The Maker's Diet, by Jordan Rubin, bestseller 2005

I have begun to post individual books and movies. This book is written by a Jewish man who is also a Christian. He was raised by Messianic Jews as well and his father is also a naturopath (correct title?)

He found an answer to his quest for how to stay alive and the story is interesting.

If I were writing the book myself, this is how it would change:

1. The number one factor in health is to be connected to your creator, to love Him with all your heart and soul and mind, and to love your neighbor. Being connected in faith brings you a great deal of health. Jordan did connect in order to find healing, but he doesn't emphasize that as much as I would like. Reading God's word, speaking it out loud, worshipping God, praying both in the closet and corporately, and trusting Him - these are fundamental. How much evil, how many germs do we avert just in doing this?

2. I don't think it is emphasized enough that there are some basic health principles that far outweigh all the others, since Jordan again directs us to this site and that site to buy more products, just like the other health "experts."

There are things that bring health and youth, so basic we miss them, and cost us nothing more than we spend already.

Number one is sleep. If we could all just get the maximum amount of sleep that we need,can you imagine the profound effect it would have on our health? I want to write a somewhat humerous essay on how Jesus would sleep through crisis, illustrated in the story where he was sleeping during a storm at sea, and merely woke up and said a few words and the storm stopped, after which he complained of the lack of faith of his followers (and then probably went back to sleep.)

Two is elimination of stress. Do you notice how much health is drained from people's bodies due to stress? We hear about this but few take it seriously. All of the health tips we hear about using the right food, and adding all these supplements causes more stress because the foods are less available and have to be sought out at a particular type of store, and so do the supplements and remedies. If we just stopped trying to do so many things, and rested - voila!

Three is changing one's lifestyle to include being outdoors and getting more fresh air. This is huge.

Four is water. If we just drank more pure water, such as the water directly out of a well that has a lot of natural minerals in it - this would make a difference. It's not as important that you drink a lot of water. The body naturally signals the need for liquids. We only need enough liquid, not a lot.

Jesus summed so much of this up in Matthew when he said that we need to stop worrying about our lives - what we shall eat, what we shall wear. If you eat when you are hungry and just try to stay with the healthy stuff but keep from worry about what you consume, the number one effect is that stress will dissipate.

The same with clothes, which includes anxiety about appearance. Just go and buy stuff you life, put it on in reasonable arrangements, and go out and forget about yourself. See, Jesus assumed that you would not lack confidence about yourself, about your appearance.

Jordan's recommendations send us back to the treadmill of anxiety in many ways, and so he misses the basic thrust of the gospel. Also, Jesus just reached out his hand and a guy's ear grew back immediately after it had been cut off (after Peter cut it off.) If He is capable of this, then trusting him for our health means that no matter what happens, we can get it fixed. This does not mean being careless and thoughtless about our bodies, but it means "don't worry!"

Who is to say that faith and God's word didn't alone heal Jordan?

I must mention that he did raise my consciousness about staying healthy and what the bible has to say. It's his book that explains why we regard cats and dogs as we do, since they are some of the types of animals who we are forbidden to eat. It seems we noticed their other "benefits" that of companions, in light of their not being edible.

He also helped me to regard hygiene as more important, esp. in the face of viruses. There are changes. I don't want to order toast, which cooks hold in their hands and then I eat with my hands. I want to always always cleanse my hands before eating especially any finger food. Not biting nails, not putting one's finger in the mouth ever, and cleansing ears and nose properly are brought to one's attention.

In Defense of My Generation

My 46 year old friend is seeking to repair her life now through her commitment to the Word of God. I believe she will find restoration.

We were lambasted, we were hunted down. She suffers from that.

When I was but 13, hanging out with a more "worldly", daring friend I went to a party in my hometown out at the edge of town, outdoors, and some strangers came and handed us "doobies" which were supposed to be marijuana - you know, that "safe," innocuous drug.

We both took a drag. What happened after that proved it had to be something much stronger and far more dangerous. Hash? Possibly, it was laced with "angel dust." My friend and I both started to halluncinate back at her father's ranch. Later we related the details of our hallucination to each other and learned that the sights, sounds and feelings were exactly the same.

Only 5 years later she and I both experienced a mental episode that her father termed "manic-depression." She went on medication and I went to Jesus, via my mother, who brought me to faith healers who practiced "deliverance" ministry. I was set free, but not until I had a few more episodes.

