MY LIFE IN INK --

This is a rare Saturday when I do any postings. Quint and I usually are off on excursions, having adventures.

Today, however, I'm going to catch up since we stained the deck late yesterday afternoon and I painted a couple of big cement containers after I took the old, faded marigolds out and put in some perky dark pink/lavender mums. Then the mosquitoes invaded us and we came indoors.

The honeysuckle I transplanted a few weeks ago has really taken hold. They were a gift from our kind neighbors across the street. Same is true of the blackberry bushes that were moved from another neighbor's yard. They were growing practically under the foundation of her garage. Kind of puny, if you ask me. But they got their little tippy toes down in dirt now and I think they'll be in good shape before the first frost which is weeks and weeks away. (I hope.)

If you're looking for fall colorations, the Farmers Almanac has a really neat interactive map at this site: http://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather/a/fall_foliage_dates

From the information in the states I clicked on, the fall colors are going to be fully loaded in the next week or so. Good time to pack a picnic basket with sandwiches and fruit and head out on the open road with a camera. I know, gasoline prices are horrible. Might even add all of $3 - $5 to your trip. Unless, of course, you're driving a SUV.

We have a little Focus. Gets 35 MPH on the open road. And since we've retired, a tank of gasoline lasts at least two weeks. That compares to filling up every about every 5 days when we were working up north. There are actually days when we don't even start the car.

According the Farmers’ Almanac’s outlook, tropical storms are likely to threaten the East Coast over the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the first week of October holds the possibility of flurries for the Great Plains. Early snowfall is also expected visit New England and the Great Lakes region during the opening weeks of November, with cold, damp, unsettled conditions looming over the Thanksgiving holiday in most areas.

Another interactive map on the Farmers Almanac site is located here: http://www.farmersalmanac.com/home_garden/a/average_frost_dates

I guess our daughter and her husband in Sandpoint, Idaho, have already had their first frost. It was predicted for September 17. They're about the farthest north living relative we have.

The Chicago area can expect its first frost on November 2 -- while we're supposed to have our first frost 200 miles south of Chicago around October 21. Guess Lake Michigan helps the folks up north delay the frost.

So today we're going to put a weather-proofing clear coat on the deck. The stain should be dry by late in the afternoon.

I am going to make a cheddar cheese soup this afternoon. It has vegetable chunks in it so it's not like eating a cheddar cheese sauce. That's always been my objection to the cheddar cheese soup that's served in restaurants. It's more like eating a sauce. If this new recipe turns out okay, I'll share it with you. 

So we have two more chapters in Deuteronomy before finishing this book of the Bible. We were supposed to finish Chapter 34 on Friday in order to keep up with Pastor Rensner's schedule. I've noticed that he doesn't include each and every chapter on his assignment list, but I've included them anyway -- mainly for our friends and readers in the far east who have more of a challenge getting their hands on Christian reading materials. Don't want to leave anything out for you folks.

Speaking of the far east, I especially want to ask each of you to keep the people in Burma -- now renamed Myanmar -- in your prayers. The people have risen up to end 45 years of military oppression. Myanmar is a country nestled in between Thailand and India, with China on its northern border.

Lots of bloodshed and 48 fatalities, according to government released figures. The protesters make the claim of over 200 deaths.

Prayers lifted.

##

Deuteronomy 33: 1-29

In this book, Moses blesses each of the tribes -- twelve sons borne to Jacob and two sons of Joseph.

In the land of Canaan, each of the Israelite tribes settled a different region after they crossed the Jordan River.

These tribes are Asher, Benjamin, Dan, Gad, Issachar, Joseph, Judah, Levi, Naphtali, Reuben, Simeon, and Zebulun.

Settling in the eastern area were: Judah, Issachar and Zubulun.

The southern tribes were Reuben, Simeon and Gad.

In the west, Ephraim, Manasseh and Benjamin settled down.

And to the norther, the tribes of Dan, Asher, and Naphtali made their homes.

The sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Menasseh, were also given the status of independent tribes, according to the Jewish Virtual Library.

Hold your thoughts about the twelve tribes of Israel for a moment because I want to tell you a little story that you can read about at a site that will be supplied in a moment of two.

Okay, so the Israelites are just about all packed and ready to go across the Jordan River -- their camels are probably moaning and groaning under the loads and the kiddos are probably running around chanting, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" before they had actually stepped off on the final leg of their journey. You know how that goes. Probably some wise mom even devised a game about identifying license plates from the different tribes on each camel. Who knows. But they hadn't left just yet.

My story, though, fast forwards into a later period of time for the Israelites. This would be the time after King Solomon died. The tribes were split, both politically and in these territorial pockets that had just been outlined.

Remember -- God draws the boundary lines on countries and continents and states, right?

Another story of mighty battles and wanderings about will reveal more answers, but for the point in time of King Solomon's death, realize that Judah and Benjamin were in the southern areas.

These two tribes make up the Jewish people that we know today.

The other ten tribes? Don't know. They got lost. Kind of scattered to the ends of the earth. There is still hope, to this very day, that all the lost tribes of Israel will be found.

The prophet Ezekiel dreamed of this when he said: Behold I will take the children of Israel ... and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their land. And they shall be divided into two kingdoms no more.

Many Bible scholars believe that the Jewish Messianic Age will be ushered in when these ten lost tribes are found and rejoined with the children of Israel. For Christians, the Messiah has come to earth in the celebrated birth of Jesus Christ even though the lost ten tribes have yet to rejoin the tribes in the Holy Land.

If you want to read more about these lost tribes and where some believe they have settled, go here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/

But for now, let's go back to our 33rd chapter of Deuteronomy.

In verse 8, the distinction about the Levites is made. They are to watch over the word and guard the covenant ( from verse 9b-11), teach the laws, offer incense and burnt offerings on the altar.

So they Levites were going to live in the temples. They were not going to get into the agriculture of shepherding or animal husbandry.

And in verse 12, we learn that Benjamin is ...the beloved of the Lord...for he shields him all day long, and the one the lord loves rests between his shoulders.

Moses announces to all the tribes of Israel just who was going to get what and how God would bless each one of them.

Deuteronomy 34: 1-12

In this chapter, we learn of the death of Moses at the age of 120 years.

Before his death, Moses had laid his hands on Joshua who was then (verse 9) filled with the spirit of wisdom ...so the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses.

Moses occupies a special place in God's eyes down through history for we read in verses 10-12: Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those miraculous signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt -- to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

Note that until Jesus came, no one had ever been superior to Moses. A distinction is made in Hebrews 3:5 between Moses as the servant, and Jesus as the son (Hebrews 3:6).

##

THE UNITED STATES IS GOVERNED BY AN IRRESPONSIBLE CONGRESS

Many of you may not be aware that the fiscal year for the United States begins on October 1st.

So what happens when new fiscal years begin? Well, for starters, new budgets go into effect. At least that's what's supposed to happen.

Apparently the 110th congress hasn't quite gotten around to passing any of the 12 spending bills. What they did get around to is passing an emergency package that will let the business of the taxpayers continue until they can get around to resolving whatever differences they have with each other and maybe -- just maybe -- debate a compromise that will bring an end to their suffering from do-nothing-itis.
 
Remember, folks, these congressionals are making $162,500 a year to take care of the business of the taxpayers in the United States. All 435 of them, plus 100 senators, although spending bills do not originate in the senate. Or the White House either for that matter. And that doesn't include the cost of running their offices -- either in Washington or in their districts, or the salaries for all their employees.

Getting legislation started such as spending bills is strictly a function of the House of Representatives.

So for now, a stop-gap measure ended up at the White House and President Bush signed it. That will allow the taxpayers' business to continue for 7 more weeks.

The wrangling continues because the politicos have proposed bills that would increase the budget request by the White House by an extra $205 billion.

Here's what that would mean in tax increases:

Taxes would rise $500 for each child.

For a family of four, making $60,000 a year, taxes would increase by $1,800

For a single mother with two children, taxes would rise by $1,000

Small business owners would have a tax increase of $4,000 for payroll taxes

In his radio address this morning, President Bush also pointed out: These are not the only taxes Congress wants to raise. They're proposing higher taxes on dividends and capital gains. They're proposing higher taxes on cigars and cigarettes. They're proposing to raise taxes on domestic oil and natural gas production. They're proposing new taxes on stock and bond transactions. And they refuse the make the Internet tax moratorium permanent. If this tax ban expires, it would open the doors for State and local officials to impose new taxes on your access to the Internet.

To read the entire text of this morning's radio address, go to this link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/09/20070929.html

[Note: in the coming weeks, you're going to hear a lot from Congress about Bush's threatened veto on the children's health matter. The reason he says he's going to veto this bill is because it has tons of other spending dollars stashed in amongst the nooks and crannies, hidden from view unless you really get in there and read each item. Since we don't have line item veto in the federal legislation, Bush has to veto the entire package and send it back to congress with the message: Fix this.

You also need to know that Hillary wants to fund her proposed $5,000 bond for each new baby born with a 61 cent increase on each package of cigarettes sold in this country.

##

ROAD RAGE (AGGRESSIVE DRIVING)  -- IT'S NOT OKAY

There are 41,907 people killed every year on our highways. Of those, nearly 2/3 can be attributed to road rage -- or aggressive driving. That's 27,658 human beings. In essence, that's wiping out an American small town every year. Men, women and children. An entire town! Poof. Gone.

So what's happened to our once safe highways?

There's a lot of part answers.

For instance, there's been an increase of 11% in the number of drivers in the last ten years.

In that same length of time, people now drive 35 miles farther to get to and from work every day.

But -- and this is an important distinction -- there have been only 1% more road lanes added to the nations' highways.

That adds up to some serious overcrowding, folks.

Then there's the stress factor. Okay, the roads are overcrowded. We've got a lot of things on our minds. We're juggling kids' schedules. Getting to work. 

It's enough to make you want to hibernate.

Especially if you think you're the only truly safe driver on the road. Then, you notice that the driver in the next lane is eating a cheeseburger. Or talking on a cell phone. Or writing notes while using the center of the steering wheel as a mini-desk.

And all the while, you're going down the interstate or toll road at 70 mph because anything less would have drivers blasting horns at you. And they're 20 feet off your rear bumper. Or less.

Just in case you aren't quite sure if what you're doing is road rage, take a look at this list of what defines aggressive driving:

Speeding
Running red lights and stop signs
Tailgating
Passing on the shoulder of the road
Cutting off another vehicle
Slamming on brakes in front of a tailgater
Improper hand or facial gestures at other drivers
Yelling
Repeatedly honking the horn
Repeatedly flashing headlights

If you are the victim of road rage, my suggestion is that you do some immediate cognitive restructuring. For instance, you could say to yourself that the road rager is on the way to the hospital for a medical emergency -- either for a family member or for himself/herself.

Add to that an attitude of Make A Difference Day. We need to do this more than one day a year. 

Remember: courteous driving is safe driving. And when you're out there, you're going to run into people who are either 3-year-olds disguised as adults, or just plain old imbeciles who have no business with a drivers license in their wallet.

So here's how you can play your own private game of Make A Difference:

Always be patient and courteous.

Don't drive when you're upset or tired.

Give yourself at least enough time to get where you're going, for crying out loud. It would be better if you padded your schedule with a safety net of fifteen minutes. I remember getting stuck in a horrible traffic jam on the way to the office one day last winter. Traffic was blocked at the intersection of 142nd and Harlem Avenue, and we had to go all the way to 167th Street. At this point, Harlem Avenue cuts through the Cook County Forest Preserves so there were no side street intersections where we could turn. We just had to sit there and wait it out, practically cheering every time we could go forward three feet. So I decided that I'd just time how long we were stuck. And then at about 150th Street, there was the carcass of a burned out car and the ambulance was just leaving. But get this: the total time we were stuck was only seven little minutes! After we got to the point where the broke car was being loaded onto a tow truck, traffic opened up again. So don't cut your schedule too close to where you can't even accommodate a ten minute emergency delay.

When possible, change your schedule to avoid congestion. Traffic 'copters are giving updates all the time in urban areas. There are usually alternate routes that you can take. Unless, of course, you live in Cook County, Illinois, where forest preserves block construction of any new reasonable roadways. 

Listen to relaxing music or books on tape. Or here's an even better idea: use your driving time for prayer time. You do have a list of people who need your prayers, don't you? If you don't, then start one today with at least your immediate family on the list. Pray also for our leaders, and our military service personnel. And pray for all your fellow drivers, especially the aggressive ones. They are somebody's mom or dad, son or daughter, brother or sister -- they are somebody's loved one. Pray for them. And pray for God to bless your day and everything that you do.

Give other drivers the benefit of the doubt. And no, they did not wake up this morning with the idea that they wanted to make you, or any other driver, miserable just for the fun of it.

Most of all, avoid conflict. Even if you're in the right. A lot of road ragers carry guns and knives or other pointy things. Morgue slabs are cold steel -- don't become a statistic.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

Good morning, Vietnam! And Singapore. And, of course, everyone in the United States who is logged on this morning. It's going to be a beautiful day where we are. A great day to go pick out stain for the deck. Maybe this afternoon, we'll get it stained and sealed.

Quint says he doesn't care about the color -- I'm thinking color -- he's thinking seal. Him protect wood. Me want pretty. Fortunately, we can get both. In the same application.

Better living through chemistry, says Quint the chemist.

We were the guests of Midland States Bank here in Effingham -- and Stan, our new friend from church -- at a dinner honoring the work of the Family Life Pregnancy Center.

Jill Stanek was the guest speaker. She is a nurse who used to work at Christ Hospital until she got fired. She shared some of her experiences with abortions at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois. She's been a guest speaker on the Bill O'Reilly Show at Fox News, was present when President Bush signed into law a bill protecting all babies who are born. It's called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act and the Partial Birth Abortion Ban.

The Family Life Pregnancy Care Center serves people who are facing unplanned, unprepared pregnancies in Effingham. If you would like to assist this wonderful group financially, the organization is located at 605 Eden Avenue, Effingham, IL 62401. All donations of any size would be most welcomed.

They wrap their important work around 2 Corinthians 4:1 -- Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart.

We are going over to the Silk Purse today. It's a resale shop that raises money for the Center. We have lots and lots and lots of stuff that someone can probably use. We'll be glad to donate our "extras" (by the carloads).

You'll be happy to know -- and maybe surprised as I was -- that Indiana has added a co-designation for state beverage. It's water. So, for those of you who live in Indiana and anybody asks you what your state beverage is, just tell them "water."

And in South Dakota, the newly named state fossil is the triceratops. This was a horned dinosaur that roamed South Dakota some 65 million years ago. See, nice things come to all who wait. And wait. And wait.

Our trip to Altamont yesterday was fruitful. Quint got his money for the chairs so he's happy. All's well that ends well.

##

Deuteronomy 32: 1-52

Our homework assignment for this chapter is to figure out which of the verses of Moses' song means the most to you today. We are challenged by Pastor Rensner to read this song often and remember all that God has done for you. I would suggest that you download this and put it in your wallet. Seriously.

Also -- the homework reading assignments for this week take us through Chapter 34 and since today is only Chapter 32, check back tomorrow and Sunday for the final two chapters of this important book of the Old Testament.

I am glad to hear from you about the book of Deuteronomy. It finishes off the Pentateuch, which is a collection of the first five books of the Bible. It also is known as the Torah. The Torah was written on kosher animal parchment. Because of its central part in worship services, the Torah is dressed or wrapped in silk and often has a crown placed at the top. Even today, the Torah is stored in the holiest part of a synagogue. For sure, there is no longer an Ark of the Covenant, but synagogues have a very revered place where the Torah is kept when it is not being used in worship services.

Bible scholars generally accept that Moses wrote the Pentateuch -- Genesis, Exedus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. This is one of the reasons why the Pentateuch is considered a literary unit.

My view is that all of the Bible is the Word of God. For me, it matters not who actually picked up the pen and dipped it in the inkwell.

Peppered throughout the first five books of the Bible are words like, "God said to Moses: write this down."

There are even references in Joshua, 1 and 2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel and Malachi that make the claim that Moses wrote the Pentateuch.

One source of contradiction that the Pentateuch, in its entirety, was penned by Moses are the inclusions of references to Moses' death and burial. Some scholars believe that these references might have been added, perhaps by Joshua.

Here's a link to the Song of Moses that will, no doubt, interest you. It's well worth the time to study. There are some beautiful pictures also at this sight: http://www.revelation-today.com/song1.htm

This is the Song of Moses that is found in Deuteronomy 32:1-43 --

Listen, O heavens, and I will speak;
hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
Let my teaching fall like rain
and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants.

I will proclaim the name of the Lord.
Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
He is the Rock, his works are perfect,
and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,
upright and just is he.

They have acted corruptly toward him;
to their shame they are no longer his children,
but a warped and crooked generation.
Is this the way you repay the Lord,
O foolish and unwise people?
Is he not your Father, your Creator,
who made you and formed you?

Remember the days of old;
consider the generations long past,
Ask your father and he will tell you,
your elders, and they will explain to you.
When the Most High gave the
nations their inheritance,
when he divided all mankind,
he set up boundaries for the peoples
according to the number of the sons of Israel.
For the Lord's portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted inheritance.

In a desert land he found him,
in a barren and howling waste,
He shielded him and cared for him;
he guarded him as the apple of his eye,
like an eagle that stirs up its nest
and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them
and carries them on its pinions.
The Lord alone led him;
no foreign god was with him.

He made him ride on the heights of the land
and fed him with the fruit of the fields.
He nourished him with honey from the rock,
and with oil from the flinty crag,
with curds and milk from herd and flock
and with fattened lambs and goats,
with choice rams of Bashan
and the finest kernels of wheat.
You drank the foaming blood of the grape.

Jeshurun grew fat and kicked;
filled with food, he became heavy and sleek.
He abandoned the god who made him
and rejected the Rock his Savior.
They made him jealous with their foreign gods
and angered him with the detestable idols.
They sacrificed to demons, which are not God --
gods they had not known,
gods that recently appeared,
gods your fathers did not fear.
You deserted the Rock, who fathered you;
you forgot the God who gave you birth.

The Lord saw this and rejected them
because he was angered by his sons and daughters.
"I will hide my face from then," he said,
"and see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
children who are unfaithful.
They made me jealous by what is no god
and angered me with their worthless idols.
I will made them envious by those
who are not a people;
I will make them angry by a nation
that has no understanding.
For a fire has been kindled by my wrath,
one that burns to the realm of death below.
It will devour the earth and its harvests
and set afire the foundations of the mountains.

I will heap calamities upon them
and spend my arrows against them.
I will send wasting famine against them,
consuming pestilence and deadly plague;
I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts,
the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.
In the street the sword will make them childless;
in their homes terror will reign.
Young men and young women will perish,
infants and gray-haired men.
I said I would scatter them
and blot out their memory from mankind,
but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy,
lest the adversary misunderstand
and say, 'Our hand has triumphed;
the Lord has not done all this.'"

They are a nation without sense,
there is no discernment in them.
If only they were wise and would understand this
and discern what their end will be!
How could one man chase a thousand,
or two put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
unless the Lord had given them up?
For their rock is not like our Rock,
as even our enemies concede.
Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom
and from the fields of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are filled with poison,
and their clusters with bitterness.
Their wine is the venom of serpents,
the deadly poison of cobras.

Have I not kept this in reserve
and sealed it is my vaults?
It is mine to avenge; I will repay.
In due time their foot will slip,
their day of disaster is near
and their doom rushes upon them.

The Lord will judge his people
and have compassion on his servants
when he sees their strength is gone
and no one is left, slave or free.
He will say, "Now where is their gods,
the rock they took refuge in,
the gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their drink offerings?
Let them rise up to help you!
Let them give you shelter!

See now that I myself am He!
There is no god besides me.
I put to death and I bring to life,
I have wounded and I will heal,
and no one can deliver out of my hand.
I lift my hand to heaven and declare:
As surely as I live forever
when I sharpen my flashing sword
and my hand grasps it in judgment,
I will take vengeance on my adversaries
and repay those who hate me.
I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
while my sword devours flesh:
the blood of the slain and the captives,
the heads of the enemy leaders."

Rejoice, O nations, with his people,
for he will avenge the blood of his servants;
he will take vengeance on his enemies
and make atonement for his land and people.

Moses and Joshua came together before the children of Israel while Moses recited these words that had been dictated to him by God.

Moses then warned the Israelites in verses 46-47: Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you -- they are your life. By them you will live long.

This is the passage that I hold most strongly when I counsel parents to get their children to church and Sunday School -- and not to fall folly to the notion that they ought to let their children "decide" someday what they want to do about God. Oh no -- to the contrare -- God was very specific about what he means when he says "...command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law."

How are you going to instruct your children about the Laws of God if you don't introduce them to God?

Turns out this Song of Moses is one of the last "official" acts before the leadership of the Israelites is turned over to Joshua.

Now God tells Moses to go up on Mt. Nebo and take a look at the promised land because he's not going there. Instead, Moses is going to die before the Israelites take off to cross the Jordan River.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

Welcome readers from Chile, China, the Russian Federation, and, of course, the United States. I guess it's too early -- or late -- for my niece (Karen) who lives with her husband Alex in Kuwait City. Alex is some kind of computer genius.

Greetings to you all!

It's going to be an "abundantly sunny" day, says the weather channel. But cool autumn breezes and not too much humidity. I can tell fall is coming because the leaves are starting to come down. Not too much, but just enough to remind me that the seasons are about to change.

We are going over to the big town of Altamont this morning. We had a couple of wing chairs that just would not fit anywhere in the house, but we brought them down from the condo anyway and had a consignment person sell them. So he says he has our money for us. Altamont is all of 11 miles away. That will be a nice after-lunch excursion.

