Knife In The Dark

Giving my heart pain, pain it deserves
A knife in the dark, cold chains on my wrists
The chills up your spine when you walk down an alley
The fear of death would be better

Blinded, foolish, so stupidly in love
Wishfully hoping you would see my devotion
Hoping and praying for the master key set
Praying for a ray of light in the dark

Yet stupid am I, and stupid I'll stay
Prentending you care, pretending you love
All the scenes played perfectly mentally
But deep in my heart I know truth

It cuts to the bone, it cuts deeper than hate
I hate myself for loving you every day
You couldn't care less, you refuse to see me
But here I am standing and wishing you'd see

"Blessed Art Thou Among Women!"

I was reading through the first book of Luke today (how fitting, I know!) and thinking about gifts. As I read this passage, all I could think of was how blessed Mary was...but how blessed I am as well. I have been given the best Gift of all time and it can't be replaced by any box or bag that is wrapped pretty under a tree. This Gift was placed in a manger...a more humbling place couldn't be found. He was rebuked by the human nature, visited by lowly shepherds, and kept guard by stable animals. 

That Gift was to be the greatest thing that ever happened to us...and His humbling birth reminds us that we, likewise, ought to follow in His example and show great humility through our actions, preferring others to our own. He has shown us how best to give...give what we have and what others may not always deserve. Give freely though we may not feel like it. This is such a season of giving and blessing...it reminds me often of the greatest Giving and Blessing in my life. I don't need a single other thing because of that child laid in a simple stable with animals and no great proclamation (except by the angels to the shepherds) and no fancy robes. Just swaddling clothes and a sense of sweet humility.

He shows us that in any form of leadership also comes great humility and selflessness. Who would willingly choose to be brought into the world of men like that while being the Son of God? No one but the most fittest to be called our King and Lord. Such a Blessing...such a Joy...such a Gift. 

All this is surrounds Mary...Mary the blessed one. The angel tells her in Luke 1:28 that she is to be blessed among women. I doubt at the time she thought she was blessed at all...she was to be scorned by many...a virgin and yet pregnant? Likely story. She would be mostly likely set aside by her betrothed. Besides...how crazy does all this seem? It's not like it happens on a daily basis somewhere, right?

But she was chosen...blessed out of all other women alive. When you see (most) pregnant women they are just so joyful...so blessed to have this life within them. When they hold their child for the first time they just radiate and glow with life. This child...this child is their whole world at that moment. But Mary had double, triple...far many more times that joy! She had more...she was chosen by God to be the carrier of the Son of God and the Son of Men. What a blessing.

Although I'll never be visited by any angel telling me that I am highly favored by the Lord and going to give birth to His Son...well, I know I am blessed. I am blessed among many peoples across the earth. Blessed because I *have* been chosen. He has chosen *me*...when I least deserved it...to be given a Gift for my whole life...not only on this earth but for my eternal life as well. Blessed is Mary and blessed am I!

Another thing that really influenced me...throughout the Bible God chose people to perform His works among men and most of them were like, "What? No way!"...and they got punished for it. I can think of two right off the top of my head: Moses and Zacharias. As a result they were punished in some way. But the other two that said, "Yes, okay Lord...your ways are higher greater than my own" were Noah and Mary (off the top of my head!). And to them...they received great blessings beyond what they could have imagined. 

Putting myself in Mary's shoes...I never would have been like that! I suppose that's why God chose Mary and not me, right? ;) He has such perfect timing and perfect choosing...He knew exactly what she would say and how she would react. In return...she was blessed with carrying the Christ child in her womb. How rich the blessings of God are. So like Mary...I am incredibly blessed. Blessed by God...blessed to be chosen by God...and always blessed with the greatest Gift of all: my salvation which comes only by the grace of God to me. 

My prayer for you today, Christmas, is that you find yourself mindful of your Gift...and if you don't have that Gift, to realize how blessed you would be with it. Blessed among all women and men on earth! May God bless you this Christmas season...with family, friends, love, and joy...but most importantly the reminder of your salvation through the simple and humble birth of Christ. 

Merry Christmas!

Quotes On Truth And Wives

Truth: the most deadly weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death." - John Gilmore

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

"Note 1: A good wife is a great blessing to a man. He that finds a wife (that is, a wife indeed;a bad wife does not deserve to be called by a name of so much honor), that finds a help meet for him (that is a wife in the original acceptation of the word), that sought such a one with care and prayer and has found what he sought, he has found a good thing, a jewel of great value, a rare jewel; he has found that which will not only contribute more than anything to his comfort in this life, but will forward him in the way to heaven. 2. God is to be acknowledged in it with thankfulness; it is a token of his favour, and a happy pledge of further favours; it is a sign that God delights in a man to do him good and has mercy in store for him; for this, therefore, God must be sought unto." - Matthew Henry on Proverbs 18:22, Puritan Divine

"God the first Instituter of marriage, gave the wife unto the husband, to be, not his servant, but his helper, counselor  and comforter." -John Downame, Puritan Divine

Some Deep Christmas Quotes

"Infinite, and an infant. Eternal, and yet born of a woman. Almighty, and yet hanging on a woman's breast. Supporting a universe, and yet needing to be carried in a mother's arms. King of angels, and yet the reputed son of Joseph. Her of all things, and yet the carpenter's despised son. Oh, the wonder of Christmas." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)

