SHAME SHAME SHAME

NOW I understand this about America. Yes, we are basically Christian and Jewish, but since so many have such a hard time reaching the grace of God - shame shame and more shame has been poured out on us. Of course, the author is the devil, again.

Remember Jesus said, "few there be that find it?" He didnt mean find heaven. He meant finding life on this earth. Sure, you can get to heaven, after a lifetime of shame, guilt, poverty, disease, pain, defeat, self recrimination and self hatred. The real goal is to make heaven come to earth, to get heaven here and now.

That's the thing that we find too too hard. We haven't found what Jesus said few would find

But i notice that the people who do find it best are people like Jim Carrey or Will Smith and the filmakers of Hollywood, but it doesn't have a religious tag on it, but you know that underneath it the philosphy, the ideology, the basis comes straight from the good book. It is all Judeo-Christian. And they reflect an important aspect of life - they are not spotlessly sinless.

I have much more to write about this topic of shame. So many things that are happening to our society stem from the thinking "I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't" The certainty that grace and heaven are not mine cause me to act out the thinking that I am a worthless sinner who can never do right and never make it.

Chris Farley was a Catholic, which is still Christian even in my book raised a Lutheran. He did much charity work, and on the other hand, he indulged protitutes and hard drugs until he up and croaked.

He stated to his priest he was convinced he could never be forgiven for his sins.

Sam Kinneson, another comic was a preacher (protestant - yep, we have our own share of shame). He was known as the screaming comic. Someone told me he was also quoted as saying he could never be forgiven. Yet the account of his life shows a glimpse of God's limitless mercy. As Sam lay dying, he protested his death, crying out, then suddenly looked up at someone (invisible) who was talking to him and finally said "OK." OK! Someone told him it was OK to die. Wow. Someone told him to go ahead and meet God, that it was OK.

Jim Carrey - Fun With Dick And Jane 2006

What can I say about Jim Carrey? Never have I seen a funnier man. I love him, I envy him, I thank God for him.

In this age of trouble, who has done a better job to reassure us that laughter is still in the air?

This movie totally rocks. Funniest scene: Jim plays Dick and Tia Leone (who is awesome as a funny woman, relinquishing her dignity to get a laugh),plays Jane his wife. The two of them and their son, in the throes of financial disaater, lather up with soap and jump into someone else's lawn sprinkler in order to get a shower.

Other funny scene: while Carrey is trying to get work alongside a bunch of Mexican guys he gets mistaken for being a Mexican and is deported to Mexico, so he has to escape back into America along with a bunch of illegal aliens.

God, oh my Lord, I thank you for the people who make movies like this. My mind is satisfied by the brilliance in every plot twist and every available opportunity for humor.

Usually, behind the brilliance, there is a Jew somewhere.

Carrey is an amazing man when you think about it. He hides his personal life - we never hear about his lady friend. He is stinking rich by now, yet perfectly embodies our anger - the anger of the ordinary person against stupid, insane injustices. He is all about anger, and satisfies the repressed Christian who fears to vent his/her anger about the things that need addressing.

Tubby The Cat

I believe he's the eighth wonder of the world.

He travels with me everywhere. We were just at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA, one of the 7 wonders of the world. Sure enough, he got as much videotaping and photo shooting as the Grand Canyon did. That so made me laugh!

I was there walking him on his harness and leash. People can't believe a cat can be so much like a dog.

He thinks he is a dog, i guess. He rides with me everywhere - all day long he sits up in the back of the car watching everything that passes. He sticks his head out the window like a dog. He gets out at every stop and wants to go where the people are and meet them. He is so friendly he walks right into anyone's RV or house, and when I have let him wander it has ended up that he has disappeared only to get a call later saying that they have my cat. (my number is on his collar)

I have to watch him now, so I take him for walks everyday just like a dog - on a harness and leash. He sort of follows, like a dog. He follows behind me even better when I let him walk without a leash and follow me. This lets him know the choice is his to follow me and he does for security sake. Once I was at a hotel with a long flight of stairs and the cleaning lady watched him while I went out. She said he sat at the top of the stairs and didn't leave that spot until i returned.