This evening we are going to a fund-raising dinner with a group from church. The occasion is a right-to-life organization. Quint and I are very much in favor of pro-life activities.

I read yesterday that one state -- I believe Oregon -- is introducing legislation that will require doctors to show mothers who want to abort their babies an ultrasound of their baby. There are other states that have enacted such a law and the abortion statistics drop quite a bit once mom sees her helpless little baby inside her.

Well, well, well -- Captain Marmalade went back to Iran. Says he felt very insulted by comments made by the president of Columbia University. Hugo Chavez didn't come to the United Nations big-mucky-muck meeting. Probably afraid that if he left Venezuela, a coup might have grabbed power. Especially since he's socializing everything in sight down there. So he stated home and entertained Kevin Spacek from Hollywood. Now all that's left in the United Nations besides the country regulars and movie stars who think they are roving ambassadors of some type or another.

As for me, I stayed home and cleaned my kitchen floor. That takes care of my priorities. Clean house -- clean mind.

##

Deuteronomy 31: 1-30

When you read this chapter, keep these questions from Pastor Rensner in mind: Moses warns the people that this covenant will fail because human beings cannot fulfill it. Who ushered in a new covenant that will never fail? What was that covenant sealed with?

In the early verses of this chapter, Moses admits to being 120 years old. He also tells them that he is unable to lead them anymore.

Then he adds that he's not going to cross the Jordan River with them. But the Lord God himself will cross over with the children of Israel. That must have been a tremendous relief to the Israelites.

It reminds me of one of those ancient maps of the world. Probably one like Christopher Columbus had to use when he sailed away from Spain. At the edge of the known world, there was written "There be dragons."
 
The children of Israel must have been very afraid with the possibilities of what lay ahead of them. Either that or they relied totally on their faith in God who promised that he would go on ahead of them and take care of the armies that needed destroying.

Oh, yeah -- Joshua was going to head on over ahead of the Israelites too.

I always wonder when I read this chapter of Deuteronomy whether Joshua and God walked along together. We shall see. There just weren't all that many people who actually saw God. But God could have been a presence who walked along with Joshua.

In verse 6, we read: Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.

We have some logistics to clear up at this point. I guess the children of Israel were packing up their tents and loading up their camels.

The Levites -- the priests who were the sons of Levi -- got to carry the ark of the covenant. This is where the laws of the covenant were contained. Moses told them that every seven years, in the same year for cancelling debts, and during the Feast of Tabernacles, the laws were to be read out loud to the Israelites again.
 
Everybody was to come around for this reading. Even the aliens who were living among them. And the children who hadn't heard the laws would hear them as they were growing up.

Then God said something to Moses that must have made his blood run cold. God said in verse 14: Now the day of your death is near. Call Joshua and present yourselves at the Tent of Meeting, where I will commission him.

And that's where God presented himself. But not so they could see him. No, the Lord was inside a pillar of cloud, and the cloud stood over the entrance to the Tent.

And the Lord, who knows everything -- past, present and future -- said to Moses in verses 16 - 17a: ...You are going to rest with your fathers, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them. On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them...

After all that the children of Israel had gone through as they made their long, long trek through the desert, wouldn't you think they would have figured out that they won't supposed to disobey God?

Each and every time they disobeyed, God's wrath rained down on them. Then they developed insight again real quick, repented, and God forgave them. And they repeated the cycle of disobedience again and made God mad at them.

It takes disasters and difficulties to make us realize just how weak we really are. Our strength comes from God and he walks among us -- even to this day. He watches us and sees how we are living our lives.

He wants to make sure that we are careful to put him first. Absolutely #1 in our lives.

God will not accept second place. Never has. Never will. Be careful with that one. He doesn't want you to lie. He doesn't want you to cheat. He doesn't want you to steal, or murder anybody. He doesn't want you to go off flirting with someone's spouse (or worse), or take their car (we don't commute by horse anymore).

If you do any of these things, he watches and thinks, "I really wish you hadn't done that."

God knows that we are all sinners. He knew that from the early days when he banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

But just knowing that we are helpless to resist the powerful pull of sin does not mean that we can go ahead anyway, thinking that all we have to do is confess our sins, say we're sorry and ask for forgiveness, without trying with all our heart to resist the very sins that separate us from God.

Resist sin. Don't think for a moment that you can sin freely, then ask for forgiveness and God won't know what you're up to.

He knows.

And who ushered in the new covenant?

None other than our Lord Jesus Christ. This new covenant was sealed by the blood of Christ. Otherwise, we wouldn't have had any hope of salvation.

##

BE COURAGEOUS -- from Brenda Moore

2 Timothy 1:7 -- For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Fear is not of God. Have the courage to step out on faith and do the seemingly impossible. Start your own business; go into the ministry; apply for that promotion. Anything that you've been afraid to do and you know that God has called you to do -- JUST DO IT!

HAVE CONFIDENCE

Philippians 4:13 -- I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Remember, greater is He that's within you than he that's in the world. You have the power of the Most High God working in you, and you have His Son steadily making intercession for you. You have nothing to worry about! Walk with your head up! You say you have low self-esteem -- somebody told you that you'd never amount to anything; the devil is a liar! Know that you are somebody -- not because Jesus said it, but because you are a child of The King!

WALK IN THE VICTORY

Romans 8:28 -- And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.

Does anything else need to be said? The jury has been out and the verdict is in -- YOU WIN!

In your finances -- YOU WIN!
On your job -- YOU WIN!
In your relationships -- YOU WIN!
In your health -- YOU WIN!

God has already worked it out for you. It may not come out the way you think it should (or when you think it should) but remember -- CALM DOWN, SHUT UP, AND QUIT TRIPPIN'! He's working it out for YOUR good -- in HIS time.

Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps if you are not willing to move your feet! Have a blessed day.

##

POLITICS AS USUAL -- HERE COME NEW TAX PROPOSALS

"I'm trying to have everybody understand that this is going to cost and that it's going to have a measure of pain that you're not going to like," Rep. John Dingell, who is marking his 52nd year in Congress, said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press.

Dingell will offer a "discussion draft" outlining his tax proposals on Thursday, the same day that President Bush holds a two-day conference to discuss voluntary efforts to combat climate change.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/26/AR2007092602127_pf.html

Here come taxes on taxes. Get ready to call your representative. Or fax. Or e-mail. Let him/her know that this is just not acceptable for a couple of reasons.

First of all, global warming is a cyclical phenomenon. It's not caused by man. So say the scientists who have bigger brains than I do. No matter how much they raise taxes, it's not going to reduce global warming.

But to put a 50 cent tax on top of the gas taxes that are already there is outrageous. It's nothing but punishment for people who have to put gas in their cars.
 
Congress ought not to be in the business of punishing the very people who vote them into office. They're supposed to be managing the business of government for the people who elected them -- not figuring out new ways to tax the socks off of us.

Doesn't that make you angry enough to register to vote in 2008 if you aren't already?

Doesn't that make you angry enough to keep a tally of how your congress persons are voting on issues that affect your pocketbooks? Don't rely on the media to give you that information.

If you are reading this, then you are on the internet. You can get information about how your congressman voted on each and every bill in congress.

Go to www.house.gov or www.senate.gov.
 
Look for voting records. They're recorded by law.

What I'd like to see is a list of members of congress who fly on commercial flights, in the coach section, just like the rest of us.

Get off those private jets and stay out of first class. You're just a human being like the rest of us -- you know, your taxpayers!

##

FABULOUS RECIPE: HONEYED PEARS ON GREENS WITH FETA CHEESE

3 T. olive oil
4 T. fresh lemon juice (I used red wine vinegar)
2 tsp. honey
2 tsp. fresh thyme, plus extra for garnish
Dash of salt
2 ripe but firm pears, cored, unpeeled and cut in chunks
3.5 ounces (5 cups) greens
4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (I used blue cheese)
1/4 cup crushed almonds (optional)

In a small saucepan, combine oil, lemon juice, honey, thyme and salt. Add pears, while gently stirring, and bring to a rapid boil. Simmer at high heat for 1 minute. Pears should hold their shape and not be mushy. Refrigerate until cool.

To assemble, divide greens on 4 plates. Top with pears, including liquid. Add cheese. Garnish with thyme and almonds.

Nutrients: 259 calories, 7 g. protein, 19 g. carbohydrates, 19 g. fat (6.7 g. saturated), 21 mg. cholesterol, 3 g. fiber, 40 mg. sodium

##

NOT GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP IS HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH

It's a British study released about a week ago.

There were 10,000 government employees in a 17-year analysis.

"Not enough sleep" is less than seven hours of sleep a night.

Those people who cut their sleep from seven hours of sleep a night to five hours or less faced a 1.7 fold increase in mortality from all causes and more than double the risk of cardiovascular death.

The findings were presented by Francesco Cappuccio, professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Warwick's medical school.

Other studies have been presented in the past that correlate health risks and lack of sleep, but this is the first study that links duration of sleep to mortality rates.

Curiously, there is a higher mortality rate for people who sleep more than nine hours a day.

In the United States, 40% of the population regularly sleep less than five hours a day.

Read article at: http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSL2462796020070924

##

BINGE DRINKING ON THE INCREASE IN MEDITERRANEAN COUNTRIES

For years and years and years -- probably eons -- binge drinking has been relegated to Anglo-Saxon cultures.

This is primarily due to the fact that Mediterranean cultures have historical and social roots. Mainly wrapped around wine, with meals and with friends, at a moderate level every day. Drinking to the point of drunkenness has not been a Mediterranean norm.

Anglo-Saxons cultures add drinking without food, and drinking without the company of friends.

A recent study presented by José Lorenzo Valencia-Martín, a medical doctor at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and corresponding author for the study, shows that binge drinking is on the rise in Mediterranean countries.

The study looked at more than 12,000 people -- both male and female -- and noted that drinking patterns appear to be changing.

"Binge drinking seems to be an 'imported drinking pattern,' based on spirits -- such as gin, whisky, vodka, etc. -- which are not culturally rooted in Spain," said Valencia-Martín. "We think that spirits are mainly used in binging because drinkers may seek the psychoactive effects of alcohol in a relatively short time."

Binge drinking was defined as consumption of eight or more standard units of alcohol (about 3 shots) for men, and six or more (about two shots) for women during any one drinking session during the previous 30 days.

Keep in mind that there is an ounce of alcohol in a 6 ounce glass of wine or in a 12 ounce bottle of beer or in one shot of distilled spirits.

Who in the world could drink eight glasses of wine? Or eight cans of beer? Or eight shots in one sitting?

Answer: a binge drinker.

Quit that!

Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070924163108.htm

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

Welcome back to our readers from South Korea and China -- and, of course, our regulars here in the United States. Let's see, what time is it in the far east? In the first place, it's across the dateline -- so it's Thursday, and Quint's recollection is that the far east is about twelve hours ahead of us.

That's fascinating. We're just starting our day and you're probably just finishing dinner and getting ready for your evening devotionals and catching up on the day's events.

We are still enjoying a slow, warm, gentle rain here in central Illinois. Reminds me of the time we were in Lucerne, Switzerland. Humidity was about 94% and the temperature was in the high 70s. Made the rain seem very warm and comfortable.

Not like the bone chillers that are coming in November. Just enjoy what we have today.

And our readers in South Africa and Australia are getting ready for spring.

We don't have anything ambitious planned for today. I'm still trying to come out of my self-imposed period of rest. I may just concentrate on clearing off some horizontal surfaces. And get this, Quint. I will be throwing some stuff away.

I'm telling you early so you can get the drum line ready. I want to see crab walking from one end of the basement to the other, and lots of clickety clack of the drums to keep momentum with my newly acquired tossing arm.

##

Deuteronomy 30:1-20

This chapter is loaded with promises from God.

We read in verse 3: ...then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back.

Not only that, but in verse 5b: ...He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.

And in verse 7 there is vengeance: The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you.

The children of Israel must have been thrilled to realize that the Lord God of their fathers and grandfathers was still willing to take them under wing and help them get settled, overcome their enemies and bring their labors to prosperity. Just like he promised in verse 9: ...The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers, if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Now I don't know about you folks, but that doesn't seem to be all that hard to do.

Breaking even one of the ten commandments is not on my list of things to do today.

I choose life -- to live in the glow of God's eternal love. I do not want the Decider to become the Destroyer, like he threatens in verses 17 - 19: But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. ... Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life...

--

It's easy to slip back into this thought that the words of Deuteronomy are old bits of history that just had to do with the Israelites coming up out of Egypt.

If that's your rationale for not making God the centerpiece of your life, then you ought to take great care. You see, when Jesus Christ came down to the earth from heaven, he brought the good news that through him, each and every one of us become the children of God.

God gave up his son to die for our sins. All that is required of us is to make God the Lord of our life and to keep his commandments. This good news brings Deuteronomy out of the ancient times into the present day promises of God.

He's here -- blessing up with prosperity today!

##

CALM DOWN -- from Brenda Moore

Psalm 46:10 -- Be still and know that I am God.

So many times we make situations more than they are due to our anxiety.

CALM DOWN -- God has your life under control. He knows how to handle even teh seemingly complex situation with ease.

SHUT UP -- Stop having pity parties and talking about your business all the time. Don't you know that the power of death and life is in the tongue. Stop speaking negative things into existence in your life and in others.

QUIT TRIPPIN'-- When you look at your situations through your eyes, you often read more into the situation than what is there. It's not as bad as you think particularly if God is in your life. Stop over-analyzing your life.

##

POSSIBLE GOOD NEWS FOR THE McCANNs

A tourist siting may just well be that of four-year Madeleine McCann. The tourist in Morocco was so certain that a woman carrying a little girl on her back was the missing four-year old that she snapped a picture and took it to the police.

It's now in the hands of Interpol and experts are studying the photo to determine whether the little girl is, in fact, Madeleine.

Keep in mind that Morocco is not all that far from Portugal -- only about 30 miles by ferry across the Straits of Gibraltar.

Want to see the photo? Check this out: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL2635078520070926

I pray that it is Madeleine and that she will soon be returned to her parents. And if it is, what an ordeal! I'll bet they never let her out of their sight again.

##

AUTO WORKERS SETTLE STRIKE WITH GENERAL MOTORS

That's it, except for the details which will probably be released today sometime.

At 3 a.m. this morning, the strike ended when both sides bargained their way into a contract agreement.

Good news for the economy. The stock market opened higher.

##

SO BI-POLAR LOOKS LIKE A GENE MISSES ITS CUES IN THE SLEEP-WAKE CYCLE

We've known for a long time that people who are depressed have different sleep patterns, with sleep disturbances being the big complaint.

But now comes new research reported by Dr. Michael Craig Miller, a practicing psychiatrist who is also an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, in addition to his teaching duties in the Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency Program.

New research has identified a gene they are calling the Clock gene.

This is the gene that helps regulate the body's circadian cycles -- those ups and downs of the body functions that cycle about every 24 hours.

Okay, so it's another rat study. But we can't ethically put human beings through the rigors of scientific research just to find out whether or not different chemicals work for this or that, and whether serious side effects (if present) lead to death.

In the world of scientific labs, human beings get preferential treatment over lab rats.

In the continuing study of bi-polar disorder, it appears that this clock gene that was identified in mice showed similar signs in human mania.

The scientists gave the mice lithium. That's the oldest treatment that's been used for bi-polar (used to be called manic depression, and before that was called cyclothymic disorder). When the mice got their little dose of lithium, then they settled down and behaved -- well, ordinary.

When we take that story out of the lab and put it into human context, we get refusals for treatment that sound like, "I don't want to take drugs. I like the way I feel. I don't feel like myself when I take the medicine."

To which I say, "When you're in your manic phase, you are not behaving like you ordinarily would. The manic you is not the real you. You're out of step with the rest of us and it isn't our job to run and keep up with you while your mind is racing. It's your job to cool down and keep pace with the rest of the population.

"If you can't do that on your own, then medication will bring you back to what we'd call ordinary behavior."

Bi-polar people who refuse to take medication sometimes think they can diet their problems away, or wish them away.

To which I say, do you have any idea how challenging it is to re-engineer the genetics of your body?

So just relax and take advantage of some multi-million dollar research that is being done with your best interests at heart.

Now, just for review, here's a brief list of what bipolar looks like:

Extremes in moods. These can be good highs (euphoria) or uncomfortable highs (rageful behaviors)

Bipolar people have a pretty grand idea of how great they are. And wonderful. And smart. And beautiful/handsome. And talented.

They talk, talk, talk, talk. My grandmother used to say that trying to get a word in edgewise with some people was like trying to thread a sewing machine with the needle running. She was describing a conversation with a bipolar person who's in a manic phase.

Bipolar people have so many many unfinished projects that they embarrass themselves. Then these embarrassments get redefined as unproductive failures. Then their self-esteem gets eroded when they start to think of themselves as useless and hopeless.

Then their manic phase plummets to the bottom of their mood swing into a depressed mood.

Lots of bipolar people go for help. They get prescriptions. They take them for a while, then they want their old used-to-be selves back because they think that's their normal behavior.

But it isn't. It's themselves when their brain is delivering up a high, elated mood. They have lots of jumping chemicals at their disposal when that happens and they become addicted to all these euphoria driven compounds floating around in their brains.

They long for the chemicals they have become addicted to. The quit taking their medicines and they become non-compliant patients when they need their "fix" of bipolar euphoria chemicals.

But what goes up, comes down. The misery of those depressive lows scares the bipolar and this is when they come back for help.

So thanks a lot, Eve. You had a perfectly perfect body with everything synchronized until you messed it up with that little conversation with the devil. Remember that one?

They should rename the clock gene "Eve."

If you want to read Miller's entire article, click on this link: http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW000/35320/63153/558561.html?d=dmtHMSContent

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

It isn't that we're getting a slow start this morning -- but we had a nice, gentle rainfall before sun-up and we just sat and lingered over our morning coffee.

There was a cooled down breeze. It was sending us whispers of the fragrance of rain coming across the front yard that Quint mowed yesterday afternoon.

Our dining room has windows on the south wall and the west wall. It's the favorite room in the house for the succulents. They compete with each other as they try to elbow their way up to the windows. Guess they like to peek out at the blackbirds chowing down on something of interest on the lawn.

We welcome readers this morning who are logged on from Brazil, South Africa, Vietnam, China and South Korea, plus our regulars in the United States. And it looks like we're going to go over 63,000 hits by the end of the day. I just find that truly amazing for a site that runs on a Bible study, some politics if our politicos in Washington try to get away with something you ought to know about -- or once in a great while if they do something interesting -- and psychobabble.

The psychology part of the columns usually come from topics suggested in your e-mail questions, or matters of interest from the telephone coaching/therapy sessions.

As a side note, I have to say this again if you are a new reader. If you send an e-mail, be sure you identify yourself somehow as coming from this website. You can do this in the subject line of your e-mail. It's real easy. All you have to do is type in "jane reinheimer web site." If you've sent e-mails in the past, you don't need to be concerned because the computer will recognize your address and put your message through.

I do enjoy reading your e-mails, so please identify yourselves somehow.

Have you been reading the "quotes" that I've been adding? Am trying to add some every day. I have bags and bags of little slips of paper from years of writing down things that caught my eye. Hope you enjoy them too.

##

Deuteronomy 29:1-29

There are a couple of questions to think about as we read this chapter. The first is: The Christian life is a process of continual repentance and renewal. Where are you in that process today? Though we break God's covenant with us all the time, he never does.

And -- When God made you, what do you think he had in mind for you to do with your life?

--

If we have learned nothing else about the children of Israel in reading this book of the Bible, we realize that the Israelites are a bunch of world-class grumblers. They moaned and they groaned.

Early in this chapter, God speaks to them again through Moses.

He just wants to remind them of everything he's done for them -- they've not had to go hungry -- they've not been besieged by enemies when they've been in flight out of Egypt.

So in verse 5, God gives them a pretty good reminder of how well off they are: During the forty years that I led you through the desert, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the Lord your God.

Hmmm. Imagine that! They've been walking for forty years and their sandals haven't worn out. And you'd think that if they were still wearing their Egypt duds that they'd be pretty raggedy by now, wouldn't you?

Nope. According to this verse, they're still looking pretty spiffy. Yes, this was a miracle. And just like the miracles that Jesus performed in later days, the miracles were to make sure the Israelites knew they were straight from the Lord.

Apparently they didn't pick up on that right away, because the Lord had to remind them that these miracles had a purpose. And that was to make them realize that all these miracles came straight from God, not from some magician sent by Satan.

Then there's that reminder again in verse 9: Carefully follow the terms of this covenant, so that you may prosper in everything you do.

Continuing in verse 12, he pretty much spells it out, just in case they missed his point: You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the Lord your God, a covenant the Lord is making with you this day and sealing with an oath, to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And what of this covenant? What's that all about?

Did they forget? God wanted to make sure they didn't forget that there is one thing that God absolutely despises. That is, starting in verse 18: Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison. When such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself and therefore thinks, "I will be safe even though I persist in going my own wy." This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. The Lord will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, an the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. The Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law."

Oh boy. That's pretty plain to me!

I think if I were standing in this assembly that Moses had gathered together, if I had any creepy little golden gods hidden away in my tent, I'd run back and melt them down. I certainly would give up worshiping them -- or anything else that interfered with my worship of the Lord God.

It may be that as you read these ancient passages, you think of this book as just a history book of how the Israelites came up out of Egypt.

But make no mistake about it -- the warnings are just as real to us today and they were back then. That is: don't go making any idols.

