her, "What is troubling you?" And she answered, "This woman said to me, 'Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.'
2Ki 6:29 NKJV - "So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, 'Give your son, that we may eat him'; but she has hidden her son."
2Ki 6:30 NKJV - Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he tore his clothes; and as he passed by on the wall, the people looked, and there underneath [he had] sackcloth on his body.
2Ki 6:31 NKJV - Then he said, "God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today!"
2Ki 6:32 NKJV - But Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. And [the king] sent a man ahead of him, but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, "Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent someone to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door. [Is] not the sound of his master's feet behind him?"
2Ki 6:33 NKJV - And while he was still talking with them, there was the messenger, coming down to him; and then [the king] said, "Surely this calamity [is] from the LORD; why should I wait for the LORD any longer?"

2Ki 7:1 NKJV - Then Elisha said, "Hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the LORD: 'Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour [shall be sold] for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.' "
2Ki 7:2 NKJV - So an officer on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God and said, "Look, [if] the LORD would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?" And he said, "In fact, you shall see [it] with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it."
2Ki 7:3 NKJV - Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, "Why are we sitting here until we die?
2Ki 7:4 NKJV - "If we say, 'We will enter the city,' the famine [is] in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore, come, let us surrender to the army of the Syrians. If they keep us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall only die."
2Ki 7:5 NKJV - And they rose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians; and when they had come to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, to their surprise no one [was] there.
2Ki 7:6 NKJV - For the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear the noise of chariots and the noise of horses--the noise of a great army; so they said to one another, "Look, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us!"
2Ki 7:7 NKJV - Therefore they arose and fled at twilight, and left the camp intact--their tents, their horses, and their donkeys--and they fled for their lives.
2Ki 7:8 NKJV - And when these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they went into one tent and ate and drank, and carried from it silver and gold and clothing, and went and hid [them]; then they came back and entered another tent, and carried [some] from there [also], and went and hid [it].
2Ki 7:9 NKJV - Then they said to one another, "We are not doing right. This day [is] a day of good news, and we remain silent. If we wait until morning light, some punishment will come upon us. Now therefore, come, let us go and tell the king's household."
2Ki 7:10 NKJV - So they went and called to the gatekeepers of the city, and told them, saying, "We went to the Syrian camp, and surprisingly no one [was] there, not a human sound--only horses and donkeys tied, and the tents intact."
2Ki 7:11 NKJV - And the gatekeepers called out, and they told [it] to the king's household inside.
2Ki 7:12 NKJV - So the king arose in the night and said to his servants, "Let me now tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we [are] hungry; therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, 'When they come out of the city, we shall catch them alive, and get into the city.' "
2Ki 7:13 NKJV - And one of his servants answered and said, "Please, let several [men] take five of the remaining horses which are left in the city. Look, they [may either become] like all the multitude of Israel that are left in it; or indeed, [I say], they [may become] like all the multitude of Israel left from those who are consumed; so let us send them and see."
2Ki 7:14 NKJV - Therefore they took two chariots with horses; and the king sent them in the direction of the Syrian army, saying, "Go and see."
2Ki 7:15 NKJV - And they went after them to the Jordan; and indeed all the road [was] full of garments and weapons which the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. So the messengers returned and told the king.
2Ki 7:16 NKJV - Then the people went out and plundered the tents of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was [sold] for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD.
2Ki 7:17 NKJV - Now the king had appointed the officer on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. But the people trampled him in the gate, and he died, just as the man of God had said, who spoke when the king came down to him.

So, let's recap:

1. There was a famine in the land: an economic downturn, so bad people started eating and valuing bird poop and canabalizing their own children!
2. The Man of God spoke the Word and circumstances changed dramatically!
3. The scoffer of the Man of God not only ended up not taking part of this bonanza: he was killed by the hungry in a stampede!

If you've got 10 dollars, tithe one.
If you've got 100 dollars, tithe ten.
HEAR the Word from your Man or Woman of God and believe it!

1Pe 2:9 NKJV - But you [are] a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
1Pe 2:10 NKJV - who once [were] not a people but [are] now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.


Grandma (and Grandpa) may have it good right now...you can have it better!

Tears and Sadness

I particularly watched Pastor Tims on the Word Network, and was blessed by his ministry.

That doesn't mean we can't all "slip." Every man, every woman has their drug; their thorn in their side that they struggle with.

2 Corinthians 12:7 - And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.

2 Corinthians 12:8 - Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me.

2 Corinthians 12:9 - And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.


Please pray for the church family at New Destiny Christian Center.

Redeeming the Times...

