Chatter

by Ed Evans

Far too much power is being given to those in society who have not earned it, nor have they been elected to it. When that happens, history shows abuse of power ensues.

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There is so much beauty and joy in this world that it's about time we all stop abusing the grace of the very God who created us and look around to see what we can do for someone else. "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." -- Hebrews 13:2

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A people who walk away from God cannot hire enough police. If your thoughts, your intentions, your actions are not based in Godly love, you're just sowing sand in the wind.  Dig deeper.

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Benjamin Franklin's words keep coming back to me, responding, when asked what kind of government he and his fellow patriots had decided upon, "A Republic, if you can keep it."  It's not enough to simply enjoy America's hard-won freedoms, we must stand up and defend them at every challenge, or our sons and daughters, our grandchildren, will not have the ground to stand upon for any such defense.

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In the midst of racial discord, a seeming continual disruption in American politicians and economies, It would seem we are tripped up by our own history of language, abetted by human emotional response patterns. If you research the word "Caucasian" you find that as a race Caucasians don't exist, and when that word was used in the early 1800s for deciding who could and could not be a citizen of the U.S., it included North Africans, and Europeans of "color". And each early designation of "race" was based upon skin color. Today, we look at skin color and attribute certain general traits, i.e., this race can't be trust not to steal, that race eats cats and dogs, another race puts stock only in power. But it all comes down to emotional triggers. Once Caucasian was assumed to be the primary image of God as He created us. If we could only get past those emotional triggers and realize we are ALL created by God, racial differences would have no meaning. It becomes powerless.

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Sooner or later, when we talk about improving the world and the people in it, someone will ask, “ What do we do with the ones who don't graduate, who are already criminals by the time they are 18, are grossly overweight and can't do anything, or who are dopers?

The facts are that if you willingly swim to the bottom of the gene pool, sooner or later you take yourself out. Not that we shouldn’t care about those people, but this world doesn't want to be saved. It wants only to be loved, and that's how we save it, but that's another path.

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Recently received an interesting invitation to a fundraiser for a local women’s healthcare clinic.  For a price you could join a growing group of men (and women) who loved to smoke cigars aboard the General Jackson riverboat while plying up and down the Cumberland River.

Love cigars, even though I'm not supposed to smoke 'em.  Seems odd they would propose a fund drive with cigars that could clog up your breathing apparatus amidst CVID-19.

I'm the founder and still a member of the Tigris River Cigar Club.  In Iraq, all of us working late in Saddam Hussein's third wife's castle on the Tigris River, we would take a cigar break at 8 p.m., go out and stand on the dock and light up.  The enemy would shoot at us from across the river, and we would puff heartily and watch the bullets plop in the water about 10-20 feet out.

The one-star general in charge of our 60-man/woman Restore Iraqi Electricity group demanded we wear flak jackets out there.  We invited him out, supplied him with several Churchilll cigars.  He came out, lit up, and watched the bullets plop in the water.  Finally, he said, "Let's take these things off."  After that we were officially the Tigris River Cigar Club and all sorts of dignitaries wanted to come out and smoke with us.  Fortunately, I'd written the Marine MGySgt. Mafia (an unofficial designation for some select friends), and those boys had sent me boxes of Churchilll cigars with the specific orders to "Burn 'em!"

Once back in the states, Merilyn ordered me to "knock it off!"  But I could always get away with a good cigar once a week while I mowed the "back 40" with my rider mower.  Now we live with a postage stamp lawn and no chance for a seegar.  But the membership plaque still hangs proudly in my den.  It still has the scent of a good Romeo y Julieta stogie.  Ahhh the memories. 

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Wisdom is to the right; foolishness is to the left.  Ecclesiastes 10:2, "A wise man’s heart directs him toward the right, but the foolish man’s heart directs him toward the left."

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If we are open about it, then we know and just admit that our worst acts come from inside of us, not from outside agents.  Difficult to accept.  But the medicine never did taste good.  Mark 7:20-23 tells us the worst of us comes from inside us, not from the outside. We want to blame the repugnant acts of others on some outside force; surely that doesn't come from inside us. Hard news, bitter taste, but our Jesus makes it sweet again. He knows us better than we do. Thank God.

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Response to those Marines going through depression, fighting off suicidal thoughts, feeling alone ----

I'm 79 years old, Devil Dog. Did 30 years, saw four battlefields. You are never, never alone, but just know for many of us it never goes away. The most important things we did in our lifetime were in uniform, when you knew who had your back. Today there must be a million I'm in contact with, some of whom I may not hear from but twice a year. But we don't forget. We don't leave any behind. It's a challenge, but it's a challenge you are up for. You were trained that way. Improvise, adapt, and overcome. You can do this. You're doing it. So keep reaching out to others. They need to hear from you. Semper Fi!