So what's an idol? Simple. It's anything that you make more important than God.

It could be your anger. It could be your insisting that you are not a lovable person. It could be a spouse or a child. It could be your job. And yes, it might even be your car. Or your house or your farm. Or money.

Whatever you worship and adore is your idol.

Be careful with that. Make God and worshiping him the most important thing you do every day of your life -- not just on Sunday or Sabbath -- but every day.

So we go back to the question of how I break God's covenant -- and I have to watch myself all the time.

I have to watch that I don't give in to the temptation of being a workaholic.

I have to make sure that I reserve time to study God's word and hear what he has to say to me.

I have to make sure that I also talk to God throughout the day -- not just at mealtimes, or only in the morning or at night before I go to sleep -- but all through the day, I try to keep a running conversation going in my head with the very God who created me. For sure, they aren't big fancy prayers filled with all the glowing words I could muster up, but rather, they're pretty simple little sentences like, "Thanks for keeping me safe," when I get back from an excursion. Or "thank you for blessing my life with wonderful family and friends," when flowers arrive or cards or letters come in the mail (or e-mails).

##

MENTAL HEALTH: GUARD IT AND GET RX IF YOU NEED TO

This is going to be short and sweet.

If you are clinically depressed or fall victim to bi-polar disorder, go straight to your doctor for an evaluation. If your doctor recommends medication, take the advice of this health care expert.

Doctors do not prescribe medications frivolously, and if you think you'd rather not be medicated, you'd most likely get an echo from your physician.

But if you need some medication for assistance, don't be ashamed of that.

If you don't think you can follow the regimen of remembering to take your medication, quit making excuses and get one of those 7-day plastic things. That way, if you wonder whether you took your medicine, just see if today's bin is empty or not.

I have Graves Disease and had my thyroid removed in 1985. That means a replacement hormone for the thyroid. What a nuisance! It took the endocrinologist about a year to get the dosage to where it needed to be.

Quint discovered about ten years ago that he has Type II diabetes. We were wondering if this genetic marker would show up later in life because his mother was diabetic. It did. Now he takes several medications to control his blood sugar, not to mention a diet that no longer contains his beloved sweets. There are lots of sugar free choices so he's no cookie-deprived.

But hey, I will be the first to admit that taking medications every day is a big fat nuisance. We couldn't deny the need for thyroid and diabetes medications.

For people who are depressed, the need is just as powerful. I believe there are over 200 medications now available to treat depressions. So if one doesn't "fit," talk to your doctor about it and see if a switch will work better for you.

But don't avoid seeing your doctor if you meed the criteria for depression. Not being diagnosed doesn't mean that you are not depressed.

And if you are being treated for depression, good for you. There does seem to be a genetic element to depression so don't be ashamed of the genes you inherited.

Adam and Eve were the last human specimens who were perfect. And since their eviction from the Garden of Eden, we've all had to live with faulty genes of one sort or another. Depression is one of those faulty genes. Embrace it and get treatment for it and get into cognitive therapy so you can get it into remission (that is, become symptom free).

##

CONGRESS PASSES ANOTHER NON-BINDING RESOLUTION -- THIS ONE DENOUNCES AHMADINEJAD -- SO WHO'S DOING THE COUNTRY'S BUSINESS?

Members of congress are elected to take care of the country's business for the American taxpayers.

That means lots of real business needs tending to -- like making sure the country is defended and that our military doesn't dwindle away -- like keeping our borders non-porous so that terrorists can't sneak across and people -- same goes for people who are not legitimate immigrants -- and taking care of a lot of actionable pieces of legislation.

But non-binding resolutions? Even if it is for denouncing Ahmadinejad from Iran -- the big bloviator who took the mike at Columbia University and started whining about being insulted by the university president.

Wah wah wah.

Academic freedom or not, he should not have been allowed to touch one square inch of American soil. The United Nations is one thing. He's a member nation who was making a speech. That was forum enough. That should have been it.

No "tour" of Ground Zero. It's hallowed ground and Iran can't go there. We may never know for sure if Iran played a part in the terrorist activities that brought down the World Trade Towers.

Leaders of any terrorist/rogue nation have no business at any burial place honoring America's loved ones. This is especially true for Americans who have died because of the murdering brutality of terrorists.
 
##

YOU PUT THE DEVIL OUT, BUT DID YOU LET HIM LEAVE HIS BAGS? -- from Brenda Moore

You got out of a bad relationship because it was bad, but you are still resentful and angry. (You let the devil leave his bags.)

You got out of financial debt, but you still can't control the desire to spend on frivolous things. (You let the devil leave his bags.)

You got out of a bad habit or addiction, but you still long to try it just one more time. (You let the devil leave his bags.)

You said, "I forgive you," but you can't seem to forget and have peace with that person. (You let the devil leave his bags.)

You told your unequally yoked mate that it was over, but you still continue to call. (You let the devil leave his bags.)

You got out of that horribly oppressive job, but you are still trying to sabotage the company after you've left. (You let the devil leave his bags.)

You cut off the affair with that married man/woman, but you still lust after him/her. (You let the devil leave his bags.)

You broke off your relationship with that hurtful, abusive person, but you are suspicious and distrusting of every new person you meet. (You let the devil leave his bags.)

You decided to let go of the past hurts from growing up in an unstable environment, yet you believe you are unworthy of love from others and you refuse to get attached to anyone. (You let the devil leave his bags.)

When you put the devil out, please make sure he takes his bags!

--

Happiness keeps you sweet.
Trials keep you strong.
Sorrows keep you human.
Failures keep you humble.
Success keeps you glowing,
But only God keeps you going!

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

And welcome, right now, to readers from Australia, Brazil and South Korea, plus all our buddies here in the good old United States of America!

The big news at church -- well, not the big news -- but the news everybody was talking about while we were standing around in the vestibule before church was about the farmer who was harvesting his bean field. It caught on fire. All 30 acres.
The fire was attributed to bearings going out in his machinery and it got hot. The bean field was super dry because, well, that's the way you want bean plants to be when you drive your harvest machines down the rows -- all dried up. Didn't take much of a spark to set it off.

So the guys were standing around computing how much yield per acre times what the going rate for beans is times the number of acres. Comes to about $10,000.

Farming is risky business.

On a much, much smaller scale, we started turning over part of the back yard for a garden next spring. One of our newest toys is a small cultivator which will be great for weeding in between the rows. But to get the garden ready, spade is the best answer. Quint says we need to just go rent one of those big, turbo-charged cultivators to do the turning the first time.

But I'm doing this, at least 90% of it, for the exercise. That means using a lot of muscles and spending a lot more energy than just guiding a cultivator around a little 8x10 garden to turn the dirt over.

Burning calories is good. So is gardening. And getting ready for the spring gardens is part of my autumn ritual.

##

Deuteronomy 28:1-68

Moses, once again, is telling the children of Israel that if they fully obey the Lord, blessings in abundance will be theirs. Even when it comes to fighting their enemies.

In verse 7: The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.

Well, that's pretty plain. I'll bet there's many a kiddo on a playground that would love to see the bothersome bullies run off in seven different directions!

But in verse 20, the consequences are pretty much spelling out if the rules aren't followed: The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.

Much of this chapter spells out all the different ways that the Lord will punish the children of Israel if they mess things up and disobey God.

In this chapter, we realize that God is not to be teased with such vague promises as "I'll just do this one time, and after that, I'll plead for forgiveness and promise to be good again."

But heed the words of verse 63 carefully before you enter into such a trifle: Just as it pleases the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

And in verse 65b: ...the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart.

We need to take these words of Deuteronomy very very seriously. Don't think that just because this is an ancient Old Testament book that it has no relevance today.

Time flashes by quickly for God. In the blink of an eye he goes from one millennium to another. He zipped past the children of Israel after they crossed over the River Jordan, watched with great joy as the Christian faith budded and opened into full blossom in the early days following Christ's ascension into heaven, then zipped through the Dark Ages, skipped across the Renaissance and watched the great scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century. 

Now we are in the 21st century. And he is watching us fervently right now.

Has he slowed down a bit to see what we're doing down here on earth?

Is he reading our hearts to see who his believers really are?

I believe that he is watching each and every one of us. I believe that he cares about what we are doing each and every day of our lives.

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DEFENSE MECHANISMS -- HOW WE TRAIN OURSELVES TO COPE

Each and every one of us has an ego. Some egos function better than others.

The ego is that part of your mental processing that allows you to make good choices -- choices that serve you well.

If your ego weren't working all that well, then you'd give in to each and every temptation that comes across your path. You'd fill up your grocery cart with cookies and goodies from the candy aisle. And ice cream.

That would be the whimsical miniature 3-year old that lives inside us. It's the ego that says "Put that back!"

You could say that the ego is the executive. The boss.

Our fun-loving, kidscreeching 3-year-old needs a boss to keep us from getting into trouble. Oh, sure, there are times when it's appropriate -- even needful -- to have a ton of fun.

We go on vacations. We take mental health days from work. We have all sorts of ways to pamper our 3-year old and let this little tyrant have its way. For just a while.

And if this little whimper wort doesn't get its way, there will be great wailing and gnashing of teeth.
 
If the three-year-old gets too outlandish, then the executive -- the ego -- steps in and puts this little tyke in a time-out.

You over-indulge on the ice cream that you managed to sneak into your cart anyway. And you ate half of the half-gallon container at one sitting. Now the executive gets wind of what you've done. But since you've already gotten away with it, the ego/executive starts to fret.

This fretting comes from the lame excuses that the 3-year-old offers up as excuses for misbehavior to the boss and leads to anxieties. The boss does not like to suffer the pangs of anxieties.

So, in order to reduce the anxieties, the boss has a powerful mental mechanism available for its defense. In fact, they're called Defense Mechanisms. And there are a few of them. Some are healthier than others.

It often happens on the way to maturation, when the 3-year-old starts to own up to its misbehavior and take some responsibility for misdeeds.

It could be when the 3-year-old gets caught stealing one time too many and finally recognizes that this isn't a good idea. Continued stealing just gets the tyke in trouble. Every time. So instead of coming up with an alibi, eventually the 3-year-old will figure it out and take one big step toward becoming a rational being -- that is, the inbound message from the boss takes root and starts to grow into a healthy, rational plant. The 3-year-old starts to resist the impulse of stealing when temptation presents itself.

There are all kinds of alibis to make the 3-year-old part of our mind think stealing might be okay. For instance, "It's the only way I can get what I truly want because no matter how hard I try -- no matter how hard I work, I never get what I want, so I'm just going to take it. It's my turn." 

We would call that rationalization.

But the defense mechanism I want to talk about today is called projection. 

Projection happens when the 3-year-old in all of us recognizes some very unpleasant, even scary, thoughts about himself/herself. These thoughts are trying to come up to the surface from deep inside. The thoughts need to find a way to be safely expelled.

Well, the child inside us -- this 3-year-old -- doesn't have the reasoning skills of an adult and certainly hasn't developed a repertoire of thought processes that will guarantee successes.

So when the 3-year-old recognizes that he is, in fact, stealing, he will eventually recognize it as something he shouldn't be doing. That is, if the ego has been doing its job successfully. Otherwise, the 3-year-old is going to come up to someone else and accuse that person of stealing.

There -- got it all out in the open. Stealing. Stealing. Stealing. I hate that word. Glad it's you and not me. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for just walking up to someone else's stuff and taking it. Shame on you.

That might work except that the boss knows what the 3-year-old did. And this causes the boss to become anxious.

Try as it may, the boss will continue and continue and continue to keep after the little tyke.

People use projection as a defense mechanism when they accuse others of whatever is going on in themselves that they find either unpleasant or unacceptable. They blame innocent people of the very thing that they're thinking or doing. Or thinking about doing.

For the most part, defense mechanisms are alibis that a person uses on the way to maturing. Or the alibis provide a safe harbor for a brief respite, like a moratorium, when a person just wants to "sit on the bench" for a while and gain more strength.

The most dangerous projection of all is when a person fears they are capable of harming themselves and accuses someone else of threatening behaviors. A paranoid person has incorporated the projection defense mechanism into its rationale to the point where it teams up with the delusional defense mechanism -- the delusion.

Now we have a person who is potentially harmful to himself/herself or to others. In all likelihood this person is suffering enormously and professional intervention should be a top priority.

##

IT YOU'RE IN MUNICH, IT'S OKTOBERFEST

In a big ceremony in Munich, the mayor tapped the season's first barrel of beer.

Now the festivities will begun -- and from now until October 7th, under a tent that houses 100,000 of your favorite friends, beer will flow and flow and flow.

With its 12-gun salute, it's "mass" time. That's what they call the two-pint mug. Gee, we call it a half-quart on this side of the pond.

Want to know what the cost for the half-quart is? A rather prices $10.30. At least that seems pricey to me.

##

HERE WE GO -- UAW WORKERS ARE ON STRIKE

The deadline was 11 am this morning. No contract. No workee.

The last time the UAW struck General Motors was in 1984. Strike lasted 13 days and affected 25 plants.

Hope this one ends sooner than 13 days and that both sides can reach an agreement.

First they'll have to take another vote to see how far apart they are. That's just Negotiating 101. Then they'll go back inside the "situation room" where contracts are hammered out.

Then they'll send out for sandwiches and pizza.

Then they'll recess and take naps.

Then tomorrow, if they didn't get a contract, they'll see how far apart they are, etc. etc.

This could amount to a lot of sandwiches, salads, and pizza.

Stay tuned.

read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119061578440137140.html?mod=hps_us_whats_news

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MY LIFE IN INK --

Welcome to our readers in Great Britain this morning. Or, I should say good afternoon. I believe it's after lunch over there.

We were in Great Britain in 1997. Loved the tour of Windsor Castle, and seeing Stonehenge, and shopping at Harrods. We went down to the seashore at Bournemouth and spend a night there, then carted ourselves around Wales. Quint is part Welsh so we are interested in the Lewellyn family name. Didn't find anyone who would claim -- or admit -- to being related to us, so we just moved along. It was our big congratulations trip on Quint's retirement.

Yesterday was our 29th anniversary.

I know -- that was the day we spent in Bloomington at an all-day workshop about bi-polar disorder. We're probably the only people you know who go to libraries, museums and educational workshops for entertainment. After I digest what I learned, I'll be sharing with you in the psychobabble part of this blog.

Someone sent us flowers. There was a tag on the door when we got back home last evening. So Quint called them this morning to let them know the flowers could be delivered today. When he hung up, he said, "This is why I love living in a small town." -- turns out the flowers were from daughter Sharon, husband Ron, and grandkids Jerry and Heather. They're very pretty. We love flowers.

There was no button to push for speaking English. The lady at the other end of the phone said, "We'll get those right out to you this morning." He didn't have to give her anything but our name. She still knew where we lived and we didn't have to repeat it back to her or spell it. And then, before she hung up, she wished us a happy anniversary. We feel like we're surrounded by neighbors. Everywhere.

I am going to put another coat of polyurethane on the linen closet door after I sand it lightly. Then we'll hang the door when it's dry enough to touch. After that, I'll hang up three wire shelf basket type thingeys I bought. Thought they'd be great for holding all those envelopes of Windex cleaning wipes, and Pledge dusting wipes, and bottles of Old English scratch cover.

I have eight bottles of Old English -- six dark, two light. They're great for touching up hardwood floors. I'm not sure I remember how I got eight bottles. I had some in the office for furniture nicks. And some in the condo. With dark furniture, I use it like a furniture polish.

Anyway, it works. And people think my furniture is all new! Not. It's thirty-five years old. Many of the pieces pre-date marrying Quint. Except for my cedar chest. It was a wedding present from Grandma Stubbe. She had gotten it as a wedding present from Grandpa Stubbe in 1924. Clearly, it's one of my treasures.

Oh -- I want to share with you a really quick and easy dessert. All you need is a package of refrigerator crescent rolls and a can of prepared pie filling. You put a little bit of the pie filling -- not too much because it will squoosh out the sides of the crescent rolls when you're rolling them up. So just put some of the pie filling kind of in the middle of the crescent roll. I make a line that goes the length of the crescent roll. Then roll them up and put them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and pop them in the oven. Sprinkle with a bit of sugar -- or Splenda for us who are sugar free. We've even been able to find the reduced sugar cherry pie filling. Bake them at whatever temperature is on the package.

Then put the rest of the pie filling in a plastic storage container and stick it in the refrigerator for tomorrow's dessert. Warning: they disappear into thin air when you get them out of the oven.

##

Deuteronomy 27:1-26

The children of Israel were getting closer and closer to going across the Jordan River.

The anticipation must have filled the air with electric anticipation.

Now comes Moses with some final marching orders from God: The children of Israel are supposed to set up two big rocks and put a coating of plastic on them. That way, they can write the commandments on them.

These rocks are to be placed on Mount Ebal.

Not only that, but after they had crossed over the Jordan, they were supposed to build an altar on Mt. Ebal. But they couldn't use any iron tools to make the altar. They have to use fieldstones to make this altar. God was very particular about these instructions.

There was another mountain in the area: Mount Gerizim.

The two mountains were in close proximity to one another. Beyond them lay the Shechem valley.

This Shechem valley is quite historic for it is here that Joseph's bones will be buried (Joshua 24). 

It was here that Abraham camped (In Genesis 12:6-7, God said to Abraham: Unto thy seed will I give this land. And He builded there an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.

It was here that Jacob camped and bought a piece of the land (In Genesis 33:18-20 we read: And Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram; and encamped before the city. And he bought the parcel of ground, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem's father, for a hundred pieces of money. And he erected there an altar, and called it God, the God of Israel.)

And it is here that God wants tribes placed on Mt. Gerizim to pronounce blessings. These tribes are (verse 12): Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin.

And on Mt. Ebal to pronounce curses were (verse 13): Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zubulun, Dan and Naphtali.

These are the curses that are outlined:

Cursed is a man who carves an idol,
Cursed is a man who dishonors his father or his mother,
Cursed is the man who moves his neighbor's boundary stone,
Cursed is the man who leads the blind astray,
Cursed is the man who sleeps with his father's wife,
Cursed is the man who has sex with any animal,
Cursed is the man who sleeps with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother,
Cursed is the man who sleeps with his mother-in-law,
Cursed is the man who kills his neighbor secretly,
Cursed is the man who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person,
and Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law.

Just as a sidenote, this Mt. Ebal is the higher of the two mountains. It rises some 3,000 feet above sea level, and is about 1,500 feet above Shechem's valley floor. From Mt. Ebal you can see the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and the Jordan River is in plain view to the east.

Actually, we don't get confirmation of this until we read in Joshua, but it was Joshua who actually led the Israelites to build the altar on Mt. Ebal. This was done according to the instructions handed down from God through Moses, although we won't see the transition from Moses to Joshua for a little while yet.

Read more at: http://ebal.haifa.ac.il/ebal01.html

This web site will give you an archaeological perspective of the Shechem area where the Israelites had been camped from 1250-1000 B.C.E.

The digs at the Mt. Ebal satisfied three criteria that are necessary to identify a Biblical site:

1.) chronological (beginning of the Israelite settlement;
2.) geographical; and
3.) nature of the site (a center with a burnt-offering altar)

##

HSU HELD WITHOUT BAIL

First he jumped bail to go to Colorado.

In Colorado he was picked up for failure to appear in court in California. He forfeited the $2 million he used to bond out of jail.

Then he was extradited back to California to face the music.

Then the feds in New York filed charges for campaign funding violations. Seems he had a reputation as a heavy hitter in Democratic power circles. Want money -- call Hsu!

Now he's in California and wants the $2 million bond forfeiture back since he's now willing and able to go to court there.

But wait. It's highly likely that the $2 million may just belong to all those people you rooked out of some heavy duty greenbacks in your $60 million Ponzi scheme. The money wasn't yours to begin with.

So, no bail for you, Mr. Hsu.

You don't have any money. You're broke. Get it?

##

BI-POLAR BRAINS ARE DIFFERENT

And yes, children can be bi-polar too.

See: http://www.bpchildren.com/

This web site has a 22 minute video you can watch with lots of good information.

Any discussion of bi-polar will talk about the importance of what's happening in the brain -- particularly in the prefrontal lobe. If you aren't sure about where this part of the brain is, go here: http://www.brainexplorer.org/glossary/prefrontal_cortex.shtml

People often ask me what the symptoms of bi-polar children are. I've found a really good web site that has a list of the common symptoms. This site is: http://bipolar.about.com/cs/kids_diag/a/red_flags4.htm

But back to the brain. When a bi-polar person has a manic episode, it's like their prefrontal lobe just clicks off like a light bulb. From that point and for the duration of the manic episode, you're going to get information straight from the "bowels of the brain." This could be potty mouth. It could be paranoid accusations. It could be an irrational tirade. It could be a lot of things that would ordinarily be filtered by the rational, executive prefrontal cortex.

After the tirade and things calm down, you need to know that the chemicals in the prefrontal cortex are going to be "curing" for a month or so. Maybe six to eight weeks before the prefrontal area is back to where it was.

So just what is the duty of the prefrontal area?

To put it simply, this is the Captain Executive Smarty Pants. Captain can see what I'm thinking and decides whether I'm going to say it or not. That is, ordinarily. When I'm not in a manic or depressed state. Captain can only do his job well when moods are stable. That means the lights are on in my prefrontal lobe.

Prefrontal activities are the highest of the mental functions. That's why it's referred to as the "Executive Function." This type of thinking/behavior usually kicks in when kiddos get to mid-adolescence.

Prior to that time, they were limited to a cognitive mentality. That blooms when kiddos are five or six. It could be earlier for some, later for others. That will be when your first memory is experienced.