"He, through whom time was mad, was made in time;
and He, older by eternity that the world itself, was younger in age than many of His servants in the world;
He, who made man, was made man;
He was given existence by a mother whom he brought into existence;
He was carried in hands which he formed;
He nursed at breasts which He filled;
He cried like a babe in the manger in speechless infancy - this Word without which human eloquence is speechless!"
Sermon On Christmas by Augustine of Hippo

"For the sun to fall from its sphere, and be degraded into a wandering atom, for an angel to be turned out of heaven, and to be converted into a silly fly or worm, had been no such great abasement; for they were but creatures before, and so they would abide still, though in an inferior order or species of creatures. The distance betwixt the highest and lowest species of creatures, is but a finite distance. The angel and the worm dwell not so far apart. But for the infinite glorious Creator of all things, to become a creature, is a mystery exceeding all human understanding. The distance between God and the highest order of creatures, is an infinite distance." - John Flavel

It's A Wonderful Life - Gary North

This is a wonderful article I found by Gary North that speaks to It's a Wonderful Life...the oh-so-classic Christmas tale of a man who has his one wish (to never have been born) come true. He gets to look at what other lives (or lack thereof) would be like if he had never been brought into this world. If you haven't seen it...it's a must. Every year I say I won't watch it...and then I do. I did last night with my parents. Every time you see it there are new points that are brought out that you never saw before. It's a very well written script, for sure!

It happened to me again. I didn't plan for it. I got hooked once again by It's a Wonderful Life.

It wasn't in my plan. In fact, it was specifically out of my plan. I tell myself every year, "I won't watch it again." But it seems like I always do. And so do millions of others.

I tuned in randomly at close to the beginning, when the screen had a fixed-frame image of Jimmy Stewart, arms wide apart, as if he were describing a huge fish that got away. In fact, he was describing a huge dream that would get away from him, again and again, until the very end of the movie, when he quit chasing it.

Why do we watch it? What is it about this movie that makes it prime-time fare every year, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas? For years, it was on cable TV and local TV almost every night, Thanksgiving to Christmas, until NBC bought exclusive rights in 1994. Everyone ran it because its copyright had lapsed in 1974, and only after a 1990 Supreme Court case involving Jimmy Stewart did the movie's copyright come back into force. The movie was sold everywhere on videotape in the mid-1980s. You could buy it for under $10.

Why hadn't the copyright been renewed? It had to be renewed 28 years after its release, which meant 1974. All it would have taken was a letter to the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. The copyright's holder forgot. Why? How?

Answer: because it was not a Christmas classic in 1974. Now it is.

Why?

THREE MOVIES, ONE THEME

Americans watch seasonal Christmas movies. We watch A Christmas Carol. I prefer the version I saw in my youth: Alastair Sim's 1951 masterpiece.

We watch A Christmas Story. It is a compilation of Jean Shepherd stories, so it hooked me from the day I saw it 20 years ago. I have loved Jean Shepherd since 1963. My family even adopted the movie's culminating practice: going to a Chinese restaurant on Christmas.

Despite the fact that Americans own these movies or can rent them, we watch them on TV, despite the ads.

Why? Because we know that millions of other people are watching. In the social cocoons of our living rooms, we share an experience with millions of others. We know we are sharing the experience, which somehow makes it more meaningful. What Passover is to Jews, so is watching a prime-time network Christmas TV movie for America's gentiles. The advertisers love it.

Seasonal movies aside, two other movies serve as prime-time national celebrations: The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone With the Wind (1939). They always draw an audience.

I believe that It's a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz, and Gone With the Wind are united by one theme: "There's no place like home." Each tells a different version of the story. Each conveys this truth in a unique way. But it's the same theme.

Dorothy runs away from home for the sake of her dog, Toto, and because nobody seems to appreciate her on the Kansas farm. A broken-down showman in a broken-down rig on the road convinces her to go home. She heads home. Then the tornado intervenes. The movie's move from black & white to Technicolor shows the discontinuous nature of the movie. "We aren't in Kansas any more, Toto." She still wants to go home. All of the miracles and spells, and all of the Wizard's theatrics, can't get her home. But clicking the slippers three times does. Message: "Home is where your family is."

For Scarlett, not being hungry again is her stated goal, but the lesson she learns is that there's no place like home. Money, travel, and Rhett are temporary substitutes for home. She finally goes back to Tara when everything else turns sour. The movie's theme song is "Tara's Theme." Message: "Home is where your land is."

In It's a Wonderful Life, George never leaves home. But he wants out. From the beginning to the end, the story is about a man who struggles with finding home. He wants to travel and do great things. He doesn't travel, nor does he do great things. But at the end, he discovers that he did do a great thing. It is this discovery that is the heart of his redemption. He discovers a world of miracles at the margin. But he discovers it in his drafty home. The movie conveys a fundamental message: "Home is where your mortgage is."

All three movies are wrong. Home is where your rest is — above all, your eternal rest. But this theme is rarely seen in Hollywood movies. A Man Called Peter (1955) is one of the few.

A CONFLICT OF VISIONS

It's a Wonderful Life is about a conflict of visions: Potter's vs. Bailey's, the bank vs. the building & loan, rentals vs. mortgages. Ultimately, though never said, it's about the FDIC vs. the FSLIC. (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation vs. the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation.)

This same conflict is with us still. It is driving the price of housing to unsustainable levels in California, Boston, and other coastal centers. Rental income is not keeping pace with the rise in home prices: the classic sign of a housing bubble.