You may say there was no relationship but I know there was. It is no coincidence that after an era when people were "blowing their minds" by taking hallucinogens, "just to see what would happen" (like total idiots) that we came up later with numerous cases of mental illness and lots of talk about it. I know people who clearly took hallucinogens in their youth and ended up on psychiatric drugs years later.

When I was 14, still under the protection of my father and mother, my father a minister, living in a safe, small midwestern town, I looked out at a world going insane.

Woodstock happened that year, and people were just throwing away their restraint in all areas. People were suddenly having sex all over the place, and popping strange pills, and smoking strange sticks.

People tried to pass doobies that were "laced" and there were people who tried to put "fancy colors" into my jello, as an example. I hung out with the wrong people, obviously, but there were devils loosed from hell all of the sudden.

The early sixties was lovely, and perhaps the perfect time in American history. I had role models such as Hayley Mills in "That Darn Cat." I remember Sundays were quiet, so quiet, and so peaceful. I could walk downtown to the drug store fountain or to the movie theater. I watched Sidney Poitier in "To sir With Love" and lots of those awesome disney films with Hayley Mills. Life was sweet. Small towns in America thrived. Children had the life they deserved in an American small town. Satan has tried to destroy that with mass farming, and economic destruction of the small town, taking the life of the small towns away, forcing families to move to the city where they miss the good life, where they have the pressures of losing their values.

We were progressing. I never felt that a woman couldn't do anything she wanted.

But we had values. We had dignity. Suddenly, the explosion of the 60's blew out into our faces and people were going nuts. I can honestly say it was terrifying. I am not happy that I had to begin my life as a woman at this time, that I had to sort out my life in this atmosphere. And since that time, we have been ruled by the insanity of that movement - it is what continues today. We have lost it. We have lost our minds.

What was happening as a natural progression now became extreme obsessions such as women's "liberation." Now hate and revenge and impatience were ruling.

I hate that bumper sticker that says, "Feminism is that radical notion that women are people." I want a bumper sticker that reads: "FEMIMISM IS THE RADICAL NOTION THAT WE DON'T ALREADY KNOW WOMEN ARE PEOPLE." Gaaawwwwwl....ishy lezzy radicals.

How will we retrieve a life worth living in the face of all this?

IN HER SHOES, pg13, 2005 - the shoe fits

I saw it again, and loved it even more. I saw it with my sister. I cried mostly because I am touched by the people, the Jewish people who want to touch us with beautiful values and sentiments and bring us higher to what life should be. And here is another echo. Seems I have echoes with Jews, with the Jews who embrace and affirm true life.

It confirms the insights that Gabrielle Brown was writing about in her book "The New Celibacy" that I talked about in "conclusion to The Real Don Juan."

Wow! Sexual intimacy was being used like a cure for not having the real love in one of the sister's lives.

Once she found the kind of love and intimacy of loving family, she was "cured" and began to seek a higher form of intimacy and friendship.

The movie shows two sisters who have an unbreakable bond, and also depicts Greg Behrendt's profile of how a man and woman relationship ought to be. The man pursues the woman because he has no doubt she is "it" and she doesn't have to step in and proove it like no one on earth but she can make someone love her.

The movie shows us what love should look like - and shows that when a man and woman find each other, it brings together families, not just two people.

I wept over the beauty of values that Jewish people keep alive, as we Christians also strive to keep alive, and how our hearts beat as one.

Pakistani Quake

I hope that Pakistanis and others from that region - Afghanis and Indians understand that most Americans at this point are numbed by hearing of the disasters in that region, and when they say 79,000 are confirmed dead, well, it is a number that we can hardly fathom. We lost only a little over 900 in katrina, though predictions were much higher.

We were upset by that and the number lost in 9/11. The quake is unfathomable.

I have a friend from Pakistan - a nice man who offered to help me learn real estate. I can hardly even bring myself to call and offer condolences.

What do you say? "I know how you feel?"

N.O. didn't spell New Orleans, it spelled "NO"

I didn't make it to New Orleans, but the trip wasn't wasted. Why didn't I get there?

First, the heat. It was 85, 90 degrees in mid-October in northern Louisiana, with 70% humidity!

Between noon and 4, i could hardly move. My two cats could not tolerate it as well as me, and the air conditioning is gone from my car and requires an expensive repair.

I got to Shreveport and checked into a campground, a state park near it. There were many survivors there, and I met a couple of them. I was told that going south, the campgrounds, hotels and motels would all be full. In addition, all survivors are now placed in homes and the work of caring for them is covered. Mainly now it is the huge cost to the government - 9 million a day acc. to one source, and of course the work of rebuilding. And, I was warned - the heat would be worse. As a Minnesotan, I find the heat hard to comprehend. The hurricanes are surely a result of excessive heat.