Ephesians 5:1 NKJV - Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.
Ephesians 5:2 NKJV - And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
Ephesians 5:3 NKJV - But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints;
Ephesians 5:4 NKJV - neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
Ephesians 5:5 NKJV - For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
Ephesians 5:6 NKJV - Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
Ephesians 5:7 NKJV - Therefore do not be partakers with them.
Ephesians 5:8 NKJV - For you were once darkness, but now [you are] light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
Ephesians 5:9 NKJV - (for the fruit of the Spirit [is] in all goodness, righteousness, and truth),
Ephesians 5:10 NKJV - finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.
Ephesians 5:11 NKJV - And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose [them].
Ephesians 5:12 NKJV - For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.
Ephesians 5:13 NKJV - But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light.
Ephesians 5:14 NKJV - Therefore He says: "Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light."
Ephesians 5:15 NKJV - See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise,
Ephesians 5:16 NKJV - redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Ephesians 5:17 NKJV - Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord [is].
Ephesians 5:18 NKJV - And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,
Ephesians 5:19 NKJV - speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,
Ephesians 5:20 NKJV - giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Ephesians 5:21 NKJV - submitting to one another in the fear of God.


With the president being called "tar baby" and "boy" by a congressman and a news pundit, I admit my defenses were up.

So, when I had to deliver a discipline to a subordinate, his rejection of the reprimand I took probably a little more personally than I should have.

I have a genuinely good working relationship with him. I remained calm in the brusk encounter, but I fumed later in my office.

I listened to praise music on Pandora (Canton Jones station), and Sho Baracka piped "Love of My Life." He said something to the effect "don't act like the fools around you."

I don't know if that's scriptural, but I do recall a sign my mother put on my bedroom wall:

"It isn't smart to argue with a fool: listeners can't tell which is which."

So, I'm praying for my subordinate. I'm not reducing the incident to race or politics. He just doesn't agree. I'm covered by the Grace of Almighty God!

That's what the Word tells us to do...sometimes through gritted teeth when our flesh wants to punch the wall or someone's lights out.

The New Jim Crow...

Priorities...

Wealth Gap Rises to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks and Hispanics

Ecclesiastes 10:18 NKJV - Because of laziness the building decays, And through idleness of hands the house leaks.
Ecclesiastes 10:19 NKJV - A feast is made for laughter, And wine makes merry; But money answers everything.
Ecclesiastes 10:20 NKJV - Do not curse the king, even in your thought; Do not curse the rich, even in your bedroom; For a bird of the air may carry your voice, And a bird in flight may tell the matter.


I said this before, maybe not necessarily on this blog, but in conversation on this subject that I've thought deeply about.

You see, I look at this as a matter of focus and priorities.

Assets - Liabilities = Net Worth, and median, or in the middle is not an average but an indicator of priorities.

You can call it politics; you can call it racism, but there are some things we're in charge of.

Up From Slavery was the nicer, politically-correct autobiography of Booker Taliaferro Washington.

Amazon.com Review
Nineteenth-century African American businessman, activist, and educator Booker Taliaferro Washington's Up from Slavery is one of the greatest American autobiographies ever written. Its mantras of black economic empowerment, land ownership, and self-help inspired generations of black leaders, including Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. In rags-to-riches fashion, Washington recounts his ascendance from early life as a mulatto slave in Virginia to a 34-year term as president of the influential, agriculturally based Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. From that position, Washington reigned as the most important leader of his people, with slogans like "cast down your buckets," which emphasized vocational merit rather than the academic and political excellence championed by his contemporary rival W.E.B. Du Bois. Though many considered him too accommodating to segregationists, Washington, as he said in his historic "Atlanta Compromise" speech of 1895, believed that "political agitation alone would not save [the Negro]," and that "property, industry, skill, intelligence, and character" would prove necessary to black Americans' success. The potency of his philosophies are alive today in the nationalist and conservative camps that compose the complex quilt of black American society. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Note this contrast in Thomas J. Norrell's biography of the man: "Up From History":

Product Description
Since the 1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr., has personified black leadership with his use of direct action protests against white authority. A century ago, in the era of Jim Crow, Booker T. Washington pursued a different strategy to lift his people. In this compelling biography, Norrell reveals how conditions in the segregated South led Washington to call for a less contentious path to freedom and equality. He urged black people to acquire economic independence and to develop the moral character that would ultimately gain them full citizenship. Although widely accepted as the most realistic way to integrate blacks into American life during his time, Washington’s strategy has been disparaged since the 1960s.

The first full-length biography of Booker T. in a generation, Up from History recreates the broad contexts in which Washington worked: He struggled against white bigots who hated his economic ambitions for blacks, African-American intellectuals like W. E. B. Du Bois who resented his huge influence, and such inconstant allies as Theodore Roosevelt. Norrell details the positive power of Washington’s vision, one that invoked hope and optimism to overcome past exploitation and present discrimination. Indeed, his ideas have since inspired peoples across the Third World that there are many ways to struggle for equality and justice. Up from History reinstates this extraordinary historical figure to the pantheon of black leaders, illuminating not only his mission and achievement but also, poignantly, the man himself.