Only, because he is a cat, he carefully digs a little hole in sand, "does his doodle", and carefully covers it up again. So pristine, the cat. he has long hair and cleans all of it, and is beautiful.

He is so cute. he has short legs and walks slow like a Corgy or a Basset Hound.

He has huge paws and a head too small because he was a stray for the first year of his life and didn't eat enough. And now that he isn't a stray, he eats too much all the time, so with the small head and the big paws and all the eating, he is cute and plump. I'm afraid the brain didn't develop completely along with the head. He seems to trust everyone (stupid!).

Everywhere we go people just melt to see him and have to get close. He is my icebreaker. People don't take to ME like that, so Tubby is my bridge to humanity.

He looks up at me with bright twinkling eyes that have a touch of persian cat and so they are blue as well as green. He then places his huge paws on my face. He is a cow cat - black and white. I came up with "cow cat" because black and white cats are usually very mellow ones, unless they are one of the really skinny males. The skinniness suggest a touch of Siamese and that always makes them capricious and a little nasty.

Otherise, the "Oreo" is just a blessed type of cat - without behavior problems. i have been driving around the U.S. with both he and another black and white cat - a small, docile female named Bonita.

Tubby is an eating, pooping machine. He has a poop for every occasion. We walked out on the sandy beach at "Carmel by the Sea" California, and as I talked with an admirer of his, he carefully dug his little hole in the sand and made a deposit. Not long after, he gleefully made another deposit in his catbox. He loves his cat litter, like a kid in a sandbox.

Ahhhhhhh cats!

God Is Mad But Satan Is Madder

A friend of mine in Phoenix just told me that he thinks God is mad at us. This is true, but not exactly why Katrina, etc has happened.

I believe God is fed up with us, but I know that Satan HATES us, and passionately. His time is short, and you know how it is when you have a deadline. He has only so much time to kill, steal and destroy.

Go to the story of Job, the oldest book in the bible, to understand what I am saying.

Satan has the gall to go before the throne of God. People of God - can you see this? We don't even have the guts to go before the throne, but Satan, the perfect idiot,perfectly evil and going before a Holy God, just walks right in. He goes there and he complains. God points to Job and says, "isn't he wonderful? He is a blameless man." Satan says, "yeh, because you protect him. He has a hedge around him."

The point of what happens next is that Job is so righteous, even with everything taken away, he still loves God.

God took away the hedge. Well, that was for a blameless man. Satan goes before the Lord everyday and says, "look at the Americans - awash in sexual immorality and greed. And pride - oh! Aren't you disgusted with them?"

Now, our sins are the work of the devil - he is the author of sin and puts pressure on to sin. But, we are responsible for the truth of the cross - Jesus gave us authority over the devil. If we allow the devil to continue his destruction, it is still our fault.

God has said, "Ok, the hedge is down." That is all. God is a patient, forbearing, merciful God. Even while angry, HE is not inclined to immediately strike out at us. The striking out - the passionate hate displayed in 9/11 - comes from the devil and his servants.

Satan cannot wait to strike out at us. How long can God go on protecting us? We are denying Him. Next, the fatal choice will be to remove "In God We Trust" from our currency.

I was in York, England in 1989, on a month-long visit. Just before I got there the York Minster (the cathedral) had been struck by lightning and there was a terrible fire. The story was that the Arch-bishop the Arch-diocese ot the Arch-somebody (the arch-enemy) had just made a declaration that Jesus was not actually God in the flesh (the bible calls that the spirit of the anti-Christ!) Again, the hedge went down and Satan struck.

When we are struck by the devil because of a door we opened, the good news is that consequences teach us that we are doing something wrong. How else would we know?