We have all bought homes in Bailey Park rather than renting in Pottersville. "Home is where your mortgage is."

In 1946, this was the most important socially important issue facing America: "Would Americans rent or own their own homes?" The movie opened in December. Within months, Levittown went into operation. The suburbs were about to come into being, sustained by government-funded highways and mass-produced automobiles. The returning vets wanted to own their own homes, and if that meant moving away from small town life, so be it.

It's a Wonderful Life is an exercise in nostalgia today because Levittown and the FSLIC guaranteed the replacement of small-town life, where there are few jobs and few new homes. The movie in 1946 identified the future: Bailey Park, a subdivision where the Martinis could buy a piece of America, and even bring their goat, as though zoning and restrictive covenants would not keep that world out.

The movie is amazingly subtle, despite its unsubtle script. It's about a conflict of visions. It seems to be about Potter's thwarted vision vs. George Bailey's thwarted vision. But there is a third vision, which turns out to be the triumphant vision. The third vision is rarely discussed and barely perceived, yet it is the movie's core vision. It is presented in a far more subtle way. It's the vision that turned It's a Wonderful Life into a classic, four decades after it was filmed.

Therein lies the secret of its popularity.

The third vision is Mary Bailey's vision. She wishes for the old home in the rock-throwing sequence. She wants to build a home out of an abandoned, falling-down mansion with broken windows. She wants to buy a money pit and have George pay for it. George promises to lasso the moon for her. She lassos him instead. She does it with a phone cord.

Every man who sees the opening of that scene knows what's going to happen. So does every woman. Mary's mom, on the upstairs extension, who is mentally adding up the rival balance sheets, sees it coming and cannot stop it.

Mary wants that house. Sam Wainright can only offer riches out of town. That will not give her the chance to fulfill her vision: turning a sow's ear into a silk purse.

In that movie, the only person I have ever personally identified with is Sam Wainright. Plastics, baby, plastics! Get in on the ground floor while you can. He stuck his thumbs in his ears, wiggled his fingers, and said "Hee, haw!" to the whole risk-aversive world. Thank God for the Sam Wainrights of the world. Thank Him also for the free market, which lets them get rich by making us more productive and our world better.

The movie's symbolic key to the fundamental conflict of visions — Mary's vs. George's — is that loose knob on the bannister. It never gets fixed. There is always something else to fix, but never enough time to fix that knob. George keeps grabbing the knob and running up the stairs. Then he puts it back. He will not glue it.

The question I asked from the first time I ever saw the movie until the latest, is this: "Why doesn't somebody glue that knob?"

I have finally figured it out. It took me 20 years. I'm sure other film reviewers have figured it out, but I'm a slow learner. That loose knob symbolizes the conflict of visions between the Baileys.

George wants out — out of Bedford falls, out of the lending business, out of that drafty house, and ultimately out of life. The movie never says it explicitly, but he wants out of his marriage — a decidedly non-Jimmy Stewart theme. He wants the freedom to get out. Glue that knob, and he's trapped. The knob is the symbol of his moral battle. Will he finally settle down mentally? He has settled down economically and geographically, but he has not settled down mentally. Will that knob ever be glued?

Mary won't fix it. She knows that George has to, as a symbol of his acceptance of his life. George won't fix it for the same reason.

Will Mary Bailey win the battle of the conflicting visions?

It's obvious from the final scene that she wins. George is at last locked in, grinning. He will not go to jail. Uncle Billy will not go to a mental institution. (Uncle Billy needed to join AA, and George should have fired him back in 1930.) The building & loan is saved. Bailey Park is saved. Potter is once again thwarted. Clarence gets his wings. All's well that ends well.

Conclusion: let's all go out and buy a home with a 30-year fixed-interest-rate mortgage. Let's all move to Bailey Park.

And so we have.

BAD ECONOMICS

The movie seems to be about slums vs. new subdivisions. In the miracle sequence, Pottersville is a downtown jungle of bars, lewd stage shows, pawnshops, and prostitutes. It's Potter's vision in neon. Message: only mortgage money can save Bedford Falls from becoming Pottersville.

Economically, this is nonsense. Fractional reserve banking is the road to monetary perdition, but fractional reserve savings & loans are not the road to heaven. That both roads are today protected by the government-subsidized FDIC is symbolic.

The FSLIC went bust in the 1980s, and this event threatened to take the American economy with it. Borrowing short and lending long for mortgages was the heart of that crisis, and taxpayers' money by the hundreds of billions was necessary to keep us from the path of redemption paved by George Bailey.

I have never seen a reviewer mention what should be obvious: the movie achieved classic status after 1974. This was an inflationary era in which housing prices soared, with three recessions (1974, 1981, 1982), with high interest rates in 1980—85, producing an outflow of funds from savings & loans to the newly invented money-market funds, which produced the savings & loan crisis, which were borrowed short and lent long. The collapsing S&L industry threatened to bring down the American dream — home ownership — by ending government-guaranteed mortgages. That would have meant the end of the wonderful life, circa 1985.

In 1946, the movie barely broke even.

ZU ZU'S GENERATION

Each generation gets trapped in its own house, which reflects its vision.

In 1946, the big old house, still drafty, was pictured as the American dream come true. A woman with a vision lassos a husband to fund her personal reclamation project. He sacrifices his vision for hers and every other wife's in Bedford Falls. Even Violet gives up her vision of an escape to the big city.