This sounds like I'm copping out, but hear me out.

Finland, Japan and Korea are number one in science and math education. The US (we) are not.

I can't speak for Finland, but Asians are a group that through my participation in the martial arts I admire. Their priorities are education, entrepreneurship and cooperation.

Once, we had Black Wall Street, which housed multimillionaires due to the Oklahoma oil boom. It was decimated in 1921 due to a race riot.

Booker T Washington was remembered as a sellout, "Uncle Tom," accommodater.

In the 21st Century, we are losing "global market share" because we can't all be rappers, ballers, shot callers.

It is here where the two distinct archetypes in the black community church: the prophetic and the prosperity ministries, need to find common cause.

In the link above on Finland, Japan and Korea, they do point out that countries with cultural disparities do experience a difference in educational attainment for their minorities. It probably helps that Finland, Japan and Korea did not have a Civil War or Civil Rights movement.

Some things we can't help without God's help. Other things are up to us. Rapping, balling or education, entrepreneurship and cooperation: a matter of priorities...

[Sick, and] Wicked...

Ezekiel 18:23 NKJV - "Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?" says the Lord GOD, "[and] not that he should turn from his ways and live?

Ezekiel 18:24 NKJV - "But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked [man] does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die.

"A 32-year-old Norwegian [Breivik] was detained and charged with terrorism, but police have not officially released his name. Local media have identified the man as Breivik, who has been described as a right-wing Christian fundamentalist."

I possess a book: When Religion Becomes Evils: 5 Warning Signs, by Charles Kimball. After a bad experience with another ministry before New Light, it was cathartic. It helped me heal and move on to New Light, be active and productive in the Kingdom of God.

The five warning signs are:

1. Absolute Truth Claims
2. Blind Obedience
3. Establishing the "Ideal Time"
4. The End Justifies Any Means
5. Declaring Holy War

Before you "typecast": the author points out all religions are susceptible to these five signs - a Buddhist Doomsday Cult is almost as much a contradiction-in-terms as right-wing Christian Fundamentalist ("in the world; not OF the world").

Breivik had a company of 739 employees. In the agricultural business, purchasing large amounts of fertilizer probably didn't alert anyone...until this.

Pray for the people of Norway. There is no distance in the Spirit.

Pray, if you can, for Breivik. He's been misguided by ideologues from the faith he may have once correctly embraced.

Galatians 1:6 NKJV - I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel,

Galatians 1:7 NKJV - which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

We'll see what this persona-non-Grata has to say for himself Monday, and how many of these warning signs he exhibits...

Bourne Amnesia

© 18 July 2011, the Griot Poet

Did I miss the memo?

When we were brought to Plymouth Rock, it wasn’t a voluntary vacation…down in the bowels of overstocked ships, sleeping in bile, human feces and piss, separated through Goree Island gates from our continent, languages and tribes fulfilling Deuteronomy prophesies of slavery in “a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young.”¹

Did I miss the memo?

"Your sons and your daughters [shall be] given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail [with longing] for them all day long; and [there shall be] no strength in your hand.”² Brought to a foreign land, scarred by whips physically; eyes cast downward mentally; “Willie Lynch” myth beaten us down spiritually…

Did I miss the memo?

When Harriet Tubman conducted the Underground Railroad – at gunpoint – to those that would decide to first blow their joint, then change their minds and side with their previous “Simon Legree” plantation masters, the equivalent of going back across seas of reeds to Egypt, bondage and slavery?

Did I miss the memo?

A Civil War was fought not for state’s rights, but the right of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” by original humanity deftly defined constitutionally as three-fifths like livestock to increase the stocks of landowners and founding fathers fathering Sally Hemming’s mulatto children.

Did I miss the memo?

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe,” wise quotes by Frederick Douglass, playing out over decades in mind-programming entertainment minstrelsy shows.

Did I miss the memo?

Medgar Evers murdered by Byron de La Beckwith: one lone nut theory I can get with, but Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were not too long after their 1st and only face-to-face meeting (after public animosity) assassinated by actors that should not have had access to them.

Did I miss the memo?

When we were lampooned in minstrel shows, burnt cork face, step-n-fetch blows to our woman and manhood, birth of Jim Crow by Thomas D. Rice to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ not-so-subtle statement that English Lord Greystoke-Tarzan is needed to tame the African jungle.

The modern context is Bankrupt Entertainment Television, birthed when Rick James couldn’t play his videos on MTV, now VIACOM owns the whole shebang; we’re mentally/spiritually being programmed to desire those things we once fought against as labels of our libel.

“My people perish for a lack of knowledge.”³

Did I miss the memo?

1. Deuteronomy 28:50
2. Ibid, 28:32
3. Hosea 4:6

"Super Bug"...