Before then, we were running on mammal mentality. This is strictly a stimulus response mentality. I get hungry -- I want food.

This mammal mentality goes shopping with me too.

I go into the produce section of the supermarket and I pack a half-watermelon, a couple of cantaloupes, more bananas than we can eat in a week, apples, bananas, oranges, bags of lettuce types, cucumbers, mushrooms, onions, potatoes. That fills up an entire cart. And it's just for Quint and me.

My mammal mentality must think I'm a monkey or something. "Better get some of these," it whispers to me. "There might not be fresh strawberries until next year." So I get two quarts. Maybe I'll have time to make some strawberry jam, or a shortcake or something.

But then I think, thanks to my prefrontal lobe, I've got some apples in the crisper drawer. And I don't need three pounds of oranges. Nobody likes them but me, so why not just get two? And put all that other stuff back too. A serving size of banana is one-half a banana. You don't need twelve bananas for 2 adults for a week. That would be 24 servings!

Somehow I manage to convince myself that I can get by with only one bag of lettuce, one cantaloupe, and the watermelon.

So I just hope my prefrontal lobe gets control of my mammal mentality before I hit the cookie aisle.

If you'd like to read an article by Jay Carter, PsyD., click on this link: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0838/is_n70/ai_14710478/pg_1

It's about the contagiousness, generationally, of verbal abuse. He's also written books about nasty people, bullies, etc. And if you ever get a chance to go to one his workshops, do it. He's very informative and fun at the same time.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

Good morning, all you insomniacs -- that is, for those of you who live in the United States. If you live a long, long way away -- it might even be good evening. In any event, welcome to my world.

It's very early. In fact, in the corn country here in the United States, it's only 4:25 am and it's still dark outside.

The crickets who have decided to move into my basement are shreiking! Don't they ever sleep? Oh, but I love the sounds of summer.

I'm usually turning over about this time. Time for the last nap of nighttime. But today Quint and I are headed for a workshop. New research about bi-polar disorder will be presented. We have to be on the road by 5:30. so I'm not sure how far I'm going to get with today's blogs. But we'll be back in the early afternoon. Check back if you like.

Today I'm going to reverse the order of things and put the Bible discussion at the "top" of the discussions. That seems to make more sense anyway.

##

Deuteronomy 26:1-19

In the early verses of this chapter, we hear again that the Lord heard the prayers of the children of Israel when they were living under the oppressive rule of the Egyptians.

They were able to see firsthand what the might wonders of God can do. Verse 8: So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders.

This is the chapter where tithes are first talked about, I believe. In verse 12 we read: When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied.

This tithe is to be a sacred portion of what they produce.

And like the man, Jabez, many years before them, they looked up to the heavens and prayed, in verse 15: Look down from heaven, your holy dwelling place, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us as you promised on oath to our forefathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.

God heard the children of Israel, for Moses brings this messae to them from God in verses 16-19: The Lord your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have declared this day that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in his ways, that you will keep his decrees, commands, and laws, and that you will obey him. And the Lord has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands. He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised.

Wow! Don't you think that if you were living back in those days and heard Moses as he preached to them about what God wanted them to do, that all these things would be pretty high up there on your "things to do" list.

They would be on mine, I can tell you for sure. I mean, this was the very God who had parted the waters of the Red Sea just so they could hightail it out of Egypt -- the land where they had thought God had forgotten about them.

So now here they were -- just about ready to put their little tippy toes onto the dirt of the promised land and once again Moses is reminding them that God has blessed them as his chosen people.

Well, we may not all be Israelites but I can tell you one thing: We are all children of God and because we are his children, we share in that blessing of all blessings -- the inheritance that God gives his children.

That was the whole point of God sending Jesus Christ, his son, to earth. (But that wouldn't happen for another 1400 years or so.) By Jesus' death on the cross, each one of us who believes that by his very death, this inheritance became a gift to all mankind.

By this act of belief, we become the children of God. This inheritance that God gives is not just a piece of real estate anymore. We don't have to go to Israel and walk about in the desert to claim ownership in the land of milk and honey.

All we have to do is bring Jesus into our own hearts. And by this very act of believing, we become the children of God.

##

It's 6:15 pm and we just got home. Long day. Four hours of it was spent driving but the workshop about updated bi-polar research was well worth it. The workshop facilitator was Dr. Jay Carter.

WE GET TO CHOOSE WHO WE'RE GOING TO BE WHEN WE GROW UP

Nurture is key. Nature plays a part but it doesn't cause us to become who we are.

The nature vs. nurture debate has been flaming for generations and generations. And even now, after the genome project has reached its level of success, the nature/nurture question has not been answered except to say that both play an important part.

This question plagued me all through my undergraduate and graduate school years. I think that was because of two daughters who shared the same parents, the same home growing up, even the same schools, church and Sunday School.

So how, I wondered, could they be so very different? They were only 15 months apart.

Or even in my own family of origin. We were dirt poor. All four of us kids shared that same unfortunate experience. We shared the same two parents. We went to the same school, church and Sunday School.

What made one of the brothers become the black sheep of the family?

And where did I ever get the idea that I could even get an undergrad degree much less a masters. Nobody in the family had ever done that.

After a while, after going to enough workshops and seminars and reading the research, I learned the answer to the "big why."

It isn't what we all share when we're growing up that makes us turn out different. No no. It's not that easy. If that were the case, we could come up with some kind of a cookie cutter formula that would pretty much guarantee success. Then successful parents could write books on how to raise successful kids.

And they'd get filthy rich, believe me.

But the truth of the matter is, absolutely lousy parents raise some pretty incredible kiddos who go on to become valuable members of the communities they grow up in.

And the converse of that is also true. Parents who, you'd think, would have the financial, educational and emotional resources to raise wonderful children end up with spoiled brats who don't even know how to say "please" and "thank you."

What makes people different from one another is the unshared experiences they have while they are growing up.

While it was true that my sister Cookie and I both went to the St. Paul Lutheran School. We were even in the same classroom even though we were in different grades. Small schools often doubled up like that.

Cookie was the compliant one who followed instructions, turned in her homework on time and paid attention to every word the teacher said.

I, on the other hand, was a daydreamer who looked out the window, wrote little poems, talked to my neighbor across the aisle and other naughty gabby things.

So my experience with the same teacher as my sister was a different experience. Mr. Wentzel yelled at me. A lot. He never yelled at Cookie. To her credit, he didn't need to.

Fortunately for me, Cookie was not a tattler. But then, she didn't need to be. Mr. Wentzel could report to my mother about me all by himself.

So my sister and I had unshared school experiences. As we grew up, we had many other unshared experiences -- job experiences, dating experiences, girlfriend experiences, boyfriend experiences.

It was those unshared experiences that shaped our dreams.

That's a big determiner of who we become -- we take our genes and the shared experiences and make them different by molding different dreams of our future.

##

HSU CHARGED BY FEDS IN NEW YORK -- POLITICAL GAME WAS A HUGE PONZI SCHEME

Don't you just know that the Democrats are wishing they'd never heard of Mr. Hsu, the money bundler!

He's been arrested in New York for running a giant Ponzi scheme.

A Ponzi scheme (see Wikipedia), distilled down to its bare bones of ugly fraud, simply means that you promise a big payout. Really big payout. Abnormally, out of your mind with glee payouts.

Problem is, all these payouts come from future donations or money you don't have yet. For a Ponzi scheme to be truly successful, you have to have a continuous flow of cash coming in so that you can pay all those outrageous claims you promised.

It's been around since the early 1900s, thanks to an Italian immigrant named Charles Ponzi.

Unlike a pyramid scheme where new investors are brought in by already-in-investors, the Ponzi scheme revolves around a central schemer. And because the returns are so green and juicy, very often investors want to re-invest.

I mean, if you were promised and received a 20% return on your money, wouldn't you want in for more?

If your answer to either of those questions was "yes," then Mr. Hsu would be glad to make your acquaintance.

Problem is, Mr. Hsu, who was extradited to California from Colorado on a 15 year-old felony theft charge.
 
Today, Mr. "Ponzi" Hsu was named in New York in a federal complaint of campaign violations and running a huge Ponzi scheme. According to the complaint, he bilked some $60 million out of people.

Fraud fraud fraud! Not good, Mr. Hsu. Now you've done it. You have tarnished your ancestors' memories.

Read more: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RPBQJO1&show_article=1

and: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

##

SENATE CONDEMNS MOVEON.ORG AD ABOUT GENERAL PETRAEUS

First it was a play on words -- General Petraeus was likened to "Betray-us."  That's a name even a 7th grader could have come up with as a bullying taunt. And the ad accused the general of "cooking the books" to come up with the numbers that the White House wanted.

Problem is, this is the general who is leading the United States fighting forces in a war against terror in the Iraqi deserts.

So at the very least, it was in horribly poor taste even if this is seen by some as just mean-spirited political rhetoric.

Then there were the senate hearings. If any of you have ever watched a half hour of senate hearings about anything, you'll quickly learn that they're basically photo ops for the august ones who come to the mikes with prepared speeches and distilled talking points. Very few questions.

The senate hearings were no exception. Hillary Clinton went on and on and one for seven minutes, then closed her diatribe with this statement which is a stolen quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1817) which she didn't bother to acknowledge. She just kind of lifted it as if it were her own stroke of genius when she looked at General Petraeus and said that what he was telling the senators required the "willful suspension of disbelief."

On that very same day, the New York Timesran the ad about General Petraeus. It was a full page ad. It was greatly discounted. I think the charge to Move On.org was $65,000. So what's a full-page ad usually going for these days? $160,000?

And is that $95,000 difference kind of like a soft money campaign contribution of sorts since it was heavily supportive of one political party's point of view? So do the Republicans get a shot at a full-page ad for the same price?

Giuliani thought so. And the New York Times kind of sort of had to agree. They sold him an ad at the same rate. And now we have the war of the words going back and forth on the pages of the New York Times.

So today the United States Senate passed a resolution condemning the ad about Gen. Petraeus. It passed handily with a 72-25 vote.

Hillary voted against the condemnation.

Christopher Dodd voted against the condemnation.

Obama didn't vote on the condemnation.

Biden missed the vote to condemn also.

Read the play-by-play at this site: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297498,00.html

and at: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RPBHO80&show_article=1

and: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/moveon-vote-splits-dems-2007-09-21.html

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

We don't need to go the cat store to get a cat; the one next door seems to have adopted us. She belongs to Mr. Grumpy but it doesn't seem to have bothered her disposition much. She likes to walk on our car and leave her little footprints in the morning dew.

Yesterday when we got back home from an errand, we found her lying in the cool shade of the Impatiens by the back door. I mean, she wasn't curled up beneath the flowers. Oh no. She was stretched out the full length of her. All the more flowers to squash.

Even when Ms. Kitty saw us, she just laid there as if to say, "Yeah, and what are you going to do about it?"

The neighborhood is her regal realm.

She struts down the middle of the street, crosses into the yard across the street and checks to see if there are any new bugs under one of the evergreens at the corner of the house, then hops up on a ledge and saunters from one window to another until she reaches her jumping off place by the front door.

By this time the Border Collie who lives in the house across the street is going full throttle bow wow berserk. Ms. Kitty taunts him when she stops by the big window in the living room to stare at his yapping face.

She could lick his face an inch away on the other side of the glass if she wanted to. But she doesn't. She just gives him a "ha ha" stare and moves on to her next big adventure.

We like cats. Even when Ms. Kitty does her figure eights around our ankles.

P.S. I have three coaching/therapy telephone calls coming in today, so if the entire set of columns isn't all here, please check back throughout the day. I'll get to everything eventually.

##

AND WHO IS CONGRESS TO TALK?

According to the latest approval ratings, the approval for the way Congress is handling things in America has dropped to a low of 11%!

Wow!

Keep in mind that most of the little presidential wannabees are part of this congressional set of 11% flunkies. So how is it that they can run around the country lambasting a president who nearly triples their approval ratings?

I have a word for that -- arrogance.

Here's the poll: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070919/pl_nm/usa_politics_poll_dc

One reason given for the low ratings is the public's fear of the economy.

But since the feds lowered interest yesterday by a half a point, the economy ought to get a boost -- at least for lots of people who were going to have their ARMs and/or other loans coming due to re-set. Lower interest rates ought to help the auto industry too. And home equity loans that are tied to the prime.

##

SEND YOUR TWO CENTS WORTH TO YOUR CONGRESSIONAL POLITICO

Believe me, it only takes a minute and you get the satisfaction of being involved with the political process.

Does it matter?

You bet it does. Go to this web site and fill in your name and address and the computer program will figure out who your elected politicos are in Washington. You can even send a short message to tell them what you want them to do and how you want them to vote on a particular bill.

Get involved. Go here: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=10319386&type=ML

##

SAY WHAT YOU MEAN AND MEAN WHAT YOU SAY

I've used this story as an example of communication skills many, many times. And I might add that I have the individuals' permission to share the story with you.

It involves a young couple who came for marriage counseling. They had a three year old boy. A very busy, "Dennis the Menace" type three year old who could not be left along for a microsecond.

Mom had a part-time job as a playground/recess monitor at a nearby school. Her mother could be counted on to babysit in the mornings when she went to work.

But Mom was not happy with her rate of pay. She complained often. And finally her husband said, "Look, if you're that unhappy, get another job."

He thought that was pretty plain.

So she did. She got another job working at a telephone answering service from 4 pm to midnight. And she kept her playground job.

Now she was making more money but she was more tired. All the time. Couldn't keep up. Her little darling was wearing her out. He wouldn't keep quiet. Lots of kidscreech. Life was horrible.

Then her husband asked her, "Why are you working so much?"

To which she said, "You told me to get another job!"

You saw that one coming, didn't you?

What he meant was for her to get another job instead of the low paying playground job. Not another job in addition to the one she had. Besides, they finally agreed that it wasn't the best of ideas for her to work in the evenings when their threesome could be together as a family.

Is this a credibility problem? Yes, in a way it is.

Credibility is a context matter.

Within the context of this couple's discussion of her part-time job, there had not been a clear idea of what one little word meant. And that word was another. The husband was finally able to convince his wife that there was no way he'd ever want her to work an eight hour and be away from their home and family every night of the week.

Not with their three year old who needed close supervision. And her working for minimum wage when he was making over $100,000 was another matter too.

Language requires credibility.

Language shares meaning between two or more individuals. If one single word means two different things, there could be a problem. And there was with this couple until they came to a shared definition.

They learned a lot about how they valued each other within the context of their roles in each others lives.

Her playground job was a social outlet, she realized. She just needed to be away from her son for a few hours a day. After supervising a bunch of little runaway tykes, her one didn't look so bad.

But the money was not the object. It was part of her rationale to justify leaving her son to got to work. As it turned out, she quit the low-paying job and, instead, volunteered at her church's preschool for a few hours a day. She said she felt more valued at the church.

And that's often the case. Volunteers will feel like they're making an incredibly valuable contribution when there isn't a dollar figure put on their time.

##

Deuteronomy 24:1-22

If there had been a television station in the desert, the children of Israel would probably have had a Desperate Housewives show. Why else would Moses give them instructions from God about how a man could divorce his wife if she wasn't pleasing to him. Then if she married another guy and didn't please him either and he divorced her, the first husband was not allowed to remarry her.

In verse 4b: That would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord. Do not bring sin upon the Land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

In this chapter, the children of Israel are supposed to remember those less fortunate than they are. God wants them to think of the times when they were slaves in Egypt and were rescued by God.

God does not want them to go over their grape harvest a second time, or their olive picking, or their sheaves in the field. Instead, they are to leave these behind for the people who are fatherless, the aliens and the widows.

Deuteronomy 25:1-19

How a man gets to be known as The Family of the Unsandaled.

It goes like this: If a man and his brother are living together and one dies and leaves a widow without a son, that man's brother is to marry the widow so that they can have children.

But then, if the brother says, "I don't want to marry her," then she can go to the elders and report him. If he still refuses, then she can take one of his sandals off, spit in his face and say, "This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother's family line."

And that brother's line will then be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled.

There are some other interesting edicts that God passes down insofar as fair fighting rules that you will want to read.

However, if you are in a country where the Bible is not widely available and you would like me to e-mail the text to you, please send me an e-mail at this address: jane@janereinheimer.com-- and be sure that you put "Deut study" in the subject line.

This chapter closes with a favorite passage in verse 19: When the Lord your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!

The reason I find such comfort in this verse is that I am reminded, again, that the Lord is always with me. He watches over me and he gives me comfort and rest. And most of all, he protects me from evil and from people who bear false witness against me.

And my inheritance? It's all the accumulated blessings that God has prospered me with.

The Lord protects me and those I love.

Always has. This, I believe.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

We send happy, healthy greetings to all our readers in Canada and South Korea -- and the United States, of course -- who are logged on and reading right now. Isn't that amazing? From Canada and the U.S. to places halfway around the world. Must be the middle of the night in South Korea.

I don't know about you but I'm not ready to give up summer yet. I was just starting to get summer organized. Now, the next thing you know it, leaves will be falling and you know what that means!

We have lots of leaves. I mean, lots of leaves. If you've ever seen a thirty foot maple tree you know exactly what I'm talking about. We have a big maple in the front yard and two in the back yard, plus the box elder. They drop a lot of leaves too.

I did paint the lattice on the deck. Now I just have to figure out how to get at the lattice that's underneath the steps. Maybe spray paint what I can't reach by hand. It looks like it's not going to rain by the end of the week so we'll be putting a waterproof stain on it. 

And Quint is absolutely thrilled that two beautifully bright yellow finches stopped by for lunch yesterday. He's been patiently putting thistle into the finch feeder but  had only had other little brown birds eating all the thistle. Then Mr. and Mrs. Finch showed up to dine. They are very pretty. And quite a splash of color too.

##

WHY WOULD PEOPLE DO THAT?

First of all, don't go swimming in lakes if alligators live nearby. Like in South Carolina.

A snorkeler just that and guess what? The 500+ pound alligator bit his arm off. (see: http://news.aol.com/story/_a/huge-alligator-tears-snorkelers-arm-off/20070917212609990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001)

The man is in critical condition at the hospital. The alligator was shot dead and quick surgery removed the man's arm from its stomach but even so, doctors aren't sure the arm can be reattached.

Then there was this man who put the head of his pet Eastern Diamondback into his mouth. Guess what happened? You guessed it. There was enough venom in his system to kill 12-15 people. The man will survive but only because of a miracle and apparently one very kind guardian angel. (see this video: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2007/09/18/burton.snake.bite.kgw)

Don't try this at home!

Besides, you may not know this but a rattlesnake is moving at 90 mph when it's striking. So don't ever think you can get out of the way fast enough. You're so much better off not going into their territory. But it happens accidentally anyway when walking paths in nature preserves.

Just be careful.

I personally do not swim in anything but a chlorinated pool. That's for several reasons. The first is that I had a healthy fear of snakes instilled in me from my father. He was of the opinion that you should never get close enough to a snake to even worry about being bitten. 

There were times when he'd end up watching my sister and my younger brother. I think my mother may have been pregnant at the time, or maybe just sorely in need of a break from the three of us. We tended to run around and jump up and down a lot in the yard. She probably got tired of all that kidscreech. 

So off we'd go with dear old daddy to run his trotlines on the Red River. The mosquitoes down in the bayous were huge and there were always snakes lurking in the shadows. We just knew that. Mainly because he kept reminding us. He'd chide us, "Watch where you put your feet!" And he was not kind and gentle about his advice either. The paths through the woods weren't very wide and there were big black water mocassins or rattlesnakes around every turn, we feared.

If it was getting late in the day we'd have to stay in the car with the windows rolled up. That way we were safe from the four-legged creatures that scared us out of our wits. We could hear them off in the distance. And yes, they do sound like a woman screaming. Daddy said they were panthers. Nobody would argue that point as we sat there eyes wide open with our silver dollar size eyeballs.

##

WANT TO SEE A 310 MPH CRASH (DRIVER SURVIVES)

If you're one of our readers from Australia, you've probably seen this on the news over and over and over. But for those of us in the United States who are amazed at how any driver could survive something this fiery, here's a video: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/sports/2007/09/17/vo.aussie.drag.race.crash.ap

It reminds me of Purdy, a neighbor from across the street, when I was growing up. For weeks and weeks he'd be busy at the curb putting what he said was a jet engine on hit hot rod.

We all came out to give him advice after school, and basically just watched, and told him he was craze and then told him he was going to get killed. But all to no avail. The day finally arrived when he said he was going to start 'er up and give us a thrill of a lifetime just to watch history in the making.

It was very noisy. Guess he didn't have a muffler on the thing. We just stood there like the dumb kids that we were. Probably had our mouths hanging open too.

Then Purdy put the thing in gear. It didn't go anywhere. Unless you count vertical. It stood up on its rear tires, then fell back to the ground. It was all over in seconds. I don't think he ever did anything else to it, except pick up the pieces of his wounded pride and go back in his house across the street.

It was fund growing up in Paducah, Kentucky. We never knew what was going to happen next. The town was just big enough so that we didn't know everybody, and small enough so that everybody in the neighborhood knew everybody else's business.

##

KNOW WHAT YOUR TALENTS ARE

Each and every one of us has a talent -- and probably a bunch of talents. It's up to us to find out what those talents are.

Becoming aware of our talents will lead us to relationships.

These relationships build on the honesty of who you are. So if you have created these masks that you hide behind, don't be too surprised to learn that your relationships are going to continue to falter.

One disappointing relationship follows another.

If you're lucky, you'll have one of those "hmmmm" moments. These are different from the "aha" moments that provide bursts of insight.