The fact is, Zu Zu's generation left Bedford Falls no later than 1960, returning for Thanksgiving and Christmas to visit the old folks. The FSLIC secured the subsidized funding for this move: the Levittowns of America, the suburbs. Almost nobody under 70 lives in Bedford Falls any more. We may dream of moving back in our old age, but it's just a dream. We work in cities, and we commute to the suburbs. So do our children.

There are no more neighborhoods. There are only subdivisions. When the building & loans went bust in the mid-1980s, nobody collected a basket full of cash to bring to the founders' sons. Instead, voters called on Congress to bail out the system, and Congress obliged. Zu Zu's kids and grandkids will be paying for that bail-out.

Call the whole process "from Bailey to bailout."

THE BAILOUT

A major crisis of the movie is the run on the building & loan. Why it could be solved in one day, Capra's script did not say. How the newlywed Baileys scraped together $2,000 — worth almost $28,000 today (www.bls.gov) — for a honeymoon in 1932, the bottom of the depression, was never made clear. Some honeymoon!

It was that fear of depression and bank runs in 1946 that still paralyzed millions of members of the older generation. The head of Montgomery Ward, Sewell Avery, was convinced that another depression was imminent. He had the company hoard cash. He refused to go into debt to expand. Sears did, building stores in the newly invented shopping malls of the suburbs. Montgomery Ward never recovered.

The Full Employment Act of 1946 was signed into law, guaranteeing government intervention to insure full employment without inflation. The Federal Reserve System in turn guaranteed that law. That fact guaranteed inflation. Today, it takes almost $9,800 to match the purchasing power of $1,000 in 1946.

The federal government's mortgage loan guarantees have now trapped generations of Americans in long-term mortgage debt to pay off the Bailey Park homes that we all believe is the fulfillment of the American dream. Pottersville is confined to central cities, where residents' credit ratings are low. Only the down-and-outers live there — and Latinos, who move two or three families into a home to make the mortgage payments. They are the up-and-comers in the Southwest and Miami. They are making the American dream work for them, changing it as they do.

SOCIAL MIRACLES AT THE MARGIN

The movie's surface theme is that miracles occur at the margin. George Bailey makes loans to borrowers who buy homes. One by one, the community changes. Old homes are restored. George lives in one. New homes go up. Potter's rental income falls when families move to Bailey Park. Loan by loan, everyone with character can buy a piece of the American dream. This keeps Bedford Falls from turning into Pottersville.

This is a fairy tale for grown-ups. Potter would have had competition from other banks. If Bailey's building & loan survived the Great Depression, it would have had imitators. But the basic theme of the movie is this: greed thwarts the good life, but self-sacrifice builds a decent place to live. This theme resonates with Americans. Indeed, it's a fundamental theme of the Bible.

The problem is, we have all bought into the 1946 vision of the crucial arena of greed vs. self-sacrifice: the mortgage market. Anything that undermines cheap mortgage money is seen as Potterism. Cheap mortgage money is seen as the American's birthright. It wasn't in 1930, when people had to pay 40% down to buy a house, just as they do today in most European nations. In 1947, Levittown began to change all that, with help from the FSLIC: a new home in a suburb for $10,990, $67 a month.

"Buy now, pay later" is paralleled by "borrow short, lend long." The first slogan governs the borrowers. The second governs the lenders. It's a symbiotic system. It rests on fractional reserve banking and central banking, which insures the commercial banks by guaranteeing permanent monetary inflation.

The miracle of the free market is the idea of miracles at the margin. The West's economy has grown at 2% to 3% per year, compounded, despite wars, for 250 years. We live more comfortably than kings lived in 1850. As P. J. O'Rourke says, when you think "good old days," think "dentistry." The miracle is the compounding process.

The fly in the ointment is fiat money and the expansion of debt that it subsidizes. Everywhere we turn, we are caught in a massive web of debt. This debt is denominated in currency units, mostly dollars. The web holds because central banks keeps buying government debt, which expands the monetary bases, which multiplies through the fractional reserve process. The purchasing power of money falls, marginally, year after year.

The terror of this system is the terror of It's a Wonderful Life: the bank run. It's the terror of banks' being borrowed short and lent long. As voters, we are willing to accept anything defers this threat. Today, there are $140 trillion in unsecured, high-leverage debt/credit agreements, over 80% of which are tied to shifts in interest rates. This is the derivatives market. A few of us worry that the system is being managed by Uncle Billy. But most people don't know about it.

The more I look at photos of Alan Greenspan, the more resemblance I see to Thomas Mitchell.

THE HOUSING BUBBLE

We are in the midst of a housing bubble in the cities, i.e., blue America. A housing bubble is easy to define: where the monthly mortgage payment for new buyers after taxes is higher than a rental payment for a comparable property. This is George Bailey's legacy to America.

The bad guy in the movie is Potter. He is a slum lord. The hero is George Bailey. He lends depositors' money to home buyers. So ingrained is this vision that, today, almost 70% of Americans are home owners, meaning mortgage signers. The younger ones are leveraged to the hilt. They expect the government to keep the boom going, so that they can pay off their debt. They want an appreciating asset — a home — despite the fact that the price of this appreciating asset is a depreciating dollar. The government turns to the Federal Reserve System to sustain the boom — and also to the central banks of Japan and China. Inflation is consuming the voters' meager retirement portfolios' purchasing power.