2Ti 3:1 NKJV - But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come:
2Ti 3:2 NKJV - For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
2Ti 3:3 NKJV - unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good,
2Ti 3:4 NKJV - traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
2Ti 3:5 NKJV - having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
2Ti 3:6 NKJV - For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts,
2Ti 3:7 NKJV - always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Looks like an "old school" bug couldn't let AIDS steal its limelight.

Guys: put it on lockdown! Take it from a former "playa-playa." Unless, you LIKE your penis feeling like a flamethrower every time you go to the bathroom (regardless of the "number").

Ladies: no symtoms for the most part. Zip. Nada. Zero. Meaning when you find a mate and you plan to have kids...you may not be able to. Same lockdown advice to you as well.

Everyone: untreated, this can be life-threatening, as in YOURS.

Center for Disease Control: STD Facts - Gonorrhea
USA Today: New 'superbug' strain of gonorrhea resistant to antibiotics

Watching...

...the inevitable vote for same-sex marriage in New York.

Watch is all I could do.

I could hit you with a lot of scripture, but I won't do that.

I will pray for our youth.

That's really all I can do.

1979: I was in high school when the first rap song by the Fatback Band: "King Tim the III: Personality Jock," was followed the next week by the first rap album: "The Sugar Hill Gang" ("To the hip, hop, hip-hip-hop, hip-hip hop and you don't stop. Rocking to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie to the rhythm of the boogity beat.")

You're exposed: the world went from 3 stations and UHF channels to 24/7 entertainment, and what you can't get on hundreds of channels, you can get on the Internet. You're convinced that Google supercedes books and the Dewey Decimal System in libraries. You have dreams, hopes for a better future that you think will drop from the sky in your waiting laps. The books you SHOULD read: your history, and why family was so important to us, why knowledge, not entertainment was a sacred as worship.

I'll pray your innocence extends a little longer, and that your childhood is not a fleeting breeze...

A Father's Day Tribute...

“New Light Beulah was organized in December of 1867 when some 565 African Americans opted to withdraw and worship on alternate Sundays from the white members of Beulah Baptist Church. Both congregations worshipped in the same sanctuary. The eleven-member White Beulah Baptist Church worshipped on the first and third Sundays. The Black congregation of New Light Beulah worshipped on the second and fourth Sundays of each month. Prior to the organization of New Light Beulah, one other Black congregation had been organized out of Beulah Baptist. That congregation was Shiloh Baptist Church when 40 Black members withdrew on May 14, 1866. Shiloh's pastor was Reverend William Weston Adams, a former slave and member of Beulah Baptist who had been ordained November 12, 1865. Reverend Adams along with two other former slaves were ordained by Beulah's Pastor James Lawrence Reynolds shortly after the Civil War.

“New Light Beulah Baptist Church extended the call to Reverend William Weston Adams to serve as her first pastor in 1867. Reverend Adams accepted the leadership of the church as a supply pastor initially. Within one year, Reverend Adams became the permanent pastor on New Light Beulah Baptist Church, about the same time that Reverend James Lawrence Reynolds resigned as the pastor of the small Beulah Baptist Church. The Beulah Baptist Church elected Reverend Thomas Mellichamp as pastor who had a cordial relationship with Reverend William W. Adams.

“The two congregations continued to share the same sanctuary for three years until the White congregation dispersed in 1870. The Black congregation continued to flourish. Spiritual leaders of the church included Preston & Eliza Moody Richardson, John & Ann Reese Dinkins, Pharoah & Racheal Ward Smith, Robert & Hagar Green Jones, Lewis & Suckey Smith Tucker, Paul & Matilda Hopkins Sims, Simon & Mariah Tucker Jenkins, Charles & Leah Reese Howell, Ned & Phyllis Brevard Middleton and James & Tansy Smith Taylor. These leaders guided the church through its transitional period. Beulah's Black congregation desiring to assert its independence, changed it's name to New Light Beulah Baptist in 1870.

“Shortly after the White members ceased using the sanctuary, questions about legal ownership of the church property began. The members of the New Light Beulah claimed ownership, as well as former white members of Beulah Baptist Church. The continuing dispute and the distance traveled by some members resulted in more than half of the membership securing letters of dismission in 1871 to organize the Zion Benevolent Baptist Church, Hopkins, S. C. Complicating the issue of ownership even more was a dispute between Anthony Morris (Black), a member of New Light Beulah and Jesse Reese (White), a former member of Beulah Baptist Church. December 2, 1871, apparently Brother Anthony Morris purchased a cow from Mr. Reese for $34.00 placing $21.00 down with a promise of possession with payment of the balance. Brother Morris later came prepared to pay the balance, but was told by Mr. Reese that the cow was sold and there would be no refund. Consequently, conflict arose between Reese and Morris, along with several members of the New Light Beulah Baptist Church who supported Morris. Subsequently, one of Mr. Reese's cows was maimed resulting in accusations of several New Light Beulah members who were eventually tried in General Sessions Court. Tense relationships developed in the Grovewood-Congaree community between Black and White citizens.