The "hmmm" moments force you to see dilemmas. Maybe you find yourself at a fork in the road. On the one path you can follow your usual techniques of relationship building -- whatever those may be. You know -- the ones that didn't work.

Or -- and this is a biggy -- you can follow a different path. Instead of doing things the same old way, you may just come to the conclusion that it's time to do something different.

Maybe this time you're going to focus more on the other person, rather than on yourself.

Maybe this time you're going to put the mask you've been hiding behind in the closet in your head. If you're really really brave, you'll toss the mask, but it may take a while to do that.

Maybe this time you'll go after the truly emotionally intimate relationship -- the healthy kind you've yearned for all these years.

Maybe your time has finally come and you are going to take the courageous leap of doing something about embracing a truly honest relationship.

If that's the case, then you are going to need to be absolutely and truly honest in all your communications. If you don't, then intimacy and fulfillment will evade you once again.

Instead you'll have communication that is, well, just noisy.

Better to go after a good, old-fashioned healthy relationship that's built on the solid virtue of honest communication.

##

Deuteronomy 22:1-30 and Deuteronomy 23:1-25

There are primarily social concerns addressed in Chapter 22. I find the first one interesting. It says that if your brother's ox or sheep run off, don't ignore the animal -- take it back to your brother. But if your brother doesn't live nearby or if you don't know who he is, then take care of teh animal and hang onto it until your brother comes looking for it. Same holds true if it's a donkey. Even if its his coat.

But even if you don't know who your brother is?

And I thought our present day nuclear families were becoming more and more disconnected. But then, the children of Isral were spread out all over the desert, I guess.

Other concerns are also addressed in this chapter.

Like in verse 5: A woman must not wear men's clothing, nor a man wear women's clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.

Several concerns in this chapter have to do with chastity, and what to do in those instances where adulteries are committed.

God said to stone both parties -- that way the evil would be purged out.

I wonder what God thinks when he sees people watching TV shows like Desperate Housewives. Or Dallas a few years ago. Or movies that show sleeping around as something glamorous and titillating.

Moses probably would have been at his wits end with J. R. Ewing.

God would have had Ewing taken out to the gate and stoned. Him and all his girlfriends.

In Chapter 23, the children of Israel got strict orders about who they could worship with in their weekly assemblies.

That would be the Ammonites and Moabites. And why? Because they did not come to meet the children of Israel with bread and water when they were coming out of Egypt. (verse 4) Instead, they hired Balaam to put a curse on the children of Israel.

But God turned the curse into a blessing for the children of Israel.

So the children of Israel were not to worship with these people for 10 generations.

This chapter has an interesting note about how the children of Israel are to relieve themselves.

They are to go outside the camp and dig a hote, then cover their excrement (verse 12). But, get this, in verse 14 Moses says For the Lord yoru God oves about in yoru camp to protect you and to deliver yoru enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.

In other words, God is watching them.

In other words, God is watching us, so we ought to watch our Ps and Qs.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

And here we go into another glorious week. Hope your day will go well for you. Today is the day I get up off my you-know-what and get busy again. Enough of this sitting around. There are things to do outside and a limited amount of good weather that's comfortable in just shirt sleeves.

Quint wants to replace the downspout on one of the gutters. He says he doesn't really want to tackle it until I get the lattice painted because the gutter will be brushing up against it.

That makes sense. So he's off to Menards for some of that plastic downspout. I think he plans on diverting the rain water gush-off in another direction. He did pick up three of those accordion-looking extensions for downspouts, so I'm not sure where the water will end up after he's done.

Oh, and we bought a battery-powered cultivator. It's charging now so later on, after I get today's writing taken care of, we're going to turn the soil for our new garden next spring.

It's not a farmer-size cultivator but it digs down four inches. That ought to do it. The plants roots can do the rest if they want to dig their way to China. -- For all our readers in China -- if you're ever out there digging in your back yard and see some roots that look very unfamiliar, they would be mine. You can clip them if they make it that far. They would obviously be too long.

So there will be no HGTV for us today. I really like those programs. Get lots of good ideas of how to do things. I also get the courage to think "out of the box" and do things I might not otherwise have had the guts to try.

Problem is, I can spend an entire afternoon watching design shows. Then I don't have any time left over to do anything except cook and eat.

That is not a good thing!

##

BLIP, BLIP AND SNIP -- AND THEY CALL THIS NEWS?

I watched the news for a bit this morning to see about the airline crash in Thailand. Instead I got the best part of an hour watching what the news people were trying to feed us. It included:

The Sopranos got the best drama series at the Emmy's last night. CNN has a whole fistful of other winners and losers at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/16/emmy.night/index.html

Sally Field was censored when she started a rant about war. Chances are, her speech would have been carried in its entirety if the language had been cleaned up. I thought I saw her lips purse the word "bastard" but I couldn't be sure. But the cameras went to a picture of the glittering globe without the audio of her speech.

To which I offer this from Voltaire: It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are to be punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

There -- fixed it.

There was lots of coverage of that OJ thing out in Las Vegas. So far, OJ has been charged with 6 felonies. I listened to the tape and am wondering if one of those charges has to do with holding someone against their will, at gunpoint. Could that possibly be called kidnapping? OJ said later that he was just conducting a sting operation to get his stuff back. Aren't you supposed to be a law enforcement person before you can sting somebody? If you want to hear the audio tape of what was said as OJ and a few of his buddies stormed the hotel room in question, TMZ has the filthy, unexpurgated version at: http://www.tmz.com/

So to get the latest on what is really happening in the real world, I had to go to the internet.

And "news" shows wonder why viewers are running away.

Incidentally, some forty people survived the fiery airplane crash that killed ninety passengers. The black box recorders have been sent to the U.S. for interpretation as to what happened to make the plane go down. Early prognostication is wind shear.

Michael Mukasey has been named by the White House as the nominee for Attorney General to replace Gonzales. We'll see how the confirmation hearings go on Capitol Hill. Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ATTORNEY_GENERAL?SITE=NCBER&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

And then there was another headline about Britney. Guess she's going back to court today. Things don't look good for her and her baby custody fight. A new surprise witness is supposedly coming forward. This witness might just blister Britney. If you have any interest, here's a link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296969,00.html

And that's about all the non-news I can take for one morning.

##

WANT PEOPLE TO LIKE YOU MORE? BE CHARMING

This is going to be a bit different today.

Guess I'm waxing poetic when I think of all the people, myself included, who want little more than to love and be loved in return.

Here's a clue: your attractiveness increases greatly when you express interest in something that your intended is interested in. That's not hard to do if you want to be a charming person.

Charming people don't use psychological weapons against other people. And it doesn't matter if you're the most unkempt person in the room -- if a charming person is also in the room, that person will approach you and engage you in conversation and make you feel like what you have to say is valuable. And that you are valuable.

Charm. So what is it?

It's like love. It moves along without being forceful and it doesn't try to dominate other people.

The poet John Donne said this: No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main...I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.

Recognize Ernest Hemmingway? He must have been a fan of Donne's if he named a book after one of Donne's quotes, wouldn't you think?

Charming people don't have any interest in "owning" other people. They don't want to destroy others.

Paul Simon wrote a sad poem that he and Garfunkel made into a hit song:

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need of friendship
Friendship causes pain
It's laughter and loving I disdain
I am a rock, I am an island.

Don't talk of love
But I've heard the word before
It's sleeping in my memory
I won't disturb the slumber of the feelings that have died
If I never loved I never would have cried
I am a rock, I am an island.

My goodness -- what a sad song.

Paul Simon apparently had never read the poetry of Khalil Gibran when he wrote in Under the Sun:

But if in your fear your would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-like floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears...

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.

Charm is like love but not quite. Again, Gibran says: Love is sufficient unto love. When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."

Anyone who loves and loves deeply feels that unmistakable pull towards God. Love brings you in contact with that quiet little voice within you that is the voice of God.

Charm, on the other hand, provides a vehicle for you to interact well with other people here on earth. Charm allows you to find something acceptable and worthy in people you meet, no matter where you meet them.

Charm lets you get passed the flaws in other people. Then you can take heart with the words of Leonard Cohen, the musician, who said: There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

If charm isn't working for you, then remember the words of this writer, Anne Lamott: You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

Not much inner peace for you when you do that. And you'd hardly be considered charming by people who meet you on the path of your life.

Remember: The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears. That's an old Indian proverb.

And finally this from Sarah Breathnach: Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons of life do not last. The spring rains will come again.

I personally think that what makes charming people so attractive is their lack of deceit. They bring harmony and balance to life around them because their lives are not lies. They are not fakes who are just trying to be charming. They are genuinely interested in other people.

##

Deuteronomy 21:1-23

Wow! This chapter opens with the discovery of a dead man.

What if a man died and no one saw who did it? He was just laying there, alone and dead.

What were the Israelites supposed to do?

Were they supposed to go to the nearest city of refuge and see who the newest "citizen" was?

No. Moses said that God wants the children to Israel to go out to the highway and measure the distance of the body from the towns around him. Then, it would be the responsibility of the people in the town nearest the corpse to find a new heifer and take it out to a stream and break its neck. Now this was to be a heifer that had never worked in a field, had never plowed a field.

Then all the elders were to come out from the nearest town and wash their hands over this heifer and say, "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see if done."

Then the death of the dead man would be atoned.

God addresses another social concern starting at verse 10. This has to do with rules of engagement again. But this time it has to do with captivating, charming, beautiful women who were the spoils of war.

Moses said that God would allow the Israelites to take such a woman but first the woman had to shave her head, clip all her fingernails off, and take all her clothes off. Then she was to have a month to grieve leaving her mother and father.

After all that was done, then the guy could take her as his wife. But if she wasn't pleasing to him, he had to send her on her way. She could go anywhere she wanted to go. The Israelite couldn't sell her after he had dishonored her.

This chapter also includes some rights of inheritance that may be of interest to you. The section about the rebellious son who is a drunk (verses 18-21) was a way of purging evil from the children of Israel. We don't haul the drunk out of town and stone them to death anymore. They have to go to detox and we pray that it will work. Sometimes an alcoholic has to go again. And again.

And finally, in verses 22-23, come the instructions about what to do with the body of someone who has died. This is the Biblical verse admonishing the children of Israel to bury their dead the same day that they died.

Keep in mind that these verses were talking about capital punishment by hanging someone on a tree. The children of Israel were not to leave the body hanging overnight.

God says that this is more to keep the land pure and not desecrate it. God wanted this land he was giving to the children of Israel to remain pure.

I liken this admonishment to another verse in the Bible that says I'm not supposed to let the sun go down on my wrath. Coming to grips with anger and extending forgiveness before I go to sleep is one of the ways I try very hard to keep my heart as pure as I can.

Mind you, I'm not saying I'm always successful, but I try hard. And if I have difficulties managing forgiveness, then I ask God to help me. He does promise to send the Holy Spirit to us to counsel us.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

We welcome readers from Australia who are logged on this morning. Let's see -- it's got to be springtime down under. Right? Happy tulips and daffodils, then.

We are getting ready to mow the grass one final time. It feels more like we should be gathering up the leaves to make our towering inferno except that the leaves are still green and on the trees. Only the air feels like autumn.

I do plan on painting some lattice on the back of the deck on Sunday afternoon, so while you're enjoying yourselves, just think of me slaving away with my thera-brush making all things white and new again.

I am happy to report that I finally found the marigold seeds that my sister, Cookie, gave me a year ago. She packed them ever so carefully in a plastic baggy then mailed them. I have been chasing them from the condo which we sold, to the office which we vacated, to the house where great mysteries abound.

Well, today when I was moving out of my summer purse into another one, there were the seeds at the bottom of the summer purse. What makes this a stupendous find is that I also know where allof my seed packets are. They're in a really big basket hanging above my craft table in the basement. Into this basket went envelopes of vegetable and flower seeds that I've been corralling as I've found them. Now they are all in one place. And the marigold seeds are going into the basket to wait for next spring.

Marigolds are one of my favorite summer treats. I plant them among the tomato plants. It keeps those little wormy looking things off the plants and, more importantly, off the fruit. Dill also works. So between the marigolds and dill, I have a pretty critter free crop of tomatoes and green peppers. The Tabasco peppers are kind of on their own. If the creepies eat any of those, they deserve what they get -- indigestion.

##

THE HSU DONATION SCANDAL RAISES MORE THAN ONE QUESTION

He was a pretty heavy hitter until the scamola hit the front pages. The Democrats loved him. He could be counted on to come up with mountains of cash. $50,000 here -- $100,000 there. Pretty soon it got to be big money.

That's not the problem I have with Mr. Hsu. He represented politics as usual for the Democrats and who knows, maybe even some money found its way into Republican piggy banks.

It's the money, folks. That's why the Democrats head out to California. The Hollywood types splash cash. And lots of it. Don't know what they think they're buying. The elitist intelligentsia don't go to movies. Rather, they stand around at cocktail parties in the Hamptons, Marthas Vineyard and Up-High-Places-In-Manhattan and listen to their own voices singing accolades of "How great I am!"

They don't really care about the boorish Hollywood types. They just like their money. If the glitterers didn't donate a dime, the politicos wouldn't give them the time of day.

The Democrats are playing the Hollywoodies. Just like they're playing the mediarites. And everybody plays along because they all think they're getting something back.

No. What bothers me about Mr. Hsu is that he was a fugitive. Since 1992 he has been a wanted man.

The question I have is this: How does a man who donates heavily to political campaigns stay under the radar? When I say "donates heavily," I'm talking millions of dollars.

But then, maybe I just answered my own question.

Check this out: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-hsu13sep13,1,5486953.story?track=rss&ctrack=1&cset=true

##

NEW WAY TO CALL SOMEONE A LIAR: SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF

It was Hillary Clinton's twisted, convoluted attempt at disguising vocabulary. She had listened to General David Petraeus' report to congress for hours. He had given his assessment, based on his experiences in the field -- his military successes in the Anbar Province where blood stains the desert sands west of Baghdad.

Then Hillary, sticking her tongue into the mouth of her noose, looked the general straight in the eye and told him that all he had told congress so earnestly and truthfully required a "suspension of disbelief."

What arrogance to insult a 4-star general who has removed himself from his battlefield to come to Washington, D.C. to give his report! Here's a man who has a masters degree and a PhD (1987) in international affairs from Princeton University (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1896503/posts)

What arrogance to call this man a liar -- a man who bravely and valiantly leads our fighting men to the conclusion of the military need to be in Iraq! A man who has service records in Haiti, Kuwait and Bosnia. He has five Oak Leaf Clusters and a Bronze Star.

What arrogance to insult this general and all the service personnel he represents -- men and women who put their lives on the line every day.

What arrogance -- that's Hillary and her ilk. Her best pal looks like the leader of moveon.org, Eli Pariser. He's a graduate from Simon's Rock College and moved up the ladder to executive director of Move On.org. His claim to fame is being a web page designer and is politically connected to everything Democrat.

##

NEW RUSSIAN PRIME MINISTER APPROVED

The vote was 381-47 in Russia's lower house of parliament. The new prime minister's name is Viktor Zubkov.

But wait. I read only just the other day that Mr. Putin had dissolved his parliament.

Guess now. He only kicked out the former prime minister. This new guy is promising to clean house and get rid of corruption.

Wait! Is he borrowing from Nancy Pelosi's playbook? Isn't that what she said when she got the gavel from Dennis Hastert as Speaker of the House over here?

read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6994582.stm

##

BEING YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF

There is a war going on in each one of us between our true selves and the masks we wear.

Becoming authentic is not just psychobabble. It's the search deep inside ourselves for what's real.

We're no longer defining ourselves with what we acquire -- power and riches.

Rather, we fine ourselves with who we are.

How do you define yourself?

By your job? How much you have in the bank? How many people love you? How many friends you have? How many kids you have? How many grandkids you have?

Defining yourself in the abstract is difficult. But when you do, you are strengthening your Authentic Self.

When you break habits that do not serve you well, you authenticate yourself.

When you behave well, even when no one is watching you, you authenticate yourself.

Simply put, your authenticate self is your character.

Your authentic self may well be at war with those masks you wear.

For instance, if you prize honesty and you are asked to "look the other way" at work if some numbers need a bit of fudging just so a report looks good, our authentic self gets a temporary suspension. That will need some un-doing to get back to authenticity.

We are all authenticas-in-training.

We will meet up with suspension opportunities as we go through life. Each and every time that you resist these suspensions will strengthen your authenticity.

Your authentic self means that you are who you say you are.

Every time you just sit still for a few minutes and listen to that voice deep inside you -- your inner voice -- you strengthen your authenticity. This voice is the manifestation of your soul breaking into your conscious layers.

Your soul is where God lives inside you. When you listen to your soul, you are listening to God. You are becoming more authentic. Take the time to get to know and strengthen your inner, most authentic self.

You can do that in little five minute excursions into your psyche. Just take a few moments wherever you are at and focus on a tiny little spot. Then take quiet, relaxing breaths and say to yourself, "Oh Spirit of the Living God, let me hear you."

Just be quiet and feel the mighty roar inside your head calm down. Many people have trouble becoming quiet. They say they "can't" get there; that they're too busy to take the time. I say "bologna." It's what you choose to do. It's your choice if you want to keep a noisy head where you have all these little thought critters running back and forth between your ears. Tell them all to sit down for a moment and just be quiet.

Becoming authentic is the best psychic work you can do, so get to it. At least two or three times a day. Hit the mute button when you're watching TV and stare at the screen during commercials. That will get you 20 minutes out of every hour of television, for instance. But you certainly have the time if your choose to do it.

##

Deuteronomy 20:1-20

The question for today is: When was the last time you felt truly afraid? Remember that during these times that God is with us and no one can stand against us.

Pastor Rensner skips over Chapter 19 in his Bible study assignment for Deuteronomy. This Chapter 19 talks about cities of refuge.

The children of Israel were to name three cities of refuge. They were to be spread out over the new promised land with new roads built to get to them.

It was to be a place where people could go if they had accidentally killed someone, like if they went into a forest to cut down trees and the head of the ax accidentally flew off and hit someone in the head, thus killing him.

We'd call that manslaughter in some states, or justifiable homicide. In other words, you have a dead person but not killed on purpose.

The killer could make it to one of these cities of refuge and he'd be safe. Vengence could not be meted out against him.

But then, there are the other kinds of killers. The killers who lie in wait and then think they can run off to one of these cities of refuge. Uh uh! When that happens they get extradited back to where the murder took place. He goes back to be executed.

This chapter closes with verse 21: Show no pity, life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

Moving on the Chapter 20, Moses tells the children of Israel that when they get into this new land and when they see these huge big armies coming at them, they are not supposed to get scared because God is going to be with them.

Fainthearted is the word Moses uses in verse 3. Oh, and don't panic.

The rest of this chapter outlines the rules of engagement, so to speak. For instance, the children of Israel are instructed as to the proper way to conduct a siege against people who start a war against them.

Simply put, they are not supposed to leave behind anything that breathes.

Then, at the end of the chapter, there's talk of which trees that can be cut down and which ones can't. If it's a fruit-bearing tree, leave it standing. That could be good for food.

If it's not fruit-bearing, then it could be cut down because the Israelites could make siege works out of those trees.

So I don't really remember that last time I was truly afraid. I know God is in my corner. And I know he takes care of me and the people I love and pray for.

But I admit to being human. And every one in a great while, a tiny little interrupting thought invades my peace. Usually this happens in the quiet darkness of night and it wakes me from slumber. I pray myself back to sleep and whatever problem or fear I had during the night is answered with a billboard thought when I open my eyes the next morning.

Glorious God has given me a new day and with the dawn comes a new supply of good answers. Not my kind of answers that are flawed with my humanness, but good answers. His answers. They work better than mine.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

We made a very quick trip north to attend the funeral of Rev. Jonathan Strand. He died at the tender age of 27 after having been ordained a little more than a year ago. He was the fifth generation pastor in his family. Besides his parents, he is survived by a brother, Joshua, who plans to attend law school after graduating from Roosevelt University in May 2008.

Joshua lost his big brother. That's a difficult loss for Joshua, because Jonathan was also his buddy. Jonathan has also been part of Joshua's life. Jonathan was a toddler when Joshua was born. No doubt, they had some good romps around the living room when they were both young, playful kiddos.

There were probably a thousand plus who came to pay their respects and extend the embrace of consolation in the hours of profound grief for the whole Strand family.

It was fun to watch both the boys grow up from 5th graders -- or thereabouts -- to exquisite young men, each pursuing their educational/career goals with deep passion.

Words can't express the depth of sadness we feel only because losing someone we know leaves a gap that won't be filled. It will just be, well, a gap. And every time we look over at that gap, we'll say, "Oh, yes. That's where Pastor Jonathan lives in my memory."

And as Quint and I have gotten older, we seem to be accumulating more and more gaps to the point where our memory looks like slices of Swiss Cheese. It's a function of aging, Quint says.

I will give you a corn report though. As we zoomed up and down on I-57, we noticed that a great number of Illinois farmers have harvested their corn crop. Not sure why some did and others didn't. I mean, we're talking next door neighbors here.

Some of you fellows need to get out there and crank up the old combine or whatever that big monster machine is that you use to pick ears of corn off the plants. It's going to be a wet, soggy end of September, I predict.

Not that I'm a meteorologist, but all you have to do is look at the outer bands of hurricanes down there in the Gulf of Mexico and recall that the Mississippi River is one huge pipeline for gulf moisture. So put your big umbrellas on your tractor-mobiles if you wait too much longer.