So, it may seem unprofitable, but God had a purpose in my going to Louisiana. The people are wonderful - friendly. They are so much more friendly than in the north, and it was a joy to meet, talk and spend some time with them, in addition to meeting actual survivors. I didn't press them to tell me of their experience, as I could tell they were just in a state of shock.

I hung around Shreveport, saw the movie "In Her Shoes" and enjoyed eating in a restaurant. I also enjoyed the diners out in the country outside Shreveport.

The lessons I learned are that the people of the south are awesome, that God did not directly attack New Orleans with a punishment, but that it was a natural, built in consequence of pollution and overheating that is partly motivated by greed. So it WAS a reaping for sin, but one that the people of Louisiana had to reap in place of many Americans who were more responsible than they.

I also enjoyed the generosity of the state of Louisisna, who allowed me to camp free along with the survivors, and seeing how they were sacrificing all their camping profits for the sake of the survivors.

It is clear to me now that the majority of those who suffered were African Americans who have relied heavily on the government. It was also a reaping that the government failed them. The relentless attitude of the government being a big, mean daddy who owes everything and who must provide everything, even in the face of bashing and harsh criticism, is one that finally produced the negative result that it inevitably will. The government, a type of idol, a substitute for trusting in God - FAILED. And the church did not. It is as it should be.

I met a young lady of Indian descent (east Indian) who said that India is many times 120 degrees with 70, 80% humidity. Oh my Lord. That sounds like hell on earth. I am amazed that there are people enduring weather more formidable than the cold of Minnesota, and that many people in the world are not happy about their weather.

John 10:10 for 10/10/2005

The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.

the big J.C.

Ridin' On The City Of New Orleans

Please do not worry if I don't respond as quickly to you now, because I am traveling and rely on internet services enroute.

I'm on my way to New Orleans because the "still small voice" said to go. No, that would NOT be schizophrenia!! (Contrary to popular thought.)

I have had many responsibilities and was not able to go 'til now.

I'm going in the hopes of finding people who are ready for God.

Pray for me, especially that there will not be another hurricane while I'm there - ha!

Intro and Directory

This is a new blog. I have many essays, some in progress and you may e-mail me to receive any of them if you like. There is soooo much to write about and I only recently got access to internet on a regular basis that enable me to 'ave a blog.

Essay titles:


finished, more or less -
1. observations on homosexuality
2. the tongue (a powerful weapon)
3. sexuality (mainly, scripture)
4. Ismail (an essay to encourage Arabs to believe in the love God has for them)
5. Gardening (parallels with the Christian experience)
6. Forgiveness (man's greatest lesson)
7. Black People! Listen To Me! (reinforcing positive images)
8. alchemy of music (an old custom)
9. the bible (what it is)
10. Why Do I Extol The Jew? (an essay to encourage)
11. Junior High Movies (a collection of bibles studies using hollywood movies)

Works in progress: affliction (what God really says,) survival guide for the newborn Christian

I got the pic thing resolved by using Safari instead of Explorer, since Explorer is kind of a dinosaur with Macs. But the personal photo - my identity photo I haven't resolved yet. I also want to have music with my blog.

WHY AM I QUALIFIED TO TEACH?

First, the bible says that teachers are dealt with more harshly by God. I qualify on that point! WE are required to be above reproach. if we teach, God takes seriously the possiblity of leading others astray. I also take that very seriously.

Teaching is not a post in a church. It is not a man-made position. Teaching is a calling by God and as your life unfolds you begin to realize you have this calling.

Here are my credentials:
I have studied some in bible school, but very little. I have listened to many sermons in Minnesota, Canada and around the United States. I have obtained teachings by Christians all over the world through television or videos. I have gone to seminars and conferences, bible studies and church schools. I have been to church events such as breakfasts for women that include teaching. I have read numerous Christian books. I have spent time studying the bible and continue to do so. I have listened to tapes, CDS and videos by a smorgasbord of Christian leaders. I have watched numerous TV preachers including Billy Graham, Morris Cerrullo, Paula White, Creflo Dollar, Jesse Duplantis, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyers and others.