“Animosity within the community intensified when Mr. Jesse Reese's nephew Jesse Reese Adams moved himself and family into the sanctuary formerly shared by Beulah and New Light Beulah. This was the same sanctuary that was being used by the Black members of New Light Beulah Baptist at that time. The following Sunday when New Light Beulah members arrived for worship, they found Jesse Reese Adams armed and were forced to leave the premises. The land that the sanctuary sat on was originally purchased from the Reese family in 1832.

“New Light Beulah elected Nazareth's Reverend Isom William Simons as her third pastor. Just prior to Reverend Simons arrival, the church had elected Brother Frank Smith as church clerk to replace Andrew Richbourg. However, Brother Richbourg was reelected church clerk in 1885 for 1 year. Burrell J. Goodson was elected church clerk in 1886. Isom Harrison Goodwin was then elected clerk in 1887. Frank Smith served as clerk again in 1887. New Light Beulah's clerks Smith, Goodson and Goodwin were all at one time students of Benedict Institute.

“The church purchased two acres of land from the Kaminer brothers on December 26, 1886 for $25.00. Trustees signing the deed were Abram Weston, Jacob Gallman, Pompey Smith, Thomas Stocker, Warwick Howell, Hampton Jamison and Julius Goodwin.”

See: New Light Beulah Baptist Church: A Historical Perspective

Julius Goodwin was my great-grandfather. He and his brothers would take the name of Goodwin after emancipation in 1865, giving it to his wife Epsy and his children, one of which Moses Pickett Goodwin: my grandfather.
Robert Harrison Goodwin was born June 19, 1925, on the same day celebrated in Texas, nationally and internationally as Juneteenth.

Robert lost his father Moses, a sharecropper and school teacher, at the age of three. From all descripts, a voracious reader, and that desire to learn transferred to his son. Raised by his “village” at the time, Robert would quit formal education in the 6th grade to work, bringing home money for his mother, Estelle. He would be drafted in the US Navy in a segregated squadron. He was a ship weapons expert, a cook and a Navy boxer: my first martial arts instructor. He took and passed a college entrance exam, despite his lack of formal education. He opted sadly, not to go, the challenge of the times and the need to make money for his mother, which he dutifully sent home from his meager enlisted check of $92.00.

On his departure after World War II from the Navy, he brought his clothing to a dry cleaning business in Winston-Salem, NC, where a young woman named Mildred would see him. Impressed with his looks and muscles (he was a boxer), she convinced her manager to give the person she’d eventually call “Boot” Goodwin a job. They married April 8, 1950 and Robert became an immediate father to my sister Mamie, who was 8 at the time. I came along 12 years later.

Nanos gigantium humeris insidentes – I stand on the shoulders of giants. I am here because of them. I studied physics because my great-grandfather and his brothers in their own way were fighters, and did not let challenges of violence defeat their dream; my grandfather Moses was an educator and sharecropper who provided mightily for his family; having friendships that endured after his passing and men to raise his son, and my father (Pop) mechanically gifted, brilliant and kind: enduring years of discrimination to bring home money for his family, passed over for promotions and did not let bitterness poison the dreams of his son: me.

He and my mother would help me achieve the rank of Brigade Commander of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools: the highest rank in the city, and the first African American. He was instrumental in my learning the fine art of military drill with a rifle, and how to shoot both rifle and pistol, orienteering and public speaking. He and my mother were Deacon and Deaconess at Galilee Missionary Baptist Church.

In college on my initial troubles with Calculus, Pop purchased a book on the subject; studied it for two weeks and tutored me! Problems solved.

(I attended coincidentally, New Light Church when I lived in Austin, Texas before I knew this history or its significance.)

Happy Father’s Day, gentlemen: I thank you all.

Ayn Rand...

"Ayn Rand encapsulates in a very powerful way this drift [away from Christian values], especially with the rise of the tea party which is in many ways very un-Christian," AVN Executive Director Eric Sapp told Raw Story in an exclusi...ve interview. "There's a lot of political pressure to combine the Christian right with that new, powerful tea party movement on the right. Ayn Rand kind of puts the point why Christians need to be very, very wary of those who are trying to do so."



2 Peter 3:3 KJV - Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
2 Peter 3:4 KJV - And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as [they were] from the beginning of the creation.
2 Peter 3:8 KJV - But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Dating...

We talked about this in one of the "Pressing to New Levels" lessons some time ago. We had spirited back-and-forth, almost a teen "call-and-response" as they each had very strong opinions about the subject.

Even though the lesson was a blessing, and there are differing views even among the ministers as to whether teens should or should not date. I'll relate a story I just gathered from an employee (I'm getting used to saying that) that I have in New York:

He's from India, meaning he's likely Hindu, so the following is not about his religion, but how he went about choosing a wife.