There Is Only One Way Out of Where We Now Find Ourselves

By Ed Evans

This nation and its people have been treated to an awesome picture of what happens when a people steeped in individual freedom are treated by local politicians as if we were all socialist lackeys. "Stay home. You are in Phase One." "Phase Two, you have a little freedom but wear masks, stay six feet apart and only go to the business we tell you to."

In the very midst of this confusion, frustrations overflowed, anger took its toll morphing into brutality by some, victimization by others, and it all somehow coalesced in the dreaded disease "RACISM."

I am 79 years old. No one I know, and I know quite a few human beings on various levels, no one served as anyone's slave. No one I know bought and sold slaves. We have been treat of late to greed, injustice, crime ranging from petty theft to mass murders. None of that was racism.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary recently publicized that due to customer complaints they were changing their published definition of "racism" to include systemic racism.  About time.  A great many self-appointed experts on racism will disagree with me when I aver that systemic racism does not exist in this nation. A war was fought over that very issue. Have there been incidents of individual racism? Yes. Have some organizations been found guilty of acts of racism? Yes. But this nation and its greater people do not support any system of racism. Do some blacks distrust and hate whites? Do some whites distrust and hate blacks? Browns? Yellows? Reds? But that is not the systemic racism of which America is being accused.

That particular racism, which does not yet exist in America, is being used as an excuse for mob theft, looting, arson and destruction of the very jobs needed by those the charge of racism is supposed to help. It is sheer nonsense, and senseless economic cruelty upon the backs of those who can least afford it.

Two thousand years ago Jesus Christ, because the lives of all men and women matter, allowed himself to be nailed in cruelty on a wooden cross on a hill called Golgotha. He made it known that all lives matter, and as the son of the creator God, gave up his life for all those other lives; because they matter.

We really need to stop making excuses for our behavior, our greed, our lawlessness, our selfish hate. We own it, and we need to recognize that and abandon it. This world was not intended for a race of people mired in such destructiveness. Our only way out is together. Together. Human beings are "togetherness" beings. We don't do as well alone. We need each other. Together. It's the only way out.

Maybe It's Time We Methodists Grew Up, by Pastor Ed Evans

            Perhaps you read the news from several days ago, where the delegates of the United Methodist Church at their annual meeting voted down an attempt by a lesser number of members to ordain practicing homosexuals as clergy.  The vote was close: 449-374.

            This is a reflection of America’s, and most of the world’s, polyglot society that wants to make up its own rules and ethos as it suits various groups of people, at the time.

            We have all been in the kitchen, arguing over a pot of stew that didn’t really suit any of us, with very different approaches to whom and to what we wanted God and a religious life to be.  Maybe a dash of that, a snifter of this, a spoonful, a half a cup, and we keep trying to change what God has already ordained.

            The result is a spoonful of dissoluble soup.  It favors no one, suitable for a neutral society of no males, no females, no blacks, whites, red, brown, shades of grey with no opinions and ultimately, no ethos, no rules.  And, the race slumps toward its time of extinction.

            Almighty God knows us so well, and loves us so much He has given us a technicolor picture of what lies ahead.  Just read the prophets.  Read Revelations.  He already knew this was coming.

            We know what God has said.  We know what the Christ has done.

            Isn’t it time we grew up and took hold of, took responsibility for, the tools and the platforms He has provided for us to lead into the time of peace, the time of Christ’s return?  Isn’t it time we grew up and left behind the childish desires that please each one of us differently, demanding all others like what we like, hate what we hate, love what we love?  Isn’t it time?

            Our patient, loving God has a plan.  He’s shown it to us, so why do we keep trying to rewrite it into a childish version of “Me First!”  What is at the bottom of this disastrous church behavioral controversy?  I want my way in the church.  You want your way in the church, every mother’s son and daughter wants their own way in the church.  Whatever happened to seeking God’s way.  He has had His say on homosexuality.  It doesn’t half-step, it strides out pure and clear.  Why do some of us keep trying to find ways to bring it into line with our personal desires?

            First, we need to recognize that God is unchangeable.  He doesn’t change.  What He has said doesn’t change.  So if we are set in our ways, and those ways don’t meet God’s ways, then go off and start your own church.  Follow another god.  There are plenty out there who would gladly take you in.  I personally would not advise that, because there is really only one God, one Yahweh, one El Shaddai, one who is all things to us, one who has provided His son as the sacrifice for our sins, one who created us and has made a way for us to spend eternity with Him.  One.

