(Q) What is the most unusual gift that you can remember having received for Christmas ? Please elaborate.
If Sarah Palin doesn't make another run for political office she can always get work as a Lenscrafters model. (D. Letterman)
(Q) Why is President Barack Obama so thin ? Because if he was any heavier he couldn't walk on water.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists 69 journalists were killed around the world in 2009. Some of them appeared to have been targeted. This is according to Reuters. Real journalism, as opposed to what passes for journalism and is really agenda driven opinion, is to be respected. Unfortunately it sometimes appears to be in short supply in these perilous times. Spin doctors rule and the facts are manipulated and distorted in many cases to achieve a partisan goal. George's Orwell's 1984 comes to mind, the figure of Winston Smith and doublespeak. The old adage that if you tell a lie enough people will start to believe it has veracity - especially when some people have a sheep mentality and will believe almost anything. Real thought requires too much effort and the sheep just want their creature comforts and touchy - feely gurus. Where do you get your news that shapes your opinion ? Do you trust it ?
I was not raised in a strict, religious home. My Mother and Grand Mother, who raised me, never hit me over the head with religion as we used to say. In fact when we went to church we went to a Baptist and a Methodist church, in my hometown of Union,South Carolina, which were on the same street. It all depended on how they felt that particular day. My Aunt Grace was a Church of God Preacher - a Pentecostal . They spoke in tongues and sang like angels and could make the hair stand up on the back of your head. They didn't cotton to situational ethics and feel good religion. It was that old time religion. You stayed in church on Sunday. None of that hour of preaching and off you went. You stayed until the Preacher said the last prayer and you came back on Sunday night. When they baptized you they held you under for a long time to wash all that sin off. (We called those folks "deep water Baptists") Among my people, religion was (and is) a personal thing. We weren't much on theology, but we loved Jesus. We could sin with the best of them and raise holy hell, but Jesus had payed the price and we knew it. How well I remember some wayward brother or sister down on his, or her, knees before the alter covered by the hands of the faithfull and prayers by the dozen headed up to heaven on their behalf. We knew our Bible cold too. I started learning it before I went to elementary school in the Green Street Baptist Church's annual Vacation Bible School. My Granny wanted me to be a Preacher, but I never got the call. Instead I was destined to be a spiritual seeker and at times a handfull as we used to say. I studied all the major world religions and most of the minor ones as well. And In the end I came full circle - back to Jesus. I left Him, but He never left me. He was in my heart all of the time. Sad to say, at one time I blamed Jesus for the behavior of some people who claimed to be Christians. And today a good number of Americans castigate Christians at every opportunity, because they had a bad experience in some church or with someone who claimed to be Christian but didn't live it. Some of these same folks will sit at shamans feet or gaze at crystals or get messages from ouija boards or chase madmen and gurus or bake in sweat lodges ad nauseum. There is a bias against Christians in our land. I believe in freedom of religion as I do the Constitution. The thing is that if Jesus were to be preaching to people today He would probably be locked up ! We would probably be as hard on Him as Pontius Pilate was. No man has had such a profound influence on human history as Jesus-not Buddha or Mohammed or any lesser lights. Did you ever wonder why His message is still valid and powerfull ?
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