He apparently made a decision one day, and informed his parents.

They went into action making the announcement in his village. By the time he flew from America to visit him, they had 18 potential mates lined up for him to meet.

For three weeks, he did. He did not kiss them or anything else: virginity is a premium in their culture, ideal if both are before marriage.

He ended up marrying the 19th girl his parents' had him meet (the first eighteen he just didn't vibe with). They've been married happily for two years now.

**********

When I'd minister to oURLife Austin, I knew -- especially from our lesson I mentioned -- the teens were interested in dating and the opposite sex. What I observed was (at least in Austin), they weren't interested in dating each other.

Psalms 133:1 NKJV - A Song of Ascents. Of David. Behold, how good and how pleasant [it is] For brethren to dwell together in unity!
Psalms 133:2 NKJV - [It is] like the precious oil upon the head, Running down on the beard, The beard of Aaron, Running down on the edge of his garments.
Psa 133:3 NKJV - [It is] like the dew of Hermon, Descending upon the mountains of Zion; For there the LORD commanded the blessing--Life forevermore.

2 Corinthians 6:14 NKJV - Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?
2 Corinthians 6:15 NKJV - And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?

I'm not advocating arranged marriages. Interestingly, that was the custom when Joseph married Mary and formed a family for Jesus to be reared in.

My employee points out several things: 1) though I'll never share his faith, he's pretty strong in it, 2) his parents chose his potential wives from the opinions of his community. He described it as being a part of a larger, extended family, the nucleus being from the same temple and having grown up together. His potential wives were not strangers at all: he just didn't find anything enough in common to commit to a long-term relationship.

I think it's just easier to go out with someone that hopefully shares your views about the Bible, Salvation and living a life pleasing unto God.

But teens, being private, would rather put their business "on blast" on Facebook than let anyone at church check out their "significant other." If teens hear opinions to the contrary of their "stargaze"; their perfect view of your boyfriend/girlfriend, it's not because we're being mean or over-critical. It's probably because we've "been there, done that": got the T-shirt! We're your community, and we care about you.

Nothing's changed except the clothes, music, technology and the hairstyles (and some of those came back). Yeah, we're older than you, but "there's nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

The adults and ministers in your lives have got battle scars for a reason! Maybe we could save you some headaches, unplanned pregnancies, delayed education, keyed cars; unnecessary drama.

Sadly, almost 50% of US marriages end in divorce, and India enjoys a divorce rate of 1.1%. We can do better. It starts with you.

I personally would like to see more Godly dating among our teens: so that you can be a light to others and your lives and futures will be blessed representing God in the earth.


Link: What are the Biblical guidlines for dating relationships?

Another Pressure on Gas Prices...

Mark 13:4 "Tell us, when will these things be? And what [will be] the sign when all these things will be fulfilled?"

Mark 13:5 And Jesus, answering them, began to say: "Take heed that no one deceives you.

Mark 13:6 "For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am Christ,' and will deceive many.

Mark 13:7 "But when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be troubled; for [such things] must happen, but the end [is] not yet.

Mark 13:8 "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles. These [are] the beginnings of sorrows.

Mark 13:9 "But watch out for yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils, and you will be beaten in the synagogues. You will be brought before rulers and kings for My sake, for a testimony to them.

Mark 13:10 "And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations.

Mark 13:11 "But when they arrest [you] and deliver you up, do not worry beforehand, or premeditate what you will speak. But whatever is given you in that hour, speak that; for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.

Mark 13:26 "Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.

Mark 13:27 "And then He will send His angels, and gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest part of earth to the farthest part of heaven.

Mark 13:31 "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

Mark 13:32 "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Mark 13:33 "Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is.

Mark 13:34 "[It is] like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch.

Mark 13:35 "Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming--in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning--

Mark 13:36 "lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping.

Mark 13:37 "And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!"

Oxidado, and My Own Drug Story...

"Oxi" is the fastest growing drug in Brazil, and is said to be more addictive than crack:

Mark Kilroy was a UT student in Mexico on Spring Break.

I, was 26, depressed after not getting a job in the semiconductor industry at Dupont Photomask in Round Rock (it's now Taippan Photomask).

I was single. I was drinking (getting MORE depressed), at a female friend's house.

She asked me if I'd ever smoked weed. I said no. "No? Well, we've got to change that!"

She left her apartment and came back with a nickel bag. I'd seen them before in the hood. My whole life, I'd avoided smoking weed. I'd smell it on the bus and get a "contact": red eyes from second-hand smoke (and, probably a little high too).

I proudly argued with the guy from the Air Force Defense Investigative Service (DIS), checking the backgrounds of my class at Keesler Air Force Base: he said, "you're the only black officer in your class and the only one that has stated emphatically that you've never done drugs. WHY should I believe you?"