##

PELOSI WOULD HAVE US ABANDON THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ

She says "it's not enough," when talking about a troop draw down suggested by the military leaders and George Bush in the White House. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20070911/pl_usnw/pelosi__president_s_policy_is_a_path_to10_more_years_of_war_in_iraq)

I'm not big-brained enough to come to the same conclusion as Pelosi, but I would like to only say one thing to her, and it's not about Iraq, per se. It's about a principle. That principle is protecting people from genocide in their countries.

I would like for Pelosi to read Left To Tell, a story about six women who survived the genocide in Rwanda because a pastor helped them remain hidden in a bathroom that was so tiny that they couldn't all sit down at the same time, much less lie down to sleep. And they stayed in this tiniest of little spaces for months! The people of Rwanda had begged and pleaded for some international peace-keeping forces -- from anywhere -- to come over to Rwanda and help them. The UN peacekeepers had either left or been murdered, so they weren't any help at all.

So then go from Rwanda to Iraq where hundreds of thousands of Kurds were massacred. You may think, "They were just mountain people -- just Kurds -- nothing to see here, move along."

Then go back to Germany at the height of the death camp popularity. Can you, likewise, say, "They're just Jews." And clank went the oven doors and the chemical jets opened up. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Have we truly become a nation of people who believe that as long as we've "got ours" we don't need to concern ourselves with victims of peril at the hands of bloodthirsty tyrants?

I sure hope not.

##

TRUSTWORTHINESS -- IT SPEAKS VOLUMES ABOUT WHO YOU ARE

Trustworthy people have integrity. They don't lie. They don't steal.

They have moral courage and will do the right thing even when other people are not looking or watching them.

So is trustworthiness a learned skill or an inborn trait? Or both?

I go with trustworthiness being a learned skill. I say that because trustworthiness rises up out of honest behavior -- and behaviors are learned.

Honesty must be reinforced.

Remember: you reinforce the behavior you want to continue. If you want honest behavior, then you most certainly have to reinforce it.

On the contrary, one way to reinforce dishonest behavior is to have your children lie for you. Although it may seem relatively innocent at the time, if you're very busy and you get a phone call, don't ask your child to lie and say you went to the store or you are in the shower or are taking a nap.

Trustworthiness is complicated, though. Trustworthiness is a three-legged stool that rests on honesty, sincerity, and respect.

In addition to walking along a path free of deception, a person also lives up to expectations of people who are important in their lives. When that happens, then we say that another person trusts us. We are no longer little mysteries that cause wonder if others can rely on us to behave in ways that they expect of us.

When we are trustworthy, people are willing to cut us a bit more slack because they expect that we are saying is honest.

Lack of trustworthiness can cause great harm to relationships.

Honesty, or truthfulness, also shares the stage with another leg of this three-legged stool. And that is sincerity.

Sincerity says we're genuine, authentic human beings. We don't live our lives under false pretenses. Sincerity advertises to the world around us that we are who we say we are. Sincere people say what they mean and mean what they say.

And the last leg on my three-legged stool is respect.

We'd have no problem at all with being a respectful person if we all lived by the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

When you're faced with a dilemma, this is easy. Just ask yourself how you'd feel if the other person had the same opportunity to exercise the choice that you're facing. What would you want that person to do?

When we're respectful of others, we are tolerant. We accept them without judging them. True, we may not put them on our Christmas card list, but we can tolerate and accept them in our lives simply because their lives have crossed paths with ours.

And that quite frequently is God's doing. I believe that with all my heart. I believe that God puts people in my path and he watches to see how I respond to that person, or those persons.

That thought alone often keeps my stool from falling down.

##

Deuteronomy 18:1-22

The study question in today's reading is: How is it that Jesus Christ bore the office of Prophet?

This chapter reiterates that the Levites are to be the priests and as such, they are to have no inheritance with Israel. Their lot in life, if you will, is to live on the offerings made to the Lord (verse 1).

Moses then proceeds, in this chapter, to divide up the bulls and sheep, and grains and wine and oil, and wool. Looks like the Levites were not going to want for anything.

Then Moses goes on to warn the children of Israel about sacrificing their kiddos. This would be a big no-no. And they specifically were not to practice witchcraft or cast spells or consult the dead for anything (verse 11).

And why would that be? Well, in verse 14, Moses says that God was going to select a prophet for the Israelites. This prophet would be one of their brothers.

This is the person God wants the children of Israel to listen to. In verse 18 God says that he will put his words in the prophet's mouth. This is the person that God wants the Israelites to listen to.

And how would they know if the person prophesying to them was really speaking from God?

That's the easy part, God said. Because what the prophet says will come true. In verse 22: If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken.

And so, because everything that Jesus said was going to happen, did happen. He died and rose again. That's the biggest prophesy of all.

And when he was ascending into heaven, he promised to come back for us.

Because all his promises had come true, we can believe with full assurance that the promises yet to come will happen.

Jesus is the epitome of trustworthiness. His word is truth.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

I guess because I wrote about moratorium the other day, I decided to give myself one. Maybe I just got tired of putting stuff away. Who knows -- but whatever the reason, I'm taking a break from finding places to put things.

Actually, now that I've found my two favorite copper-bottom saucepans, the desperation to go looking for things has greatly diminished.

I thought I'd be inspired by my friend, Joyce, who retired and moved to Wisconsin a few years ago. I asked her how long it actually took her to find everything. I thought, because she was always super organized when we were in Rotary together, that she'd say something like six months.

Nope. She said five years. She was a lot more organized than I was, so I guess that might mean ten years for me. That means, in earth years, that I'll be 74 years old by the time I actually find everything. But, she laughed, it's like Christmas all over again when I find things.

No wonder moving is so stressful. The problem I have is I don't know what's missing. Isn't that awful? That clearly means I have too much stuff.

I think what I'll really do is find one of those charity resale shops. I don't mind getting rid of little treasures as long as I know they'll be in a good home. There is a resale shop over in Vandalia for a battered women's shelter. That might be my next big effort.

##

MOTHER NATURE IS WIGGLING AGAIN

Hurricanes are not the problem this morning. Earthquakes are.

Two powerful earthquakes rattled Indonesia again.

The big one was 7.9. It was about 385 miles WNW of Jakarta, while another one in the Sunda Strait registered 5.1. It was 90 miles WNW of Jakarta.

I believe I read that tsunami warnings were issued for the Indian Ocean. Not a whole lot of risk for us in the United States. But there was an earthquake in Colombia in this hemisphere.

And if that isn't close enough for you, how about Arkansas and southern Missouri -- like south of St. Louis. Now that's getting too close.

If you want to look at the world map where all the wiggling and shaking is going on, take a look at this link: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/

##

PUTIN DISSOLVES RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT! CAN HE DO THAT?

It's an earthquake of sorts. And a massive one at that, if it's true.

Putin's term of office is up in the spring of 2008 so this move could be viewed as replacing the prime minister with someone that Putin would prefer to succeed him.

That man would be Sergei Ivanov. Supposedly he will be replacing Mikhail Fradkov. Fradkov is out. But wait, there's someone else waiting in the wings. His name is Dmitry Medvedev.

He wants to be prime minister too.

At least there's only two. Not like here in the United States where we have the 7 Dwarfs running on each of two tickets. Then there's this giant from Tennessee, Fred Thompson, who towers over everybody at 6'5". I can just hear the jokes starting about Thompson's cabinet being likened to a basketball team.

Read more at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296505,00.html

If you aren't all that interested in world politics, you ought to be a little bit curious because Russia is now claiming to have field tested the world's biggest non-nuclear bomb.

It's even bigger than our MOAB, which has been affectionately called the Mother Of All Bombs.  (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296441,00.html)

Russia says it has the Daddy. And Russia is making supportive sounds for Iran's side of the conflict in the Middle East. Something like the United States is being mean to Iran.

This sounds very real, folks. Get interested.

##

GET RID OF POWERLESSNESS

It's an old wound that you brought forward from a long time ago.

It's a learned program that set your way of thinking and it's perpetuated by years of finger pointing.

Powerlessness is kept alive by the ego's little trick of bricklaying -- you know, building walls around personal pain and suffering.

It goes like this: I feel powerless because I learned early on, when I was a tiny little person, that I was not lovable.

Well, kiddos can't survive that kind of thought. That's mainly because children -- all children the world over -- are lovable. That's what makes them worthy and deserving of getting good things. Like new toys and love. Mostly love. Kids can survive rather nicely without a bunch of toys, but they have difficulties surviving without feeling loved. It makes them feel unworthy.

As we grow and mature, that feeling of unworthiness gets an existential wrap put around it. Now we have a problem just feeling worthy of "being."

When it gets to that point, we're going to be even more challenged with overcoming feelings of powerlessness. That's because by this time, we've become adults.

We're no longer the kids on the playground who feel unloved -- unlovable -- unworthy -- powerless.

We have become full-blown powerless adults.

And our ego, in its very sincere and earnest attempt at keeping us safe, has built a huge wall around us so that we will feel safe inside.

We may not feel emotionally safe anywhere else on the planet, but there is one place where we will, thanks to our very overprotective egos. That's within our self.

And if anyone wants to get through that wall, they have to be like-minded thinkers. We don't want any spies getting inside who's going to make us start thinking about maybes and other possibilities like emotional growth and changes.

But the ego only sees our pain. The ego doesn't know how much we yearn for those deeply satisfying intimacies that everyone else seems to be enjoying in their relationships. The ego's only concern is protection of my self. It doesn't give a rip about human emotional growth. That's just too intellectual for the ego.

Nope. In order for us to grow and keep on growing, we are absolutely required to challenge our library of negative self-messaging. Oh, and by the time we get to be adults, we have lots of little snippits. You know what I mean. They're those fast little phrases like, "I'll never amount to anything," or "I can't do this," or "I always let everybody down."

You can recognize the failure-building snippits as part of the negative self-messaging because they are superlative type messages. You know -- the words always and never run through the negativity like a river. Those are the messages that need to be challenged. They don't serve your purposes anymore because you've outgrown this need to hide behind the wall that your ego has helped you build.

And how do you know this? How did you get to this point where you even recognized that what may have served you once is not working anymore?

Somewhere along the line you got to be emotionally taller -- and on those occasions when you get the emotional courage to stand up all by yourself, you realize that the wall is not as tall as you are. But because you have this existential negativity going on, you actually believe you can't cross over the wall.

If you ever did, well, you know what would happen. There are people over there who will recognize your wound and make you come back because you are defective.

Congratulations! You have reached the very important -- all important first step of overcoming powerlessness. You have identified yourself as being powerlessness.

Now you're on your way.

Is it going to be easy? No.

Will it be worth it? Absolutely.

What's the next step?

Step 2 is undoing the faulty programming. That's a cognitive thing. That's making a list of all your faulty self-messages. No, you don't have to write them down, but it makes it easier if you do.

Then take every negative message and replace each one with a positive message. If you can't come up with something, then just use a standard one like, "I can do this. I can definitely do this." Or "I am good to go." Or "I am a good person."

You get the idea.

Re-programming your internal messages are not any harder than changing the channel on your TV set. You just slip the switch. For instance, if I sit down to watch my favorite do-it-yourself design program and get wrestling instead, how long do you think I'm going to watch wrestling?

Clue: about a microsecond. Don't think for one minute that I'm going to torture myself with watching wrestling when I have the clicker in my own hand. That clicker gives me the power to make a choice. That is, if I want to.

You're getting closer and closer to the last step. That step is recognizing that you are not defective. And you are not limited in your associations with others only because they are people you trust because they have a similar wound as you do.

Now you're at the point where you can access your own feelings of personal empowerment.

You can overcome that feeling of being wounded. You don't have to perpetuate feelings of woundedness that leads to powerlessness because you're going to re-program your internal messages. Then you can get access to your real self.

Getting access to your real self comes in getting to know yourself. You're going to have to spend some real quality time with your self in order to do this. This will require some rummaging around in your spiritual attic. That's where you've really hidden the good stuff.

Prayer works. That's when you talk to God.

Meditation works. That's when you listen to God.

You are going to need to recapture this sense of your spirituality if you want to access your feelings of personal empowerment.

Karl Jung, the psychological guru of world renown, said that no one ever truly healed until they realized cosmic fidelity. By cosmic fidelity he meant recognizing that there is an intelligent force out there in the cosmos that's bigger and smarter than you are.

I say, get access to that and let it bloom within you. It's your spiritual nature -- your spiritual self.

##

Deuteronomy 17:1-20

Our study questions for this text is: How do you know God and how do you obey Him?

Actually, Chapter 16 is a description of the Feast Days that the Israelites are to observe. A good review.

In this chapter, there are warning and warnings and more warnings for the children of Israel to purge the evil that was among them.

In fact, if they have any questions about legal wrongdoings, they are supposed to head for the Levites and judges who have been appointed to hear such matters.

Important: they are supposed to do what the Levites and judges tell them to do.

In verse 11, they are told: Act according to the law they teach you and the decisions they give you. Do not turn aside from what they tell you, to the right or to the left.

The children of Israel are being prepared psyched up to into this land that God has been promising them. They're thinking that maybe they'd like to have a king to rule over them. After all, the lands that they are taking over were ruled by kings. Now they want kings.

Ah, but be careful, Moses warns. You'd better be sure that you have a king that God approves of. It had better not be a foreigner though. God specifically says in verse 15: ...He must be from among your own brothers.

There are other instructions as well. For instance, in verse 19, we learn that this king is to read the laws every day so that he will learn to revere God.

And in verse 20, the king is warned not to consider himself better than his brothers and he is not to turn from the law.

So if this king does all this, then the promise of God is that he will reign a long time over his kingdom of Israel.

And how do you know God? And how do you obey God?

Just by reading these Bible passages will help you to know God. Reading the Word of God is as important for you to do every day as it is for you to eat breakfast.

Simple, if you read the Word of God, then you'll know what God wants you to do.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

And good morning to you, readers who are logged on right now from the Russian Federation. Would love to hear how you found this web site and what you like about it.

Well, today marks the 6th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States. 9/11 is one of those watershed days in our lives. It divided our lives into a before and an after.

It also brought defining moments from a rag tag group of little monsters who thought they could take down the United States government. We have the mightiest weapons in all the world. We have the best trained fighting military. We have humvees. We have smart bombs that can be dropped from miles away, or shot off big boats, and hit a target within an inch or so. Maybe dead-on for all I know.

Then came these monsters who, at best, had box cutters they probably bought for a couple of bucks each. There were five or six guys on each plane -- so, for less than a hundred dollars, the terrorists stole our planes that had just been loaded up with fuel and exploded three of them into highly symbolic buildings.

They did it with box cutters. But that wasn't their only weapon on 9/11. Fear was the biggest weapon of all.

The fourth plane went down in a field in Pennsylvania when the passengers on board took matters of counter-terrorism into their own hands. We may never know the destination of that fourth plane, but we do know for sure where it ended up.

FDR said it, "You have nothing to fear but fear itself." For the passengers on the plane in Pennsylvania who learned of the fate of the three other planes, and looking down the barrel of their own deaths at the hands of hijackers, fear was replaced by a collective act of bravery.

Terrorism can only succeed if fear can be aroused. Terrorism succeeds when monsters are willing to die and take a whole bunch of innocent people with them.

In Pennsylvania, terrorism was halted because the monsters who held the box cutters weren't the only people who were willing to sacrifice their lives.

We may never know if there were other hijackers out there that day. But supposedly the cleanup crews on the grounded airplanes found other box cutters that had been stashed prior to flights.

And the United States of America lives on. We live on because we are a God-fearing nation. As long as we have God with us, we will continue to live as a nation.

##

GOOD FOR THE CENSORS: KATHY GRIFFIN'S NEW GOD IS HER EMMY, SHE SAYS

Whatever we worship -- whatever we put before God becomes our idol.

For Kathy Griffin, she could have just been thankful for her Emmy for her role in "My Life on the D-List." Now she's censored for her in-your-face put-down of the role of Jesus Christ in her life.

Or should I say, lack of Christ in her life.

She picked up her Emmy and said, "This is my god now."

Hey, Kathy, want to see your life on the F-list -- "f" for flunky, for failure, for flopping in the ratings.

Now your comments are going to be edited down to something that won't be so offensive to all of us Christians who will not be watching your show anymore.

Maybe then, you'll be "o" for off the air.

read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296382,00.html

##

AMERICA STILL GRIEVING

Mourning is time limited. Grieving is not.

Bereavement, by definition, is that time period following a tragic event in our lives. That first anniversary of an event marks an end of mourning. We've gone through all the "firsts" and passed them as milestones in our health-building recovery.

But we still feel horrible and we wonder why. We dont' feel like we've put ourselves back together at all.

That's because we still grieve. Grief and mourning are two different things.

Mourning is a behavior. Grief is an abstract -- a feeling that houses many feelings that we don't necessarily act on.

Eventually, we stop mourning. We begin to move on. Widows and widowers often remarry to fill a huge cavernous empty spot in their lonely lives. How many times I've heard an explanation like, "I just want a friend again." Or "I'm so tired of being alone." Mourning stops. We hear the sound of our own laughter once again. We like that sound. We like the way laughter feels as it ripples through us.

And then there are those moments of quiet grief when the shadows pull us back into the darkness of our pain. We remember the suffering. We try to talk ourselves out of the anguish that we feel. We become pretenders and put on a mask when we're around other people.

We grieve.

For all the days of our lives, we grieve the loss of so many loved ones. Brothers. Parents. Aunts. Uncles. Cousins. A grandchild. They'll be listed in our obituaries as "predeceased loved ones."

We grieve all sorts of things. Anything that caused us to suffer a loss brings us grief. We grieve the death of a marriage. The end of childhood. The end of carefree days of high school or college. The loss of a body part -- yes, even that. The loss of the way things were.

Grief. It forces us to adopt a new perspective. Otherwise, we end up in a situation where we are unable to make the adjustments necessary for our own mental wellbeing.

Grief. It's part of the human condition. That's because we live on this side of heaven's shore -- not over there.

Over here, we have to meet our challenges wrapped in a shroud of faith. We have to believe that we are not alone in our suffering. We are invited to unburden our weary hearts with someone who promises to get into the yoke of all that weariness with us.

People of faith are less haunted by their grief.

##

Deuteronomy 15:1-23

Our study questions today are: When was the last time you halfheartedly served God? Do you see your service to Christ as a burden or a blessing? Have you said to your Master, "Pierce my ear?"

This is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. It is rich with God's promises -- not just to the children of Israel but to all of us.

For instance, in verses 4b-6: ...he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.

God also reminds the Israelites that they had once been slaves in Egypt. And they were approaching the seventh year which is the year for cancelling debts. For Israel, it meant that if slaves had been in bondage to them, they were to cancel that slaves debts.

But even more than that, when it came time to release the slave, the Israelite was supposed to load him up with enough money to tide him over so he could make a fresh start, give him some animals and chickens and some seeds, then send him on his way rejoicing. That went for female slaves too. The end of bondage came with the seventh anniversary.

But then, the slave could say, "Wait a minute here. I don't really want to go out there. I've got what I need here and you've been more than generous to me and my family. I don't want to be freed. I want to stay here and continue to live as I always have, as your servant."

Well, guess what happened then?

The slave owner would take the slave and with a pointy thing -- like an awl -- pierce the slave's ear up against his door. The slave's pierced ear meant that he had once been a slave but, once freed, had chosen to stay with his master as a servant.

The chapter ends with a restatement about the animals that are to be sacrificed and which ones the children of Israel can eat and which ones they can't -- such as the firstborn creatures. Those belong to God and they are to be sacrificed at a place that God appoints.

And animals that are flawed -- for whatever reason -- are not to be sacrificed. The children of Israel could eat the flawed animals, but they couldn't offer them as sacrifices.

Above all, though, they were not to drink the blood of the animals. That blood was to be poured out on the ground.

So back to the question about my halfheartedness to serving God. That would be doing anything with a minimum of enthusiasm. For sure, I see opportunities to serve God as blessings, not burdens. I just need to do more. I never do enough, do you?

Every day of my life I open with the prayer that God will send his Holy Spirit with a little mini-vac to dust out the cobwebs of my heart and replace them with a strong servanthood. In my humanness, I never measure up to what I think I ought to be doing.

And yes, I have asked God to pierce my ear. My life and everything I do belong to God.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

It was sad news that came to me on Sunday. Our young friend, Rev. Jonathan Strand, lost his battle with cancer and went home to his Heavenly Father at about 7:30 on Saturday morning. His had been a long regimen with chemotherapy and radiation.

We lift our hearts in prayer to his family, Rev. Paul and Mrs. Connie Strand, and his brother, Joshua Strand. And prayers also for grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. Not to mention many, many friends who will miss his earthly presence.

Surely a new light shines in heaven. If these days of mourning that lie ahead seem filled with dark and gloom, then Pastor Jonathan will shine a light forward for us to see in this trek of loneliness without him. His brief life will make small things big again.

I believe that God looks down on the rest of us here on Earth and wonders why we are so saddened when he calls one of his faithful home to be with him. Sometimes I wonder if God doesn't want to say to us, "Look, Jon is very happy. He's here with me. Doesn't have a care in the world. Besides, I have important work for him here. If you only knew the enormous joy he feels since he's come home, your tears of sadness would quickly turn to tears of joy. He did not die. His soul will live forever -- here, with me."

Well, Jonathan, for those of us here on Earth whom you left behind, I say, "Congratulations! You fought the good fight and now victory is yours. Your best ministry is yet to be on the other side of heaven's shores."

We will all be saddened, for sure. For our loss. Your earthly death left a little hole in our hearts that will be empty because you are gone.