In addition, i have spent thousands of dollars to visit a church in Canada that believes in the importance of soaking in the presence of God. I have soaked in His presence and learned how to "practice" his presence in my home. I have spent countless hours worshipping God with every kind of new music I can find. Sometimes I have had the privilege of worshipping corporately with those who worship Him "in spirit and in truth." I have also trained to be on a team of altar prayer helpers. I have taken classes on healing and counseling. I have received countless hours of free counseling by various very qualified members of the body of Christ- either pastors, trained counselors or lay ministers.

I have called plenty of prayer lines offered by various ministries for prayer and counsel.

This describes the training that God usually uses to trains his leaders. He does not like when we depend too much on just one ministry or teacher. He is not impressed with the credentials of man - getting a degree, getting a title, getting a "high" position. In man's "low" positions you will find God's highest - a wealth of lovers of God - one day to surface.

The Thing About My Folks, 2005, PG 13

The generation of my parents - the WWII dudes - were so sweet and innocent, and sometimes just plain naive.

But in my dad's circles - he was a pastor (yes, I am a PK - look out - many became satanists I hear) in his Christian circles, man oh man - they were virgins at the altar, it's no lie.

My dad has talked about it.

But then there's my generation - lord! Bats out of hell we were. And we pretty near screwed up the next generation, except I have met many who are wise to our generation and are mature beyond their years, no let me rephrase that - mature beyond OUR years!

Here is a classic example. I have a female friend of about 46. She loves Stevie Nicks and tries to sing like her on a guitar but sounds like a dying parrot. She never has a legitimate job, lives with people and is about 80,000 dollars in debt. She has done time, just broke up with nightmare boyfriend, and is your basic derivative of the glorious sixties influenced, psycho generation. Just the other day she called me all excited because her daughter of 22, who works fulltime while going to college, owns her own car and is engaged, bought her (mom) a car and a cellphone to tide her over for the time being! Classic!!!!! It's all good.

I'd rather be in bed with a cannibal than a drunken Christian

Quote by Herman Melville?

See, we have to be on guard all the time because of our enemy. The sixties propogated that stupid, erroneous philosphy that freedom is blowing your brains out - just "letting it all hang out" - man, we got trampled with that!

It's like, I want to be a bird and fly, and so I get me some wings, and I fly, and soaring up there, I want to go beyond the birds - I want to go into outerspace, so I do, and suddenly, I can't breath, and I die. That's what happened in the sixties.

Freedom requires restraint, planning, and warfare - we have to be sure that all we do is in the power of the Holy Spirit and not our own because we would crash and burn on our own - and we have to preface everything with knowing we have our armor on -

this life is not our oyster. here we fight and then we get to go be in glory, but on earth we are at war - and war is not a party

but many who have met Christ, who identify with Him in some way, have not struck a balance or been able to go free without soon getting lost or in bondage and many have not been able to grasp a simple truth, that of learning to receive God's grace fully (always we are growing into it, knowledge of the grace of Christ) or to rely on grace driven righteousness or power.

The only true righteousness is forged in utter failure to be righteous coupled with the grace and POWER of God in place of our weakness. If a Christian is trying, striving to do right, under bondage to guilt, if he gets a moment of losing that "control" that he has set up himself - look out! He's more dangerous than a cannibal! A funny TV preacher warned about meeting a Christian who finally decides to let out all the anger he has bottled up his whole life.

I think you get the idea...

Romans 7 and 8 - Paul the apostle is saying that he realizes he has no control over his sinfulness, even if he hates it. He does what he hates. Then he asks - "what can I do about this body of death." Revelation! It "has already been done for me in Christ Jesus. It is by knowing on the inside that he has put his new mind his new heart into you, that you begin to see that you already have the divine power working in you...you just need to access it, see it at work, trust in it.

I finally came to this amazing point where I saw a sin that I had never been able to conquer (sexual) and had this scary realization - I can do absolutely nothing to change it. Nothing. Did I think that I was fixing it? It was an illusion. I always returned to utter failure. We all have been danglng over hell, helplessly falling into it. Jesus came and swooped us up as we were falling.

We hate that, especially Americans. Americans still believe "I can fix it, I can change it, I have the power." That's why revival has such a hard time getting started. We don't inherit here very often, we EARN it. And we are proud of it. How hard for us to receive. How hard for us to admit when we are helpless.

Even prosperity. I heard one local lady preacher say that we cannot do a thing to create our prosperity. It's true. All that I am and have - He gave me, even the ability to think of ways to make money and the power (and health) to do so. She said we "stumble" onto our prosperity like we stumble on a mate.

I'm afraid very soon Americans are going to be feeling their helplessness, more than ever.