Many of us are not down on our knees repenting and reaching out to God until everything has collapsed. I am no different. I'm just lucky that I collapsed about 13 years ago.

The real problem is that God's people in America have been mush - cowards and pathetic, driven by the spirit of striving and religion. We have allowed Satan's people who permeate our land to take over. It is time to rise up oh ye soldiers of the Lord.

In the story of Job, he says that the thing he feared came upon him. So, religious preachers then say that he sinned in being afraid instead of trusting God. How can you pervert such a story just to support your works-driven righteousness philosophy? God clearly states that Job is blameless. His friends come to him after he has been struck and say that he must have sinned. He passionately refutes this. The whole point of the story is that a blameless man was struck by the devil - because that is not the norm.

One good preacher explained that Job was afraid for his sons. He had been making sacrifices for their sins because they weren't doing it on their own. He feared for their safety and when Satan struck, they were immediately killed.

Satan does cause weather. He has been called the god of this world. he has a certain degree of power over the earth. As Pat Robertson said, we truly can stop hurricanes. But first, they come without warning. Second, I can stop Satan's power in my life or in the life of the innocent young ones who are not yet accountable to God. I cannot stop Satan for members of my family who refuse to listen to wisdom. I cannot stop Satan with regards to my fellow countrymen who continue to reject God.

I take that back. I do come against Satan for my family and for my countrymen. Every city that I come to is an opportunity to find out what the spiritual strongholds and problems are. if God shows me something, I do fight the principalities that wage war against the people of that place. Because Jesus said, "father forgive them, they know not what they do," and much of what the devil is doing is not seen.

It's just that there is a limit to my own authority when it's someone else's life.

Another good preacher also explained, about the story of Job, that now we know about the devil, unlike Job. Now we have all the armor that Ephesians 6 talks about and gifts of the Holy Spirit to fight him with, so we are not vulnerable as he was. There is no longer any reason why we have to get beat up by the devil, if we know our enemy and we know how to fight, we can live in victory! This is part of what makes the good news (gospel) the good news.

Now in May of 2007, I read this and there are so many questions and things to add to this. I was this big authority on fighting the devil. Now I'm not so confident. I was traveling and binding principalities and powers over cities as I went, something that good teachers had already told me not to do. I was escaping places because they were evil, like my own city (Minneapolis) something I had already learned not to do. I had learned to escape into Christ. I was, in essence, living in pride. I was above other people, looking down from my higher position of spirituality.

So, I've been humbled, and in this humbled place I find I am not so harassed or bothered by the devil. So, God's words make sense when he said to submit to Him, then resist the devil. I paid a price when I was running away from evil rather than facing it: I lost my two precious cats. If I had stayed in Minneapolis rather than fled to New Mexico, passing through Texas, I wouldn't have had the car accident and lost my cats. It stings. I miss Tubby and Bonita, but I've learned, and they are alive. That's what matters.

Love Letter To The Creator

Your love is like...

Mangos and Bananas
New Wine and Grapes
Oranges and Kiwi
Strawberries and Blueberries
Blackberries and Raspberries
Watermelon and Cherries

Your love is like...
a soft pink sun on the horizon in the morning on a beach, with water lapping up on the shore and gulls flying overhead, with feet firmly in the sand, and a gentle breeze on my face

Your love is like...
tongue licks from a silky-furred cat
or her cuddles under the pit of my arm

Your love is like...
a horse nudging my shoulder with his nose
or a sheep bleeting and acting silly

Your love is like...
chocolate and cashews
ice cream and caramel

Your love is like...
the Grand Canyon
miles of grand Cathedrals built by nature with layers of pink, rusts, and reds
with a gorgeous sunrise lighting it up

Your love has made life sweet
yet exceeds life itself

Your love is better than life, thus I will praise You
I will bless You while I live

photo of Grand Canyon - January, 2006