##

FOR OUR READERS WHO ARE LOGGED ON IN LITHUANIA THIS MORNING:

This might be an interesting read for you, although I realize that Pope Benedict is in Austria and not Lithuania.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1893275/posts

However, his garment has been compared to wheat beneath a sky of blue. It's yellow and blue and the curious purists in this country are wondering about how these combined colors in one vestment tie in with the colors that go through the church year.

##

THE McCANNs ARE BACK ON BRITISH SOIL; MADELEINE NOWHERE TO BE SEEN

But then, that's the point of the whole story.

Where in the world is Madeleine McCann?

The Portuguese would certainly like to know. And they'd especially like to get more information from her parents. But even though both parents were named "persons of interest," then "suspects," they were allowed to leave Portugal and go on back home to England.

With their other surviving children.

Now comes the headline that they plan to use the one million pound "find Madeleine fund" to pay for their mounting defense legal fees.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=480963&in_page_id=1811&ct=5

And now I hear, on a quick trip by the TV, that the police in Portugal are saying that they have enough evidence to charge Kate McCann with manslaughter.

It gets curiouser and curiouser as the plot thickens. Read this account for a hint of Madeleine's disappearance: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2165469,00.html

##

MORATORIUM -- FOR TIMES WHEN WE ALL NEED A "TIME OUT"

Erik Erikson, that world renowned guru of psychological development, said that in the course of human development, individuals take a break to catch up with their identity development.

Identity occurs in those years between childhood and adulthood.

Some call the stressors at this time "adolescent angst."

Sometimes the pressures to perform, to develop, to become a unique person become so enormously stressful that the individual kind of coasts for a while. During this time, they enjoy being on a plateau where they can walk along on level emotional ground.

It's here, at this time, that they recuperate enough psychological energy to get ready for the next burst of development to an even higher plateau. 

We all keep reaching for higher psychological ground in our developmental march through life. We reach plateaus when we're pretty satisfied with the new vistas we enjoy. We rest up, thinking that we've "arrived."

That satisfaction doesn't last too long, though. We give ourselves a moratorium for one purpose, and one purpose only -- to build strength for the next push upward.

In the case of identity development, we take pieces of admirations for our heroes. We're going to sew all the psychological descriptions of what we admire into a kind of metaphorical quilt. It takes a while because it's a time of tossing out what we thought we'd like, but might have discarded if the piece wouldn't "fit" into who we want to become.

Eventually, though, we end up with a beautiful, seamless quilt. We call it our identity. It's what makes us unique.

We become aware of the permanence we feel in the world.

We develop our own sense of personhood.

We become an individual. We can have separate views from others. We drive the adults in our lives to distraction because we think we have finally learned everything we need to know.

And so, for now, we give ourselves a moratorium since we've reached this place of "pretty good." Or mildly awesome. No, make that "grandly awesome."

We're going to stay in this moratorium -- neither going forward nor going backward. We kind of like it just fine that way we are. For now.

But the moratorium won't last long. We have yet to develop some more. Mainly because we look around us and figure out that maybe -- just maybe -- we don't quite know everything yet. Adults seems to be annoyed at our grandiosities. Something inside our psyches nag at us because the puzzle pieces don't quite fit together all that perfectly.

In a couple of years we'll be ready to take another step toward climbing up to a new plateau. We'll become less challenging in our pontifications. We'll develop more conciliatory behaviors. We'll reach for new heights.

We'll respond differently to our parents who have expectations of us to behave more responsibly.

We'll throw off the mantle of our moratorium and start moving forward again.

Even in counseling, clients work through tremendous challenges in their quest to reach higher ground. And even though they've passed the developmental milestones and come to counseling as wounded adults, they also reach plateaus when a moratorium is a well-deserved respite where they can take a break, give themselves a time out and recupe their strength for the next spurt.

We have to keep telling ourselves that we will continue to grow as we go through life. We never really finish completely developing.

Even as we retire, Quint and I enjoy the changes we make in our lives and the ways we respond to the world around us. And yet, we continue to grow. We aren't perfect yet -- never will be.

The best we can hope for is that we will be the best that we can be. And that view of the self changes as we climb onto a new plateau and enjoy a new horizon with wider vistas.

We can only imagine the wonder as we reach the next plateau, and the one after that, and so on. And since our goal is to live until we're well into our centenarian years, we're set for some pretty exciting vistas.

So far it's working for us. How's it working for you? You didn't think you'd ever get finished, did you?

##

Deuteronomy 13:1-18

The homework assignment from Pastor Rensner asks these two questions: 1) Have you ever been confronted with a false prophet in your life, and 2) Where is that you go to know the truth?

Moses warns the children of Israel to be careful if they ever run into people who claim to tell the future through dreams and then demand some kind of allegiance.

You know the type -- some people read their horoscopes every day. Wouldn't go out their door before reading the horoscope. Or people who claim they can tell you what's going to happen tomorrow.

Moses warns in verse 3b: The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Oh, for sure, there were prophets who were gifted. They specifically were able to bring God's message to kings and false prophets. Their gift of prophesy came straight from God.

But false prophets were supposed to be executed because they were preaching rebellion against God. The children of Israel were warned not to follow such false prophets.

And we're not supposed to either.

This Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy is not just a piece of ancient history that we're supposed to read and endure. Quite the contrary, God's message that he sent to the children of Israel through Moses is as valid for us in the year 2007 as it was for them back then.

It's the same God. It's the same message. It's the same warning. We'd better behave.

God warns the children of Israel to purge the evil from their communities. Even from their families.

So have I ever been confronted by a false prophet? I can't say that I have. But I will say that as a professor on a very diverse college campus that I had students whom I knew worshipped differently than I did, and when subjects of religion came up -- and they did manage to spark through no invitation from me -- I made it very clear that I am a Christian.

The thought, or fear, never entered my mind that making it known that I was Christian would get me fired. I must have given the appearance of not moving from my steadfastness. No student or colleague ever challenged my beliefs.

So where do I go to know the truth? That's easy: the Bible.

From the Gospel of John: 8:31b-32: If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

This Bible verse is the cornerstone of my alma mater, Concordia University.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

It's Friday! We finally got rain -- nearly a quarter of an inch overnight. Hardly enough to end any drought. But then, we're not in a drought. We're just precipitation challenged for now.

The crops will be harvested so we won't have to eat weeds during the winter.

As long as I can get to Kroger or IGA, I'll be okay. Don't buy food at Wal-Mart anymore. The produce never lasts more than two days in the refrigerator no matter how gorgeous it looks in the store.

And the eggs are stuck to the container. It's bad enough that I have to check to make sure there are no cracked eggs. But now I have to make sure that the eggs aren't stuck to the carton itself. That means twirling each egg.

I shouldn't complain, though. We're a long long way from going hungry.

We have an electrician coming over this morning. We're going to finally have receptacles everywhere to plug things in. It's amazing that we need so many outlets.

Quint is getting moved in to his workshop area. It's starting to look like a real shop instead of a tool bin where things just got tossed. He actually was able to put his new radial arm saw onto one of the tables. But I guess he calls that a workbench.

I expect to see him "become" his father who was a world champion putzer. His dad could sit and ponder the inner workings of a carburetor for hours. And hours. And now Quint, his only surviving son, has taken on his mantle. Maybe as a labor of love. Maybe because Quint now has time to become a ponderer.

Either way, he wears it well.

##

AN INTERESTING STUDY IN NON-VERBALS: THIS GUY SAYS HE CAN TELL IF PEOPLE ARE LYING

Dishonest people look different when they smile. That's just PSYCH 101 stuff. My psych students were fascinated by just how different. For instance, those little lines that appear at the corner of the eyes? Some call them "crows feet." They're a good indication that it's a sincere, honest smile. Just having a "lip smile" without the eyes smiling is supposed to be a sure sign of an insincere person.

Now comes a writer who spends a lot of time examining politicians and he thinks he can pick out the fakes.

His article appeared in this website: Here's a fascinating article: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20070903-9999-1n3facecue.html

Basically, he says the politicians are trying to convince the voting public about two things: their expertise and trustworthiness.

##

HSU TOOK TRAIN OUT OF CALIFORNIA -- WAS RE-ARRESTED IN COLORADO

A judge in California had already forfeited his $2 million bond. He was on a charter flight out of Oakland, California. Then he took a train but got sick on board. So the Grand Junction sick people team got him off the train and took him to a hospital.

Then someone asks, "Hey, isn't that the guy they're looking for?"

Sure enough, it was the boy named Hsu.

The train eventually would have made it all the way to Chicago. From there, who knows? By car to St. Louis for an international flight to Hong Kong? Not that he couldn't get an international flight out of Chicago's O'Hare Field. But that would be just too obvious.

I hope he's heavily guarded and on a suicide watch. He needs to talk. He especially needs to talk about heavy money he's handed over to Democratic candidates.

Especially people he could have relied on for a presidential pardon if they made it all the way to the White House.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/07/MN9OS10B5.DTL

##

BI-POLAR DISORDER IN CHILDREN

Used to be that diagnosing bi-polar in children was practically unheard of.

The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) published by the American Psychiatric Association has a list of criteria in its fourth edition but it's for adults. What about the kiddos?

A recent study conducted by Demitri Papolos, MD, and Janice Papolos has outlined a list of symptoms that are common to the childhood version of bi-polar.

These researchers have also outlined behaviors that are exhibited by bi-polar children.

These red flags are included in this web site: http://bipolar.about.com/cs/kids_diag/a/red_flags4.htm.

I am looking forward to attending an all-day workshop later this month for counseling therapists that will address this very topic.

I applaud parents who persist in seeking treatment for their children who suffer deeply from bi-polar disorder. Yet, for some, the first line of defense is to get a diagnosis of some form of attention deficit disorder, especially the hyperactive variety.

Maybe this is because one of the symptoms of ADD/ADHD is the child's inability to "stay on task." Yet the bi-polar child will show symptoms of learning difficulties also and excessive daydreaming.

Sometimes the child will get keyholed into an OCD diagnosis, that is -- obsessive/compulsive disorder. Yet these two behaviors are also on the hot list of red flags for bi-polar children.

And then other children who claim they hear or see things that aren't there, or have other delusions that do not stand up to the rational light of day, will get put underneath the schizo umbrella -- either as schizoaffective, schizotypal, or schizophrenia.

All the while, these children are suffering deeply. They are dragged from one doctor to another. Specialists have attended their lives so frequently that they are at risk for developing what we call the "white coat syndrome." They are very uncomfortable when they have to see yet another doctor.

And yet, the one doctor who can help them the most is never consulted. That is, a pediatric psychiatrist or a neuropsychiatrist.

And why would that be?

Do you suppose it could possibly be that about 80% of the children who are bi-polar are born into families where mood disorders, and/or alcoholism on both sides, are present?
 
Now we're getting too close to the parents and the grandparents and aunts and uncles. It was different when it was just the kid who had the problem.

But I leave you with this thought: not diagnosing bi-polar in children doesn't mean they don't suffer from it. And this sobering thought: untreated bi-polar increases the risk of suicidal thinking.

So why in the world would any loving parent not want to reduce those risks?

##

Deuteronomy 12:1-32

Pastor Rensner says that three times in this chapter Moses commands the people to rejoice. This day and everyday, no matter what the circumstances we face we are to rejoice in the Lord. What ways can you rejoice in the Lord today?

Oh my goodness. We are closing another week in our walk through the book of Deuteronomy and we aren't halfway through it yet. But not to worry, by the time we get through the 34th chapter, Joshua will be leading the children of Israel after Moses' death.

And the next book of the Bible? It's called Joshua.

In this chapter, God is telling the children of Israel -- again -- to destroy all the idol places and altars and everywhere that those other guys were worshiping their idols.

Smash it, burn it, cut 'em up -- do whatever they needed to do -- but get rid of all the reminders of idolatry.

And then, after all that, they are to built an altar to God. But here's the kicker. They can't just build a temple or a synagogue any old place they want to.

Oh no. They will get very clear instructions about where God wants this place of worship to be. And that will be that.

God makes a distinction about the animals that the children of Israel kill for their own food when they are hungry for meat. They can eat the meat. That's okay.

But they cannot drink the blood. They are to pour the blood out on the ground.

They are told that the blood is life. They can't drink that.

Doesn't that sound a bit like one of the trees in the Garden of Eden that was forbidden to Adam and Eve? Namely, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:17)

Now God is saying in this chapter of Deuteronomy, verse 24: You must not eat the blood: pour it out on the ground like water.

That's a pretty clear order, don't you think?

But -- and this is an important distinction -- when you bring your animals to the altar to worship me, then bring both the animal and the blood. (Verse 27)

In verse 31 God instructs further: You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

And now, to think of the instructions of God, through Moses that the children of Israel are to rejoice: in verse 7: ...you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to; in verse 12: And there rejoice before the Lord your God, you, your sons and daughters, your manservants and maidservants, and the Levites from your towns, who have no allotment or inheritance of their own; and in verse 18: ...and you are to rejoice before the Lord your God in everything you put your hand to.

So we are to rejoice in everything we put our hand to. Guess that says a lot about sloppy workmanship or just "getting by" with doing the minimum. When we rejoice, we do the best we can do.

We're supposed to critique our work because it identifies itself just as surely as if we'd signed it or put our fingerprint on it.

If it's the best we can do, then it will be pleasing to God. God wants us to understand that just as surely as he commanded the children of Israel to rejoice in the work that they did.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

A special welcome goes out to our new readers this morning in Lithuania. If I knew how to do this broadband thing better, I'd send you some coffee cakes for your morning coffee. But I guess it isn't morning where you're at. It would be more like a snack for afternoon tea. Welcome anyway.

We're still bone dry here in mid-central Illinois. We didn't even get the 30% chance of a sprinkle. Maybe later. We're supposed to get rain from now until Sunday evening. Oh well, that's why we have hoses to bring water out of pipes.

I swear we have lots more than one cricket now singing to us in the basement. The one we heard a week or so ago must have been pregnant. It sounds like a chorus. If a cricket in your house means good luck, does luck multiply when they do?

Just wondering.

Quint will be moving into the set of shelves we put up yesterday in his workshop. They'll help him get organized and get some of the stuff off one of the worktables. He has two worktables, neither of which he can use for his radial arm saw. It's on a makeshift "table" that he devised with boards across two sawhorses.

We went to the Dollar Store and bought cobalt blue plastic baskets that he can use to corral stuff. Like surge protectors. And hopefully, after the electrician finishes up tomorrow, there'll be lots more surge protectors that will not be needed as electrical extensions.

The electrician is also going to take out the two-thing outlets and give me quads -- on three different walls. And they'll all be on different circuits so they won't trip circuit breakers when I launch my cooking lab into low orbit. The man is a genius to be able to read my mind like that.

He just stood in the kitchen yesterday afternoon and asked, "Is this all the juice you've got coming up here?" (Up meaning the kitchen up from the basement where the circuit breaker box is.)

##

THE WORLD LOSES LUCIANO PAVAROTTI

And now he moves to a bigger place across the great divide between heaven and earth. Pavarotti will sing on heaven's other shores. Surely he will join the heavenly hosts with new, more melodic hosannas!

Pavarotti was 71 years old when he died early this morning in the town of his birth, Modena, Italy. He had pancreatic cancer.

For a quick read of his singing career, go to: http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/06/pavarotti.dead/index.html

##

FRED THOMPSON IS NEW REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE

Yes, he announced his intention last night on Jay Leno's Tonight Show.

And what's wrong with that?

Some say he's too late because the field is already crowded. Are you kidding me? Since when do we need a two year campaign to run for president? Some of these candidatepeeps have been out there raising money for presidential campaigns for months and months and months.

I agree with Fred Thompson -- we don't need that long of a campaign. They're all starting to be b-o-r-i-n-g. Now they're starting to say the same thing using different words. Their campaign speeches -- all of them, whether Democrat or Republicans -- will be straight out of thesaurasville. Like we're not supposed to be able to tell the difference! After all, what do voters know?

Now comes Fred Thompson. Everybody will be listening to him because it will be new and fresh. Oh, there I go again, using synonyms.

Go Fred! I'm all ears.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295900,00.html

##

SOCIAL APPROVAL IS A SKILL WE ALL NEED

Each and every one of us is looking for validation and affirmation.

We need to believe that we are a valuable part of someone's life.

In our human experience that gets sandwiched in between birth and death, we need to believe that what we are doing is worthwhile. It doesn't necessarily have to be something gigantic like finding a cure for polio or cancer or Alzheimer's.

Doing something worthwhile could be walking your kiddos to school, helping them with homework, taking them to Sunday School and worshiping with them on Sunday mornings, or countless other ways that we help children bring those golden memory nuggets into their adult years.

Doing something worthwhile could be making warm, squooshy Brownies served up with ice cold milk.

Doing something worthwhile could be doing that little extra something at work that makes a project shine.

Whatever it is that you do, it has your fingerprint on it. You authored it. It's yours. Cherish what you do well and claim it. It's your way of seeking social approval in socially redemptive ways.

Seeking social approval does not mean, though, that you are looking for applause. Rather, it means that you do things that get you social approval from others.

When this need for validation gets satisfied, then a person finds the place where they fit in. They become part of a social group. And when it comes to the dynamics of a group, each individual plays an identifiable part, or role. Those roles are valued because they guarantees the success of the group.

Children learn, at a very early age, that there is a role which they are expected to play. That role changes, at least according to some of the psychological gurus, in accordance with the birth order. In other words, the first born child has a different role to play than the second born child, and so on.

Be very careful that you don't minimize the importance of getting social approval.If you don't learn how to do this effectively when you are a little tyke, you will come into your adulthood with holes in your soul.

Your psyche will look like swiss cheese until you are able to figure out how to get the social approval that you, and every other person on the planet, requires in order to become a good psychologically adaptive individual.

In a sense, we are all becoming who we are.

So don't ever say to yourself, "Oh no, I don't need applause for what I do." If that's what you're thinking, then you've changed the context of what I'm talking about because social approval is not about getting applause.

It's about being recognized as a valued part of someone else's life. In some cases, for really psychologically hungry individuals, we have to start way back to the point where a person doesn't feel like they are a valued part of their own lives.

We don't ever want to feel like that -- useless, worthless, psychologically hungry while others around us are feasting, disempowered.

It's so much better to believe you have value in the lives of other people.

##

Deuteronomy 10:1-22

Chapter 9 is not in this study guide, but I went back and re-read it anyway. It's basically a restatement of God's messages from before and that is for the children of Israel not to get too uppity about getting all this land for free.

God wants them to know, in no uncertain terms, that it is God who is going to drive these leaders off their lands and then hand the lands to the Israelis. It is because the leaders of those lands were wicked. There's a warning here too.

That is, the children of Israel had just better watch out for their own righteousness or else the same thing could happen to them. Then God, through Moses, reminds the children of Israel of the times when they had been rebellious and doing all sorts of things to tick God off.

Even building a golden calf, for heaven's sake. I mean, if you really want to make God angry, just go out in your backyard and build an idol.

Who says dirt can't burn!?

But in Chapter 10, we are to reflect on our obedience as we read this chapter -- both our outward show of obedience and our inner obedience as well.

It's kind of like the need for social approval I was talking about above. We need to do things that get us social approval from others. But more importantly, we need to feel like we are valuable, even to ourselves.

Well, we need to do things that people will see us do and recognize that we must be God-fearing people.

And when we put our heads on our pillows at night, the last person you need to be talking to is God himself. It's just you and him in those last few mini-seconds before you drift off to sleep and rely totally on God to keep you safe through the night until you wake up the next morning. This inward obedience that you feel is just between you and God.

The world can't see you. The world can't hear you. It's just you and God. And only God knows what's truly in your heart and mind. Are you coming up short because you just can't quite get there, no matter how much you want to?

God can help you with that. Ask God for some help from the Holy Spirit. Then, bingo, peace flows through you in wonderful waves of quiet rest. It's God soothing your troubled waters.

This is, after all, the very God who owns everything in even the highest heavens, it says in verse 14. And the earth and everything in it.

And he loves you. And me. Talk to him when you're driving. When you're playing. When you feel bad. When you feel good.

He thinks you're pretty awesome. After all, he did create you. Even when you were in your mother's womb, he put his fingerprint on you. Now he's watching you to see what you're up to. Every day of your life.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

Good morning, Lu Lu -- and also a very big welcome to new readers from Thailand, and we welcome back our "regular" readers in Germany. That's not to mention, of course, the many of you in the good old USA!

I had a student in a psychology class at Moraine Valley College who was from Thailand. Very studious young lady. She was always prepared for class discussions and had her writing assignments ready to turn in on time. That was generally true of the foreign exchange students.

An electrician is coming over today to let us know how much it's going to cost us to correct some wiring situations. When we moved in, the basement was just one big empty room. It was lighted with hanging light bulbs from overhead junction boxes. So we need outlets and a dedicated line running to the deep freeze so that the lights don't dim whenever it kicks on.

And I can tell that Quint is going to need lots of juice to his very electric workshop area. Not to mention the computers and printers and lamps and fans in the office area.

Then there's my craft area. And the laundry area.

But mainly the garbage disposal in the kitchen. It's been plumbingly installed but not electrically.

Fortunately the whole electrical system was upgraded when the air conditioner was put in.

After the electrical guy works his magic, the house will be upgraded. Then what? You can bet there'll be something. Just please, dear God, make it little problems.

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TERRORIST PLOT FOILED IN GERMANY

They had big plans to bomb the U.S. military base in Ramstein (Germany) and also do some major damage at Germany's busy airport in Frankfurt.