I replied: "Because the only times I saw white people like YOU in my neighborhood was to buy drugs at Po' Charlie's!" (Po' Charlie was the drug kingpin in my neighborhood. He, along with Frank Lucas (yeah, American Gangster, though Frank in real life NEVER looked like Denzel) ran drugs as far north as Maine and south as Florida.) He said the usual investigation was to ask 5 of my neighbors; I challenged him to look for 10, and ask them all if they'd seen me smoke weed. If he could find ONE, the Air Force could refuse to approve my Top Secret clearance and kick me OUT. Didn't happen...

My friend rolled the joint - she was obviously a pro. I was buzzed, depressed and willing to try for the first time in my life.

"Hold your breath!" she commanded. I coughed. I gagged. I took exactly two tokes of the joint. I was done. My friend smoked; I didn't. Therefore, someone that could smoke cigarettes could probably smoke weed, I reasoned. I left her apartment and went back to mine. It was Friday night/Saturday morning...

The Austin American Statesman carried the story of Mark Kilroy and his bizarre murder on blast on the front page. I had a subscription and it was on my front doorstep: He'd been sacrificed to Satan to make his captors "invisible" to the authorities.

A voice in my apartment stated to me: "YOU killed him." It frightened me. I now know it was the Holy Spirit.

The kingdom of darkness does NOT take up tithes and offerings, or sell chicken dinners!

We were made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Satan hates us because we "will judge angels" (1 Corinthians 6:3). He is a fallen archangel (Isaiah 14:13-14). Therefore, saved, unsaved, believing/atheist: we are ALL targets for extinction. He'll either rig the jury (get more outside of the Will of God/on his side), or exterminate the jury!

Every person that participates in the drug culture - even casually - are the catalysts for horrible acts. The Mexican Drug Wars are a good example. There wouldn't be any turf wars if there were no demand here in the US. It's simple supply and demand economics...and the "wages (payment) of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)

Pontius Pilate tried to wash his hands, symbolic of washing his hands of Jesus' innocent blood (Matthew 27:24). It didn't excuse him; just because it was my "first and only time," it didn't excuse me. When I pledged my college fraternity, my Dean of Pledgees gave me something I'll never forget: "excuses don't excuse: they just explain."

2 links below:

Brownville Herald: Matamoros Murder of Mark Kilroy
Hollywood Unmasked: The Matamoros Murders

Two Words; Two Worlds...

From my experience as a black male and as an oURLife teacher, there could be only two types of churches that would grow up in the aftermath of antebellum slavery: prophetic and prosperity.

The prophetic ministry concentrates on deliberately confronting wrongs with scriptural truths, and holding power responsible for its actions. Examples are Jesus, Martin Luther King, et al.

Prosperity ministry is demonized because of its supposed concentration on material wealth at the exclusion of other important spiritual things.

At New Light, we're taught "whole life prosperity," and specifically that does not mean "just money."

In the aftermath of slavery, which I've pointed out (and this interview points out) still exists as an exception to the 13th amendment, we need both constructs within our community. Unfortunately, the mall, Internet and IPODs have become our central focus.
For our whole life prosperity, for living righteously (right-standing), for demanding justice: WE NEED GOD.

That forty minutes you spend with your oURLife minister may be the most important ones of your life.

Ecclesiastes 10:19 “A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes merry; but money answers everything.”

Proverbs 18:21 – 22 “Death and life [are] in the power of the tongue; and those who love it will eat its fruit. [He who] finds a wife finds a good [thing]; and obtains favor from the LORD.”

Deuteronomy 8:18 “And you shall remember the LORD your God, for [it is] He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as [it is] this day.”

Job 36:11 “If they obey and serve [him], they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.”

Luke 4:17 "And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:

Luke 4:18 "The Spirit of the LORD [is] upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to [the] poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to [the] captives And recovery of sight to [the] blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

Luke 4:19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD."

Luke 4:20 Then He closed the book, and gave [it] back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him.

Luke 4:21 And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

First Lady Relationship Advice...

Well...she ought to know!

Proverbs 31:10-31 Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth [is] far above rubies.
The heart of her husband safely trusts her; So he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good and not evil All the days of her life.
She seeks wool and flax, And willingly works with her hands.
She is like the merchant ships, She brings her food from afar.
She also rises while it is yet night, And provides food for her household, And a portion for her maidservants.
She considers a field and buys it; From her profits she plants a vineyard.
She girds herself with strength, And strengthens her arms.
She perceives that her merchandise [is] good, And her lamp does not go out by night.
She stretches out her hands to the distaff, And her hand holds the spindle.
She extends her hand to the poor, Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy.
She is not afraid of snow for her household, For all her household [is] clothed with scarlet.
She makes tapestry for herself; Her clothing [is] fine linen and purple.
Her husband is known in the gates, When he sits among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells [them], And supplies sashes for the merchants.
Strength and honor [are] her clothing; She shall rejoice in time to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom, And on her tongue [is] the law of kindness.
She watches over the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband [also], and he praises her:
"Many daughters have done well, But you excel them all."
Charm [is] deceitful and beauty [is] passing, But a woman [who] fears the LORD, she shall be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands, And let her own works praise her in the gates.