We love the movie's message: "Home is where your mortgage is." We still believe it. We still feel warm and bubbly when George gets that basket full of money, which seals his fate, and ours.

Clarence got his wings. So did the purchasing power of the dollar, which flew away.

I know exactly what happened the next day. George went to the tool chest, got out some glue, and fixed that knob. He was done. So was his dream of escaping Bedford Falls.

So is the dollar.

CONCLUSION

There is a conflict of visions in this life. There is a war between self-sacrifice and greed. The genius of the free market is that it converts greed into consumer-satisfying productivity.

As Adam Smith wrote in 1776:

But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

Potter vs. Bailey would have produced much the same outcome. This is because people finance their dreams in a competitive market. They don't care whether Potter is a grasper or Bailey is generous. They deposit their money in the institution that gives them the best rate of return consistent with risk. They borrow money from the institution that offers them the best terms. It's lenders vs. lenders and borrowers vs. borrowers. It's not greed vs. generosity. This is the socially and ethically revolutionary aspect of free market capitalism.

Sam Walton was a nice man, but his heirs are not worth $100 billion today because he was nice. Sewell Avery was a vocal defender of the free market, but he lost out to Sears because he did not understand the economic implications of It's a Wonderful Life: the FSLIC, in conjunction with the Federal Reserve System, was creating a new society with new institutions, the suburb and the shopping mall.

We now live in George Bailey's world. We have substituted government loan guarantees for bank runs, fiat money for the gold standard, and 30-year fixed rate mortgages with 5% down for 5-year balloon payment loans with 40% down. We live in a world where most Americans are in debt all of their lives, dreaming of winning the lottery and having the government guarantee their pensions, their old age, and their health care expenses.

The buffalo gals have come out at night to vote by the light of the moon. We have become a nation of lunatics.

That's why we watch It's a Wonderful Life, year after year. It comforts us in our lunacy.

It's a good-hearted movie. It's about family values and hard work.

Newtown, Connecticut and Autism

On the shooting of 6 adults and 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut:

"I think it's dangerous to say that Aspergers is what caused Adam Lanza to do what he did. Having worked extensively with children who have Aspergers, I firmly believe that blaming the developmental disability is knocking on the door of discrimination and I do not want to see my kiddos with "Aspie" be shunned even worse than they already are. 

What I do believe happened in the Newtown tragedy is a horrible cocktail, created by a number of factors: People who have Aspergers do have major problems understanding social relationships. That goes from how to have a simple conversation, all the way to conflict resolution. They can be taught how to interact appropriately, and parents and teachers across the globe dedicate their lives to this daily. Just like any other kid, they have to be taught things they don't know. So, do I think Aspergers may have caused this tragedy? No. But could his lack of understanding of social relationships and how to resolve conflict appropriately have been a factor in this? Yes, I do. But before pointing the finger again fully on Aspergers, consider that his mother/and teachers in his life may have taught him the wrong social rules. She/they could have done so even inadvertently, without realizing that is what they were doing. Now consider the other ingredients in the cocktail: He had access to weapons and was taught how to use them, he was allowed to and played many, many violent video games (again, with his aspergers, if he isn't getting social learning somewhere, he will pick it up here). They teach him one way to resolve conflict. He wouldn't necessarily be able to tell that that way is not good, unless he had been taught that. Lastly, something triggered him. Got him upset and he pulled from the resources he had, to resolve it.

I believe it took a mixture of factors to cause what happened on Friday. So, please don't just blame Aspergers for this. There are many children out there, who have Aspergers, who don't deserve the stigma that this is creating for them."

I found this from a guy on Facebook. The comment was originally from his wife. In addition to this, I would have to say that at the root of all evil is not some disease. At the root of death and destruction we cannot blame fire, guns, or anything else. We have nothing to blame but ourselves. We are at our core, sinners. So no weapon or "disease" can be blamed for what happened at that school that day...or at the Batman movie showing earlier this year. Or at any shooting or killing or anything. It was a sinner at fault...it was the sin nature coming out. 

Which brings to me to one of my biggest peeves. He wasn't retarded or specially handicapped. I have babysat this young boy for over 3 years now. He is like my own little brother or child. At the end of this month he's going to be 5. Over the course of the time that I've watched him he was diagnosed with autism. At first, it was incredibly hard to believe, but as time went on it was harder and harder to ignore it. At first, I was so scared. I hadn't ever really been faced with a "special needs" person...especially a child. I worried, maybe I'm not going to be all that he needs? He had a seizure which was what had tipped the doctors off to his "condition". 

What if he had a seizure while I watched him? Since that time I've done a bit of research...studied up what to do with seizures and come face to face with the realization that autism isn't that scary. It can be a big deal...it comes in shades...sometimes it's darker and sometimes it is lighter. Some people get better shades of it while others get worse. What autism really is: a "disconnection" of sorts between the two sides of the brain...making it very difficult to properly communicate well. While one side of the brain goes "undeveloped" the other side flourishes all the more. So while he can't always communicate exactly what is going on in his brain, that's not to say that there isn't anything happening up there.