Germany arrested three master terrorists who are supposed to have links to Al Quaeda. They were two Germans and a Turk. They were going to blow up clubs and discos and other places that Americans like to go to.

The group had hoarded over 1500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide to use in their explosive devices. If the bombs had been completed, it would have been the biggest ever on German soil.

See story in CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/09/05/germany.terrorarrests/index.html

Authorities have had their eyes on these guys for some time, apparently. They were just days away from creating chaos. "Days away" -- as in the 9-11 anniversary just days away?

Just goes to show you that these masterminds aren't quite the geniuses that they think they are. And who knows how many other terrorist plots have been frustrated but never made the big time press.

And why were they going to blow everybody up? Well, they said they just hate Americans.

Like that's a reason. And why do they hate Americans? If we're so bad, and we're so successful and we're the richest country in the world, then why do they want to come to our universities? Why don't they stay in their own countries and go to their own schools if America is so awful?

Maybe we ought to make foreign exchange students stay home unless they can convince us that they mean us no harm at least when they are on American soil.

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FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY ARE REALLY SHOUTS FOR APPROVAL

Alfred Adler defined inferiority back in the early 1900s. The overwhelming feeling of inferiority is one of the wounds of childhood that needs to be healed if adulthood is going to be productive and successful.

It seems to me that people who have inferiorities are stuck in a narcissistic time warp that is a result of old psychic injuries. These injuries are spawned from a history of being humiliated. Eventually, humiliators will erode a child's sense of self-acceptance. Then the child no longer likes himself or herself.

"I don't like me." All I can think about is that I don't like me. This is my narcissistic bubble. It encapsulates me and blocks all my potential growth. Instead, I'm stuck in this prison of humiliation and I don't know how to get out.

So goes the internal dialogue of a person who feels inferior.

Cognitive therapy comes rushing into your life, lights ablazing, like an ambulance filled with lifesaving tools. These psychic plugins will help you unbundle the pain you tied together with humiliation and lack of self-acceptance.

When you say, "I'm stuck in this bubble of humiliation," cognitive therapy says, "No you're not. That bubble is pretty fragile. All you have to do is give it a good little poke and you're free."

When you say, "I don't like myself," cognitive therapy says, "I'm going to start to like myself for all the little things I do well. Then I'll grow some bigger ideas. I can get things done."

When you say, "My growth is blocked," cognitive therapy says, "Shoot for the moon. No one makes it the first time, so don't expect that you will either. But you'll be successful if you fall down seven times and get up eight." (That's an old Japanese proverb, I believe.)

Cognitive therapy is about challenging your mental processes. Those mental processes are wrapped around old, worn out messages that you've been sending yourselves for years. They probably got started when you were a little kiddo.

It's time to throw away that tape and replace it with something that will be helpful for you.

It's as easy as getting new thoughts -- these are called cognitions. But it's also hard to throw away something familiar, even if the "familiar" is a negative message.

Throw it away anyway, and put something bright in there in its place. Then you'll start to like yourself more.

Next challenge is to get other people to like you. But that's a subject for another time.

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Deuteronomy 8:1-20

Today's Bible reading is supposed to make us think about how our lives have equal shares of troubles and blessings. And the question is whether these draw us closer to God or push him away?

Moses reminds the children of Israel that God took pretty good care of them while they were wandering around in the desert. In fact, he says in verse 2: Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.

Okay, so the children of Israel might have wondered if all those things that happened to them were just tests.

They were.

God wanted to see if they would obey him anyway. Even if things started to go bad for them. That's how God would know. Oh sure, they might say they were going to do what God wanted them to do, but when it got right down to it, they faltered.

When the food dried up, they got hungry. God told them not to worry about it; he'd send them food at sundown and they could pick it up off the ground and eat it for supper. It would be nutritious and power-packed with vitamins and minerals. Just don't go hoarding it.

Well, guess what the Israelis did? You guessed it. They started stockpiling it. Guess they thought God might forget his promise.

Didn't do them any good though, because the food (manna) got worms in it.

Yuk!

God warned them that after they got into their new land and build their fine, new homes and took care of their huge herds, they'd forget God and how he'd brought them up out of slavery.

Somehow, God thought the children of Israel would eventually forget to give God all the credit for their blessings, and instead, think that they did it all by themselves.

But at the end of the chapter, Moses warns the children of Israel that if they ever did forget and started worshiping other gods, making idols of them, they'd be oh so sorry. God would destroy them.

Yep. We have to be really careful not to worship anything or anyone but God. Sometimes we make our jobs our gods. Sometimes a parent will make a child a god. Sometimes we make our bank accounts our gods. Sometimes we make our beautifully sculpted, fitness-centered bodies our gods. Sometimes we even make  an idol out of our pain and suffering. Sometimes we make old sins an idol.

Whatever we hold onto instead of God could be our idol.

Don't do that. God says. And God says he's watching.

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MY LIFE IN INK --

I'm late. I'm late. I'm late.

Who said that? Someone from Alice in Wonderland.

But getting up at a quarter to eight seems so much more civilized. And to think, I used to be in the office at 8:00 am. Now we're just sitting down to breakfast at 8. We are loving retirement!

I didn't get much done yesterday. It was, after all, a holiday. What I intended to do -- paint some of the wicker furniture -- didn't get done at all. I did manage to put away a bunch of stuff that had kind of gotten tossed into the basement in the final hurried days of moving in.

I just kept looking at the piles of stuff and had no idea what was in the bags and boxes. So it was time to take stock again. Just to see. I think I put away one ton. The rest of the stuff got moved to a corner in the basement. Kind of reminds me of the movie Holes because I know the day will come when I'll forget what's in the boxes and go through them again, sorting and putting away another "batch" of stuff. At the rate I'm going, it will be a ten year project.

Haven't even contemplated the stuff in the spare bedroom upstairs. But if I close My eyes, I can't see it.

This is how I get to live to be a hundred. My things to do list is at least that long.

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THE MOVIE MAKERS ARE FINALLY FIGURING IT OUT

People are staying away from the movies. How's that for rocket science.

One movie big shot says TV and the internet are killing the movie industry.

Not really, guys. It's the movie industry that's killing itself off. In one word, I can tell you why a lot of people are staying away: t-r-a-s-h.

Too much nudity. Too much filthy language. No good plots or stories.

Oh, and that makes me a prude? Well, me and millions of my very best friend-prudes are staying away from your garbage by the boatloads. Why in the world would I want to pay you $10 so I can go sit in a theater and have my eyes and ears and my morals assaulted? Simultaneously.

See, Quint and I are in that very low majority of 25% of adults who still read books. At least a book a year. We read a lot more books than that. We also like to just sit and talk to each other. For hours. Without the TV.

Read more: http://news.scotsman.com/entertainment.cfm?id=1399142007

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WELL, WELL, WELL. RUMOR HAS IT THAT FRED THOMPSON IS GOING TO ANNOUNCE HIS RUN FOR THE WHITE HOUSE ON JAY LENO ON 9/5

Okay, so he's been chided for waiting so long to announce. "It's a mistake," they say.

And his response? He actually admits to being not perfect. I like this guy already!

But wait, if he'd come on in a long time ago when everybody else was throwing their hats into the ring, he could have participated in the debates.

Are you kidding me? Those simultaneous monologues that these politicos call debates are jokes. They are nothing more than opportunities for them to parade out their sets of talking points.

Boring!

They get points in rhetoric, not in whether they out-persuaded another candidate. And the logic of premises doesn't even have to flow from major premise to minor premises. That's because they don't have minor premises flowing out of their first points. After watching one or two of these stand-up politico presentations, I'd heard enough to last me a lifetime.

Frankly, I want to hear someone talk about solutions, not nitpick the other candidates to death. Or the president. They can't seem to find anything right that the president is doing either. Everything that comes out of their mouths is what other people are doing wrong.

http://www.examiner.com/printa-914917~Campaign_officials_hope_for_smoother_course.html?cid=tool-print-top

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THE CHALLENGE OF PARENTHOOD: BONDING - DEBONDING - REBONDING

In order to even discuss bonding, we need to get on the same page and agree that bonding means forming a close relationship with another person.

Initially this happens between children and parents.

In the first twelve years of a child's life, this bond is incredibly powerful. The parent is perceived as just about all-powerful. Parents have twelve years or so to convince the child that he or she cannot live without the parents.

That's called dependence. Nothing new here.

But along comes the teen years. During this time period, the teenager starts to debond emotionally. There's this feeling that the teen can stand alone, but reminders come along now and then that they aren't quite as independent as they thought they were.

For instance, sixteen year olds don't pay mortgages. They may make car payments but the title to the cars are probably still held in the parents' names. Unless a teenager has reached the ripe old age of majority, they can't enter into a legally binding contract, so mom and/or dad have to go along to the car dealer to sign documents.

We call that interdependence.

That parents are getting that first gut wrenching pang that the teenager is pulling away from them.

It does not feel good. I don't care if you've gone through it a half dozen times. It never feels good even though it's kind of a natural order of life.

Kids grow up and in doing so, they debond emotionally from their parents.

But if -- and this is an important if -- they are not allowed to debond, they will not be able to come back and rebond as an adult friend.

It's kind of like the old song that says, How can I miss you if you won't go away?

Kids grow up. They get their own place where they can start feathering their nest. They buy furniture or maybe they raid the basement or grandma's attic. They buy their own food although it takes them a while before they realize just how much they are used to eating. 

And then after they've got themselves settled in and they're feeling pretty proud of the nest they've made for themselves, a gnawing feeling starts to grow inside them.

Something is missing. What could it be? They look around and everything appears to be just about the way they like it.

But still --

Then it occurs to them that they're just a bit homesick, or more to the truth, peoplesick.

The time comes when they want to go back to rebond with people who love them. But as adult friends, not as needy children.

Hopefully, parents will welcome them back into the fold and see this rebonding as part of a bigger process of growing up.

So let your kiddos debond. Otherwise, they won't be able to rebond.

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Deuteronomy 7:1-26

Think for a few moments -- as you are reading this passage -- about the fact that you are precious to your Lord and how this changes your purpose for living. And does this change your attitude toward other people in your life?

In today's reading, Moses tells the children of Israel that God is going to deliver up seven big nations to the Israelis. They are not supposed to take any prisoners. They're not supposed to intermarry with any of them. They are not supposed to make an treaties with any of them -- the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

These nations are bigger and stronger than Israel. But it doesn't matter because the Israelites have a secret strength that the other nations don't have. They have God.

God makes the rules. The Israelites are supposed to tear down their altars and burn their idols in the fire.

In verse 6 God tells them why he's doing all this for the Israelites: ...The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the people on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

How about that? I tend to think that everything that was happening on earth was happening over there in the land where the children of Israel were wandering around in the desert.

But the other night Quint and I were watching a program about some group of now extinct plains Indians in the American southwest. Someone had found a bison skull in a river and embedded in the skull was a spear tip. Turns out the spear tip had been made by a particular group of Indians that dated back 5,000 years. 

Well, remember that Moses came out of Egypt about 1400 BC, and here it is 2,000 years later. So that means that these plains Indians were hunting bison here in North America before Moses even left Egypt.

When God says that he chose the Israelites out of all the people on the face of the earth, it tells me that God had a lot of choices. Including Mayans. And dynasties in China. And people living in many other places around the globe, for the world was inhabited.

In verse 7, we learn that God didn't pick the children of Israel because there were more of them. Quite the contrary. There weren't as many of them.

No, God picked them because he loved them. God had made a covenant with their forefathers to redeem them from slavery. And God promised to keep this covenant for a thousand generations.

Now, statistically, a generation is considered to be a twelve year period. So if a person wanted to be serious and literal about this covenant, we could say that he is talking about 12,000 years before this covenant runs out for the children of Israel.

That would be 12 millennia.

But we can't say that because we don't know what God means. He could just be using a big number, like I do when I say zillions when something is too big to be measured. Like when I run out of fingers and toes for counting.

Moses was quick to point out, though, that the children of Israel had just better follow the decrees and commands and laws. Or else. Because if they didn't it would be just too bad. God's anger would burn into them.

But if they did obey God, then God promised to love and bless them. How much? In verse 14, God promises You will be blessed more than any other people...The Lord will keep you free from any diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you.

So right here, in this very chapter, God promises to build a hedge around the people who love him and live according to his commandments.

Just as an aside, that's one of the complaints that Satan had about Job. Satan said to God, "Well of course, Job loves you. You've built a hedge around him. You've given him everything he ever wanted. Why in the world wouldn't he love you?"

Maybe hedge isn't a good analogy. Maybe it's more like a mirror. Maybe all the negative energy that people were trying to dump on the children of Israel was going to be reflected back to where it was coming from.

In verse 15b, Moses says that God promises: ...[to] inflict them on all who hate you.

Oh, and one other thing. In these particular instances, the children of Israel were not to take any plunder. Whatever gold and silver they came upon as they were taking over these new nations, they were to leave behind.

Everything bad had to be destroyed.

It would take the birth of Jesus Christ 1,400 years later before all people would become children of God. That's because God sent his son to earth to make a new covenant with everybody living on the face of the earth.

Everybody. Even you and me. So we ought to embrace others because we are all God's redeemed children. And we ought to live our lives according to the Ten Commandments. I personally believe that God still puts a protective hedge around those who ask for his help and his blessings.

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MY LIFE IN INK --

We welcome readers this morning from Germany, Japan and China.

Today is Labor Day in the United States and Canada. Big holiday for workers in these countries. Steaks on the grill -- barbecued ribs -- hot dogs -- hamburgers. What else do you want? Anything that can be cooked on an open flame is fair game!

Labor Day is also the unofficial end of summer -- although autumn doesn't really arrive until the 21st of September. When I was a little kid, it was the last day of summer vacation because the day after Labor Day was always the first day of school. Now a great many schools start in August, so Labor Day just kind of gets tucked in there.

We planted a Red Bud yesterday. It's one way of keeping mother's memory alive. The Red Bud was one of her favorite trees, if not the favorite. But then, she liked the Dogwood too.

We also planted a Butterfly Bush. The butterflies practically followed us home from Rural King. Since the flowers are a pretty blue, I may plant three or four more next to the patio. Besides, I adore butterflies.

Did you know that the Monarchs migrate back to Mexico. I always wondered what kept them from getting so tired flapping their fragile little wings all that way. Then I read that they go way up high and hitch a ride on the thermals. That way they can just coast along until they reach their getting off point. Then they glide on down to their winter vacation spot in old Mexico.

Quint is making things today. He got a radial arm table saw over the weekend. It miters and does many other tricks. It will take a while for him to train the saw but I have every confidence that he will be successful.

The patio furniture is completely painted with its second coat. It's installed on the patio and -- wonder of wonders -- I even found the cushions that go on the chairs. They had been packed separately and were hiding out in the coat closet, of all places.

Today he's going to put up a couple more shelves and I'm going to start painting the wicker furniture that's on the deck. It will be white, of course.

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I'M SHOCKED THAT BILL'S SHOCKED!

In the first place, anyone who has ever worked in a politics -- whether as a precinct worker or way on up to the "inner sanctum" -- knows one thing for sure. Politicians know all about the people they let rub up next to them.

Maybe they think they're like Jesus Christ and so they turn to the crowd of sycophants and ask, "Who touched me?"

They know. Oh, they may not know all the hangers-on who pay $1,000 a plate for a photo op and a signature copy of an 8x10 glossy, but they know who's in charge of their fundraisers and they know who the heavy hitters are who are handing over $25,000 and raising money for them.

They know.

Bill, of the HillandBillary Show, says you could have knocked him over with a straw when he found out that Fundraiser Mr. Hsu was a fugitive from justice. Well, there's probably a lot of things that would knock Bubba over with a straw because, frankly, he's not that grounded.

The only thing the man has going for him is his charm. And he slathers that on to women like butter on toast. A great many women gobble it up as if it were Wheaties. 

Watch You Tube "Hannity & Colmes Show" about Hsu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMIOcdfE_QM&NR=1 

and Hillary's knowledge about the fundraising efforts of Paul: http://youtube.com/watch?v=qcbg72tK_ks

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EXCESS GUILT AND SHAME -- THEY'LL TURN YOU INTO MUSH

These two emotions try to lock you up in a hand-to-hand battle deep down inside your psyche.

Guilt comes from feeling bad because you did not live up to expectations -- either your own or someone else's. You did something wrong that caused someone else pain.

Shame, on the other hand, usually comes about because we feel bad that causes someone pain when we didn't do something that was expected of us.

First of all, let me clarify something. I'm not talking about guilt in a legal sense where people run around breaking laws. Like robbing banks. Or scaring people half to death by holding them hostage. Or even killing someone.

In those instances, you didn't live up to the expectations of a law-abiding society for sure. If that's you, I hope you feel really really guilty for what you did. The problem is, the professional criminal type is generally an antisocial person who does not feel remorse when he/she ought to.

Rather, I'm talking about the people who live their lives besieged by guilt. And shame.

Of the two -- it's easier to go after shame. That's mainly because shame comes from inactivity -- of not doing something that we believe we should do or should have done.

Shame springs up out of a sense of worthlessness.

Know how to start working at overcoming that? Go back and check your self-esteem. People who have a good sense of they self-esteem don't fall into the pool of quicksand called shame.

Take some time to understand what it would take to feel better about yourself.

Grow some self-esteem. If you're new to this website and want to know how to check your self-esteem, go back a couple of days ago when I printed a rubric on how to do this.

The better you feel about yourself, the less shame you'll feel.

The better you feel about yourself, the more initiative you take to do things you think you ought to be doing. That sounds like ambition starting to come back to you, doesn't it?
 
Oh, what a great feeling to just feel like you want to get up out of your easy chair and do stuff again!

Shame is easier to go after because it starts with you. You've got it self-contained. It's built out of the nothingness of thin air. When you start to move to the right on your number line, then "poof" -- shame starts to evaporate.

Guilt, on the other hand, has a lot to do with doing something wrong. You caused someone pain and you meant to. We have violated our own standards of behavior.

Guilt brings an internal message that keeps repeating itself over and over. It says, "I'm no good."

We definitely want to change that tape. When you feel this guilt starting to come over you, just say, "Stop that!"

Let me put it this way: Guilt is imprinted by emotional abuse. It is a learned way of thinking. If you allow yourself to continually be victimized, then you will continue to feel pangs of guilt.

The worst kind of guilt is the kind that we push off on ourselves. When we say, "I can't change." Or "I can't do that," then we have built our own cage. It is no longer someone else victimizing us, because we're doing it to ourselves.

If you do something wrong, then say you're sorry. And go forward.

But if you stay back there where guilt has a grip on you, then you're cheating yourselves of your future because you can't go into your future if your feet are stuck in the concrete that's your past.

I say "concrete" because you can't change the past. What happened is what happened. But you can react to is in new, healthier ways that let you walk into your future.

Do some cognitive thought-stopping. When these guilt-ridden thoughts come to you, say something like "Stop that." Or "That was the past, this is my now."

Remember, you need to say you're sorry only once. Not over and over and over for the same thing you did. But you are the one who has to let something go. When you do that, you have forgiven yourself.

Emotionally healthy days are coming your way.

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Deuteronomy 6:1-25

"Write these rules down," Moses told the children of Israel. He wanted the Israelites to write the rules down everywhere -- on their hearts,on their children's hearts, on their foreheads, on their door frames. Everywhere.

In verses 15-17, Moses warns the Israelites -- and it's a warning that carries truth today too -- ...for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah. Be sure to keep the commands of the Lord your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you..."

God is indeed here among us. He watches the politicians spew forth their lies.

What else do we lie and cheat about? Look on the west coast toward Hollywood. Look at the trash and filth that comes out of the movie houses. Look at the adulterous trash. Look at the murderous gore.

God is here among us. And he's watching us.

This is the same mighty God who did miracles back in the days when the Children of Israel were summoned out of Egypt.

Don't believe that God parted the Red Sea? You think it might have been just a freak of nature that happened at about the right time? Just a coincidence?

And you say you'd believe if you could witness a modern, all-powerful earth-moving miracle? Well, you don't have to go back too far to the ocean rift in the waters of Indonesia. It was a tear in the ocean floor that was great enough to nudge the island of Sumatra over a few hundred feet. (Sumatra is an island about the size of Florida.)

Is that a big enough miracle?

Moses wanted the Israelites to tell their children about the miracles of God bringing them out of slavery in Egypt. And he wanted them to tell the story over and over and over so that the children would not forget.

And most of all, the wanted the children to remember that God walked among them, just as he walks among us today.

He's watching. He's walking. He's listening.

Be good. Obey his commands.

Moses closes this chapter in verse 25 with this thought: ...if we are careful to obey all these laws before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.

---

The study question for this reading is this: Christian parents have a very big responsibility and influence for the spiritual life of their children. How is the faith of your children? Ask and find out.

I truly believe that each of our four kiddos believe in God and they believe that Christ died for their sins.

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THE CARDIOLOGIST -- from Kim Lysen

A mechanic was removing a cylinder-head from the motor of a Harley motorcycle when he spotted a well-known cardiologist in his shop.

The cardiologist was there waiting for the service manager to come take a look at his bike when the mechanic shouted across the garage: "Hey, Doc, want to take a look at this?"

The cardiologist, a bit surprised, walked over to where the mechanic was working on a motorcycle. The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, "So, Doc, look at this engine. I open its heart, take the valves out, repair any damage, and then put them back in. When I finish, it works just like new. So how come I make $79,000 a year and you get the really big bucks (over a million) -- when you and I are doing basically the same work?"

The cardiologist paused, leaned over and whispered to the mechanic, "Try doing it with the engine running."

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