            So what is the controversy really all about?

            We do want to make room in God’s house for all of God’s children, right?  No matter what their background, their upbringing, how they look or how they sound, or even how they think.  And the church in this world is God’s church, so He has certain requirements, certain do’s and don’ts.

            When I was growing up my mother had her own set of rules, and it meant she jumped from husband to husband, and I was left to grow up in different families.  When I landed at my Grandmother’s house, about age six, she let me know she loved me very much, I would be staying with her and Grandpa, but that she had her own set of rules, and they would be followed.  Disobeying her rules wasn’t the first time I got my britches warmed, but it meant the most because I didn’t like disappointing her.  I coveted her love and her favor.

            Our God has His own set of rules, and being our God and our Creator, He has known just how to make them clear to us.  In this current set-to, about homosexuality, He has been abundantly clear.  Don’t do it.  He has been crystal clear, beginning with Genesis 19, Leviticus 18 and 20, Romans 1:18-32, 1^st Cor. 6:9-10, and in 1^st Timothy 1:8-10.  Other verses in scripture hark back to these warning signs and back up God’s word about such practices.

            So what shall we do with those who insist that our God should let them have their own way?  Do we shut the church door in their face?  Refuse to recognize them?  Shower them with hatred and abuse?  No.  Never.  That was never God’s way, but we continue to love them and show them, through how we live our own lives, what God’s love leads to.  But at the same time we don’t put them in positions of leadership where they can teach contrary to God’s will.  They are not ready to be teachers of adults and mentors of children.  First, they must sort out their own salvation with the Living God.

            We are called to show them the road to salvation, not encourage them to wander about in the swamps and bogs and never find their way home.  Accompanying them on their journey that goes in the wrong direction will not get them to Christ.  We must tell them, “the bridge is out in that direction.”  The only fulfilling bridge to God Almighty is Jesus Christ, and they must be told that truth even if they don’t wish to hear it.  That’s the gospel, and the whole world needs to hear it.

            Once the whole world knows that Jesus is the Christ, that God is the One God of the universe, then we can all grow up together, in peace and understanding.  Don’t you think it’s time we all grew up?

Guest Post: New Literacy: Eulogy for Gutenberg

By Charlotte Ann Hu
A former Marine print-photojournalist, State Department Public Diplomacy Officer & U.S. Air Force Supervisory Public Affairs Specialist

New Literacy: Eulogy for Gutenberg

I haven’t yet seen any news reports or research or thought leadership books by techies about the impact of smart speakers on the fundamental structure of our social fabric. I think Alexa is a technical revolution as radical as Gutenberg’s press.

In 1436, Johaness Gutenberg, a German goldsmith, created the printing press. Before then, all texts had to be laboriously copied by hand. Corresponding this critical new technology, born in Eisleben, Germany, in 1483, Martin Luther disrupted religion by translating the Bible and removing control from the hands of the clergy. Since that time, the ability to read text on paper has largely determined economic potential and earning capability in the job market.

Right now, in 2018, there remain some 20% of the world’s population who are illiterate. Others born or who later became blind or severely sight impaired have also been limited in their economic potential due to their inability to access information.

Alexa and other technologies like her, Siri and Google Home, but more importantly, the computing power that has made text to speech and speech to text capability possible will make reading letters on paper altogether irrelevant with regard to accessing information.

I read a book by Microsoft MVP Ben Clothier who explained how to integrate Access and Sharepoint nearly 10 years ago. He seemed at that time to be the only person in the world who knew how to do what we wanted to do with our information. I reached out to him on the web and he said he worked for a consulting firm. I reached out to them and contracted him to help our project. I also contracted two American sign language translators because this brilliant expert was severely hearing impaired and had very limited sight. I offered to pick him up from his home on my way to work, because I learned from a tour at the Lighthouse for the Blind that getting to work every day is one of the biggest challenges in a car culture like ours for sight-impaired professions.

Centuries or even decades ago, Ben would never have been access all the knowledge that put him at the top of his specialty. While limited options were available, like braille, few of the worlds books were available in braille. Because of the digital revolution, information is now available to almost anyone and the final wall is coming down with voice user interface.

At the end of this holiday season, some 50% of American homes will have a smart speaker. Amazon’s website likens it to Star Trek ship communication technology. Ease of use has never been more fluid. No manual required. Even my two-year old can activate Alexa, although she has yet to correctly format a request to get a response. Alexa’s ring turns blue, delighting my toddler when she says, “Alexa.” Amazon just announced Alexa is available in Mexico.