So our job - as so-called "normal" people - is to learn to speak their language. Find out what they mean when they say or do this or that. It can seem like a new language...but it's only because we automatically assume that our language is the first and best one out there. I've seen him work and play...the way that I can see his mind work? It's incredible. He is so intelligent. Sometimes I think he's wiser and smarter then I am. The way he sees patterns, shapes, and other things it's truly remarkable. I wish there was someway to combine their amazing intellect with a good way to communicate like we usually do. Those are the geniuses. I would say those with autism are geniuses...now if only they could speak and share their knowledge with us. 

In closing, I would strongly oppose those who would blame this form of autism on why the shooting happened. That's not why it happened. Their agenda behind all this is not only to gain control of the guns, but to show us how "retarded" these other "infected" people are. I'm using plenty of quotations because that's what they would say...and I would take them down for it. These are highly intelligent people...those who have studied these conditions have all agreed on that...they are not slow, retarded, or stupid...and definitely not dangerous. They can be very misunderstood...and how would you feel if you were misunderstood day after day and treated as if you were stupid?

These are people. And when we mistreat them we mistreat life...just like as if we were the one with the gun in our hand. We do it everyday with abortion. And now we want to push euthanasia as well? The killing off of those who are not "normal"? "Healthy"? "Intelligent"? Now we must ask ourselves who will set that standard? And will that standard be Christian? Is it right to take anyone's life if done unjustly? Is it right to kill someone off because they don't fit in to what we consider normal? 

God doesn't think so. And neither should we. 

To Love Or Not To Love...THAT Is The Question

Have you ever just missed someone so much that your stomach is sick...really really sick? And then you talk to them (even online) and you just get this hollow ache all over. That's what I've got right now. Just missing someone so much that you hurt everywhere. What do you say to them? "I miss you and it literally hurts me really bad"? No...you really can't. You just feel numb and sick and achy all over. Like, I'm talking about someone you know and you're friends with and you see them...but you just realized how much you miss them? That's what I've got. It's awful. It's awful but it comes from loving people...you love and care for people and you open yourself wide up for hurt and pain and missing them like crazy.

So now is the time to decide. Is it worth it? If you love...you're gonna have so much pain. Maybe more pain than good times. Maybe more painful memories than good ones. Maybe more days with that hollow ache in the pit of your stomach than happy butterflies. But whether it's a sister, a parent, a boyfriend, a best friend, or anyone...you're gonna experience it. Love and pain. Good times and bad.

There will come a time when everyone realizes this more acutely than any other time in their life. That's when the biggest decision of your life happens: to continue loving or not. Or at least, that's when you think you have a choice. I thought I had that choice. And I chose to become a wallflower...a quiet nobody. Someone who is unnoticed and unloving. One who didn't care about the little ant who struggles with the big piece of food or with the butterfly who hurt one of its wings.

But the thing is...we were created to love. We weren't created as cold being who shut themselves off from the world. We are born crying, sure...but we are born ready to love our mothers (and eventually fathers). That bond that we have with our mothers is formed even before we are born...it's her voice and touch and smell and everything while we're in the womb. Before we even breath in air, we love. It is natural and first nature to us. We love those who love us...we love those who do us good...we love so much. But the real challenge is to want to love. Love those who do us harm...hurt us...over and over.

Harm is bound to happen...hurt...pain...it's all inevitable. People are fallen and so even if it's unconscious it is bound to happen over and over. But we must move on past it...learn and love. This post went way out from where it started...but I guess what I'm driving at is this: Love hurts! Love hurts so bad...whether it's missing a friend you just saw the night before...missing a sister you don't get to see anymore because she got married...missing friends who have grown out of touch...missing the innocent child you used to be...it doesn't matter! Because (as cheesy as this sounds) love is what is the best thing in the world.

Even if there is one good moment to every ten bad moments...even if one person loves you back out of ten...it's worth it! Love is so powerful! It is a huge blessing. It's our nature! Alright, now I can hear you say that our sin nature is also our first nature. However...God gave us our love nature...we sinned and was given the sin nature. Difference = huge. So yeah, this is just a little cheesy post about love and that we *should* love. But I just had to get some things out...I hope that it helped someone out there maybe get through their "choice" of whether to love or not.

Take it from me...you can't NOT love! I tried it! And yeah, I became a huge pain...but I found that underneath all that wallflowerness (what a weird non-word that is) that I still loved and cared for everyone just the same as before! It doesn't work, folks! Go ahead and try...let me know how long you last. I didn't last that long before I realized it wasn't working. Thankfully, people didn't notice or say anything about how I shut them out! God is good. :) May He bless you richly as you go about your day...loving and caring for people without effort!

Christmas...and SPIRIT

So...I am NOT in the Christmas spirit. Our house is bare. We have a few lights up and I did put some up to encircle my room. But for the most part...I am so out of it! I noticed this has happened the past few years as well. I would be out of the Christmas spirit and then right before or after I would get into it...and then Christmas would be gone...for a whole year. I'm bound and determined to get in it SOON but I just don't know how! We haven't gotten our tree yet and we haven't decorated the house and we haven't baked anything! And I just don't have time. At this point in time it's too crazy busy! I have my second ACT on Saturday so I'm studying for that whenever I have free time. Other than that? I've got music, work, and school just like regular. But I'm really hoping that beginning with Saturday night that I can try my hardest to get in the mood!!