Post Apocalypse Blogging

Matthew 24:30 "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Matthew 24:31 "And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Matthew 24:36 "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.

Matthew 24:37 "But as the days of Noah [were], so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Matthew 24:38 "For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,

Matthew 24:39 "and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Refer to my previous post: Agreeing with Jesus...and the Atheists. Tell any nonbeliever as the "bride" of Christ, its not our business to "know," only to live out our lives like it's tomorrow. That puts the responsibility of living out our Christian lives on U-S and not a "schedule."

I truly tire of hucksters fleecing the gullible and the Biblically ignorant with predictions that they can't possible back up.

Philipians 2:12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

Phl 2:13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for [His] good pleasure.

Philipians 2:14 Do all things without complaining and disputing,

Philipians 2:15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,

Philipians 2:16 holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.

Onward to 2012, and I hope that's the end of the craziness...

Glass Houses...

Image Credit: Boston College

Hosea 8:4, 7 - "They set up kings, but not by Me; They made princes, but I did not acknowledge [them]. From their silver and gold They made idols for themselves--That they might be cut off. They sow the wind, And reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no bud; it shall never produce meal. If it should produce, Aliens would swallow it up.”

Former California Governor Arnold Swartzenegger...
Former NC Senator Edwards...
Former Nevada Senator John Ensign...
Former NY Governor Elliot Spitzer...
Former SC Governor Mark Sanford...
Former Speaker of the House Newt Ginrich...
[Reelected] Louisiana Senator David Vitter...
Former President Bill Clinton…

All politicians, all men in power, involved in the Executive Branch, the Senate, the House of Representatives; two Governors…all men, all (except one) former of their positions…all guilty of having extramarital affairs.

Hosea 8:4 "They set up kings, but not by Me; They made princes, but I did not acknowledge [them]. From their silver and gold They made idols for themselves--That they might be cut off."

Charles Barkley famously said: “I'm not a role model... Just because I dunk a basketball doesn't mean I should raise your kids.” Unfortunately, that’s not how it works, Charles. Kids do what they see us do, not what we say. When what we say doesn’t jibe with what we do, they go for the “do” as justification for what they want to accomplish, and all famously counter: “well…YOU did it!”

We are clearly instructed from scripture to pray for our leaders (and, not just VOTE for them) that we might live “quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty” (1 Timothy 2:1-2). That also means praying for people you DIDN’T vote for either. In this era of instantaneous information via the Internet and 24/7 cable news, what and whom we build up one day may be torn to bits – reputation wise – tomorrow.

”From their silver and gold They made idols for themselves…” might as well read OF themselves in the case of the IMF president Strauss-Kahn resigned in an attempted rape scandal. My oldest son and I discussed this on my visit to Austin (from NY, where the alleged attempt occurred). He had a valid point: at $3,000 a night, he probably felt untouchable; invincible. The room is probably no bigger than say, a $90 – 110/night room, but at that level your among your “rich peers” who have also made “idols of themselves” because they do NOT have a Godly perspective on money.

Hosea 8:7 “They sow the wind, And reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no bud; it shall never produce meal. If it should produce, Aliens would swallow it up.”

Arnold, apparently said something about single mothers in an interview prior to his election as California governor (in a recall of Grey Davis), and will full knowledge he’d become a father/baby daddy with two sons soon on the way – one in wedlock and one out. There’s an old saying: “those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” At some point in each of their careers, each of the men listed have “thrown stones.” Many political platforms are based on so-called “family values.” This is no more than a method to get a group to the polls and vote for them. I’d seen it down at my church in North Carolina as a boy: the politician would come right before November; he/she would address us in “call-and-response” preaching the gospel of themselves as the best investment of our vote; if he/she could bring the house down, they most likely received our vote; we’d never see them after the election…until the NEXT election (their reelection). “The stalk has no bud; it shall never produce meal.”

John 8:7 – 9 “So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard [it], being convicted by [their own] conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, [even] unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.”

In this post, I am NOT justifying bad behavior. What I chaff at is the manipulation of our Christian values for political gain. I list both members of the two dominant parties because they are both guilty of this, and like the politicians when I was a kid, promptly forget what they promised you at your church/convention/camp meeting. They simply say what they have to say to get our votes.

I’m not saying we as Christians shouldn’t vote, either. If they want to show me some “family values,” I have a few suggestions: 1) get us off fossil fuels and out of countries that don’t want us taking theirs, 2) design the infrastructure for electric cars (i.e., charging stations), 3) bring the price of gas below $3/gallon, 4) bring the cost of food down, 5) bring the jobs back. Can I get an AMEN to that?