Once this technology is available worldwide and once the world is online, Gutenberg will finally be truly just a note in the history books. The world he created of text will no longer determine one individual’s economic potential by serving as the only path to knowledge and information and ultimately professional expertise.

I have long loved books, and I will miss Gutenberg dearly. Still I can see that Alexa joins the Internet as the most powerful flattening forces of my lifetime.

My Political Meme Under Fire

            Perhaps you, like me, have been appalled at the anti-American behavior advocated and taken up by liberals and political members of the Democratic Party as the mid-term election approaches.  Apparently, having lost an “managed” election for President, and a steaming, riotous, lying effort to keep a President’s nominated judge from taking his place on the Supreme Court, the Democratic Party has further blackened its reputation by riot, upset and thoroughly uncivil behavior toward those of opposing political opinions.

            To make it worse, the leadership of the Democratic Party has publicly urged that Americans be mistreated, that Democratic supporters “get in their face,” be thrown out of restaurants, and declared “civil behavior” on their part will only be restored when they win.

            This is a story of one man’s efforts to stand up to that, to refuse to knuckle under to bullies and demagogues.  It’s a story with a good ending, even though not thoroughly understood by its author.

            You see, I spent 30 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, then upon retirement 17 years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a federal civilian.  That got me to four battlefields.  I then was called into the ministry as a Pastor.  Besides my own service to the nation in uniform, there is that of my father, grandfathers, uncles, aunts, lifelong friends that constitute a solid investment in the freedoms and liberties of this grand experiment we call the United States of America.  Some of those investments still lie in foreign soil around the world, gone but not forgotten.

            Although every American has the right to be appalled and angry at this decidedly un-American activity taking place in our society, and being egged on by the Democratic leadership, I feel a special commitment to my nation to stand tall and declare “not on my watch!”  Perhaps some of you feel the same.  If so, surely you are aware you have every God-given right to express yourself in a legal and civil response to this travesty being advocated by liberals and the Democratic Party.  This is not the America we fought for.  Our citizens, our duly elected politicians, and our police men and women should not be put in harms way by this over-the-top behavior.  That is NOT the American way.

            Liberals and Democrats, masked and as individuals, have made a mockery of America, to us and to our enemies around the world.  They have talked about blowing up the White House, been photographed carrying a mock severed head of President Trump.  A Broadway Play depicted the assassination of President Trump that asked publicly, “How long has been since an actor assassinated a President?”  Music videos have been released about assassinating President Trump. Conservatives and Republicans have been attacked as individuals and shot to death at a music concert, and seriously wounded at a baseball game.  A Hollywood actor goes on television and announces “somebody needs to take out Trump”. They ask "Where's John Wilkes Booth when you need him?"  A Republican Party Office was set on fire.  The Trump family members received suspicious packages depicting poison in the mail, along with death threats to Secretary of Defense James Mattis.  No less than Democratic Senator Maxine Waters said “you get up in their face at the mall, in restaurants, at gas stations and you tell them Republicans they’re not welcomed anywhere”.   Republican spokesperson Sarah Sanders and her family were harassed at a restaurant, instructed to leave and chased down the street.  Republican Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was harassed and chased out of a Mexican restaurant.  Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s life was threatened and he was chased out of a restaurant. Attorney General Pam Bondi was harassed and chased out of a theatre.  Republican Senator Rand Paul was attacked and beaten up in his own yard.  Two Republican senators, Rob Portman of Ohio and John Boozman of Arkansas, were harassed in their own yards and on their own doorsteps.  A 71-year-old female staffer for California Representative Dana Rohrbacher was knocked unconscious by an angry group of liberal protesters.

            Is this the America we fought for, the America my friends and family members died for?

            My response, and the reason for this missive, was a fairly quiet and determined one.   Besides “liking” in support every post I saw on Facebook that took issue with this behavior, I wrote a short meme that I began to share everywhere.  As one with nearly the cap of 5,000 “friends”, I have access to many, many pages, as do they.  And so I shared, liberally.

            The meme said simply: “Violence, verbal and physical, has long been the hallmark of the Democratic Party. Reject such un-American behavior.”  I began to post it far and wide.  But then a funny thing happened.  As I pasted it as a response to the like posts of others, I would get a red exclamation point and the message “This could not be posted.  Try again.”  Trying again was a joke.  It could not be posted.  Okay, I went on, posting in other pages.  Same red exclamation point.  Unable to post.  Try again.  It went on and on like that.