Today and tomorrow are devoted to studying for the ACT...then I have the official test on Saturday morning...EARLY...coffee is needed. Then right after that I have work at the library. I'm hoping after that to get a little shopping done...Christmas and food. As I look at the weather report for this weekend I'm seeing RAIN...not snow. Boo. Way to get me in the mood. But anyways...hopefully we'll have the tree by that time and I can decorate that and then decorate the house! Sunday..well that's the second week of Advent...and more Christmas songs (boy, it was so weird singing Christmas songs last week!). Then that will hopefully turn into a big baking day! Lots of cookies! Sprinkles and icing and yum yum. That night...oh boy! I am SO looking forward to that night! Mia and I are getting together to have a FUN night! I haven't hung out with her in forever!

We will be getting together and making yummy gingerbread and then making our own gingerbread houses! Icing and candy and MORE yum! Then we get to hang out and watch girly girl chick flicks! That is really the high point of my week. My ACT will be over and I won't have anything to worry about. My mind will be free of all worries and we'll be eating such tasty things! Good times...Sunday is gonna rock.

But...I've been told this more than once...and so it's something I'm going to work on. I'm a negative person! I am pessimistic and negative and just mopey in general. It's sad! So I'm working on getting more good spirit...Christmas and otherwise! I looked up the definition of "spirit"...and I came up with the words, "liveliness" "mettle" "pep" "life" "sprightliness" "animation" "vilification" "pertness" "breeziness" "jauntiness" "exuberance" "irrepressibility" "vim" "vigor" "energy" ...among others! I love those words...those are exciting words full of life and happiness. And to think...I don't have that hardly at all!

So that's one of my new goals. To find good in everything and to be filled with spirit! To see the glass half full...to be filled with God's spirit of joy! Gosh, it is so hard! But...the good thing is I know it's not impossible! I have a tendency to be grumpy in general and to avoid happy people...so this week will be a week that is trying for me...trying to get along well with those people. Not avoiding them! But embracing them...embracing the happiness and joy and life and energy that can come with being spirited! That's where I am in life! Where are you?

Gone

Whenever I see someone now...they ask me, "So how are you doing? Do you miss Rachel?". What am I supposed to say? NO! Psh. Yes, people. Yes, I miss her. Every day that she's not at home I miss her more. People say that as time goes on you miss people less...but for me I have a feeling it's the opposite. I've had a lot of people leave me over the past few months and it doesn't go away. The missing feeling. It doesn't just get better or heal.

But each day is different. Every day can be better or worse than the day before. It's always different. Monday was just terrible. It was the day after the wedding and I missed her so much. She came by for a few minutes to pick some things up and then she and Anthony left for up north. Now she's back and I GET TO SEE HER TOMORROW! It's exciting, I know. But I have to treasure any time spent with her because she lives 30 minutes away and they only have one car and who knows when we'll have quality time.

Whenever I miss her I tell myself that she's out running errands. Maybe she's out shopping or teaching violin lessons or visiting Anthony. But she'll be back soon.......right? It's hardest after she leaves. But after a bit of being pre-occupied and thinking about other things and being super busy...well it gets a little better sometimes. I keep myself crazy busy.

Being busy is a help. You just get busy and you don't have time to miss anyone or think of the fact that they're gone out of that part of your life at least for the time being. I thought about when she has kids...but then I also thought that I may be gone away at that time...busy with schooling or work or something. It scared me a little...the fact that I may not be able to see much of my nieces or nephews...well that does make me stop and think.

Anyways...those are some thought I have on leaving...or being gone. Having "lost" a sister lately I'd say I am in a pretty good place to speak on the subject. Anthony has been like a brother for so long so it's not like he's coming in the family. And Rachel is gone now...so it's more like losing a sister than gaining a brother. Just prayers and discipline and keeping busy is what is keeping sort of sane!

God bless you all.

Wedding Prayer

This was the Wedding Prayer for my sister's wedding. It was lovely and filled me with such hope for this newly married couple. I pray it blesses you as well. 

"Dread Sovereign and Benevolent God, thou who art the creator and preserver of all life, author of salvation and giver of all grace, we beseech thee that thou would look with favor upon thy Church that Christ did Redeem and especially upon this man and woman who are members of thine covenant and who are now entering in the Holy State of matrimony which you have ordained to be a model of Christ’s love for His Church.

Grant them wisdom and devotion in the ordering of the life that you have ordained for them to share that they may each be to the other a strength in need, a counselor in perplexity, a comfort in sorrow, and a companion in joy.

Grant, we beseech thee, that their wills and affections may be so knit together in your will and affections that they may grow steadily in love, thus experiencing the peace and tranquility that you intend for domestic life. Pour out upon them thy Holy Spirit so that they may together with all God’s people grow up in the grace and knowledge of thy Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through all the years that lay before them.

Open their eyes and grant them grace that they may see when they hurt each other, and then cause them to recognize and acknowledge their sin and to seek each other’s forgiveness and yours.

Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, so that their unity may be evangelism to the world’s estrangement, their acts of forgiveness a testimony to the world’s brokenness, their joy a witness to the world’s despair.

Bestow upon them, if it is your will, the gift and heritage of children, and the grace to bring them up to know you that they and their generations that follow may constitute a Holy Host unto the God of Hosts to be used for your bidding for the advancement of your cause.

Grant them the prayers of thy people attendant here and grant that they may join their own prayers with these, your people, that your name might be seen as to be majestic as it never ceases to be.