            Now, many probably know the Marine Corps’ official motto is “Semper Fidelis”; Always Faithful.  And we are, to our God, to our nation, its Constitution, our Corps and to ourselves.  But there is another motto among Marines, a grittier motto, a “git’er done” saying that carries us forward despite ambush and treachery: “Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome.”

            And so I continued on.  In an ambush Marines don’t stop, lay down a base of fire and stay there until the enemy is gone.  We fire and maneuver through that ambush.  I continued page by page, red exclamation point after red exclamation point.  Until suddenly, it stuck.  It published.  What happened?

            Now, I know that Facebook hires a vast array of minions who operate by constructed algorithms to “police” the conversations and posts.  (And I’ve already told you more than I know about that.)  I’ve had some of them send me a message now and then that I was “taking advantage of the system.”  Of course I was, that’s what it is there for, whether they agree with my opinion or not.  I would not want you to think I am attacking Facebook, because in a democracy, the voluntary airing of free speech is vital to our continuance, just as a free press is vital, although I think the current incestuous news media is endangering that.  But that’s a discussion for another day.

            Actually, I much rather believe that somewhere “out there” in the vastness of Facebook there remain those minions still true to the principles of the original creator of Facebook, dedicated to providing a free platform for opposing ideas and conversation, a growing electronic discussion that allows people to blow off steam and yet remain a cohesive family of Americans.  And that, perhaps, is why the red exclamation points stopped.  There may well be a much more complicated, and perhaps truer explanation, but if so I’m not aware of it.  All I know is that I was given back my “right” to free speech.

            So to end I simply want to encourage each of you to exercise your American rights to speak up, to improvise, adapt, and overcome efforts to make you sit down and shut up.

            I’m not advocating embarrassing people in restaurants, or disrupting peaceful meetings, or any of the treachery-laden activities the Democratic leadership has been advocating.  I don’t believe fighting fire with fire gets you anywhere but burnt.  The current ashen status of the Democratic Party is a fair example.

            My Lord Jesus Christ tells us to love our enemies, those who oppose us, for thereby we heap coals on their heads.  And I do believe the Democratic Party is on fire.  I pray for them.  Without prayer, without my Lord I’d have a hard time loving such hate-filled people.

            March on.  Make yourself heard.  America is worth it.

I Disagree with Bob Woodward

Several of my friends have contacted me in support of Bob Woodward's book about President Trump's administration; Fear, Trump in the White House.  One friend went so far as to say, "I'm to chapter 24.  Proof to a certainty, so far: Trump is dangerous, incompetent, a poorly organized mind & a personal danger to economic health.  The 25th Amendment was created with this type of nutcase in mind.  Not a matter of opinion; a matter of fact.  He very seriously needs to be gone."

The online dictionary states the meaning of the noun "treason" is "the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government."  Proof of dementia, idiocy, some mental disability, or the commission of a charegeable crime would, I believe, remove the charge of treason.  But I don't see it.

Nope, Woodward established his legacy and his agenda long before the book came out.  He promoted his anti-Trump agenda and then wrote his book to back it up.  I don't believe Donald Trump is a perfect human being, as none of us are, but his results prove he is what this nation needs right now.  Many, many backroom deals and swamp-based personal agendas are being upended and destroyed in Washington, D.C., and around the world because of Trump's business sense.  A businessman in the White House was needed just as much as we needed Harry Truman in the White House when we did.

No, I have no faith in what Mr. Woodward writes and contends.  His actions and words prior to the book's publication belie what he says in the book, and Trump's administrative staff have made that clear.  Too many of them have spoken up to say "That never happened" or "I never said that."  Woodward is selling books, not making history.

Just one man's opinion.

The Christian's Responsibility Before God

The "un-churched" look to Christians for a delineation of what is right and what is wrong. They know right from wrong as well as we who belong to Jesus Christ, and when they see Christians dodge the responsibility to call evil for the evil that it is, we who call ourselves Christians have effectively sabotaged their spiritual experience. Ezekiel 33:8 should be a red flag to us: "When I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die; if you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand." Who and what purpose have we served by our silence in the face of this responsibility before God?

More specifically, the silence of the Christian Church in the face of continuing rampant evil, lack of integrity, and public shame even among the Christian Church is appalling. Jesus is the Prince of Peace, but He also took a whip and drove the unfaithful out of His Father's house. We are closer today to the end times than we were yesterday, and we are already seeing lampstands removed from churches (Rev. 2:5). When we do not solve the problem with the responsibility to share light that God has put in our hands, God will solve the problem. Almighty God is going to do what God is going to do.