Fix them within a community of faith where all can be sharpened to think your thoughts after you. Grant them the fellowship of like-minded believers that together your community may take every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

And then Father, when their days come to an end, and their descendants gather around them to extend their last visitations here, gather Anthony and Rachel to hear thy pronouncement of “Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter now into thy Master’s rest.”

Grant them and all of us to live all our lives before thy face.

In the glorious name of the Resurrected and Triumphant Christ

Amen"

Smokey Dreams

Smokey Dreams...

Have you ever had some really big dream...and then stood back just in time to watch it go up in smoke? It's like watching your favorite character in your favorite show get killed off. Or watching helplessly as your puppy gets hit by a car. You can't help it...and in some ways you should have seen it coming miles off...but now you get to watch it happen in slow and painful motion. And it replays over and over in your head. There is no getting it out and no redoing it again. There is no going back in time to somehow change some small detail.

I've had one of those dreams for four years now. It was all I wanted. I'd done the research...done all my homework...studied for countless hours on exactly what I wanted with my life. I knew it all...I knew where I wanted to go and what to study. I knew where I'd go from that. I knew where I'd end up. And trust me, it wasn't the perfect dream...and it is sure to not be what your dream in life is. I know that 99.9% of you reading this wouldn't even find my dream partially appealing to you. But that's why it's my dream and not yours.

I've been told for most of my life to live my life first for the glory of God...and then out of that to do what I love and what I want to do. But now as I'm getting older I'm seeing more and more people pushing their dreams on me and I realize why others told me to stick to my dreams and not to listen to other people. People grow up and get regrets. We all wish we could change something. But just because you regret it doesn't mean you should force others to do that which you wish you had done. It was/is your dream...not theirs.

I'm watching my big, beautiful dream go up in smoke...because I had forgotten one little problem. My parents' stamp of approval. I've known for quite some time that my parents didn't particularly approve of where I wanted to go...what I wanted to do. It's not sinful or wrong...it's just not how they envision me spending the next 6-10 years studying. They want me to study other things...go to a different college. And how can you go against your parents? How can you do something like that and not live to regret it?

I go through these phases...the "I want to go to college and I'm going to do it no matter what" phase. And the "Alright already...whatever you want...I'll even sit around at home for a few more years" phase. I hate the second...because I become miserable. I know it's not what I've wanted for my life and it's just not me. It's not what makes me happy. I want desperately to heal people...to be there for them when they need someone. That's who I am. My mum has been after me for years because I've always been a bit of a "counselor" for my friends. But now it feels like it's all I want...that's what I want in life.

I want to be a healer. I want to be a comforter. I want to be there in a person's darkest times and be able to shine a light to them. Not only a real physical healing...but a spiritual healing. It's in those darkest times when people are most willing to see the light and I really want to have those chances to be able to go to them in those dark hours and share the Good News with them. Those opportunities CAN come every day if you work in a field like I want(ed).

Well...last night I got the big college talk. And once again I find myself in tears at the crossroads. Which way to go. Dare I disobey my parents and fulfill all my dreams of what I want to do in life? Or do I try and please them and fulfill their dreams and regrets by doing things that make me feel miserable and sad? I want them happier than ever...but how can I go away to college and do that knowing that they disapprove? I can't.

So here I am...indecisive again. I know I'll never leave without their permission or consent. But at the same time...I'm afraid I'll sink back into my depression of last year...when I realized that all my high hopes of graduating early were dashed. I have a dream for life and I'm not living it. Not living that dream is truly hell on earth. I want to help heal people and comfort them...I want to be able to be a light in darkness...I want to open my own Occupational Therapy practice so I can truly impact so many lives. I want to make a difference.

And I've prayed...for so long. So throughout all of this I've been saying, "I want, I want"...but I really do feel it's where I'm lead to be. God keeps bringing it back to me and to my heart. He finds ways to open doors...with scholarships and financial aid and ACT's and all the other things. He shows me people in my life who are just like what I'd be helping someday. But who knows...maybe I'm reading too much into it.

I know for a fact I'll never leave without my parents' consent. But I know I'll never get it. They disapprove of the college...it's secular and not Biblical. They disapprove of the degree...it won't aid or advance any family of mine. They disapprove of the costs...and there will be no loans. There is no easy option and no easy way out. No way to please everyone involved. So...here I am. Praying for wisdom...praying for acceptance. Praying that I can be happy staying here at home knowing that I could have gone there. Could have studied that. Could be helping people like I wanted to.

Lord, I feel so lost.

Wedding Homily

So...I've been pretty busy. And I promise I'll be updating here soon! I just have to get my feet and head back on the right track.Wedding brain is SO WEIRD! Anyways...I don't have much time to be able to sit down properly and write out some thoughts...but I thought I'd post the homily that my pastor had for my sister's wedding TWO DAYS AGO! Enjoy!

"Of course that which makes a marriage uniquely Christian is the pledged allegiance of both the Christian Husband and the Christian Wife to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Here we have two people who have been set apart for salvation from eternity, and who have been declared righteous in Christ in God’s court. They have been united to Christ by the Spirit’s work and now they enter into marriage. Very well then, it is quite obvious that that which will make the marriage Christian is their bowing to the Lordship of their King and Savior in their marriage.

This concern about the Lordship of Jesus Christ begins even before marriage in the courting process and manifests itself first in the careful attention of each that they are marrying someone who is suitable for them.

This is what God said in Genesis

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Now, it stands to reason that this woman who was to be suitable for Adam found an Adam that in turn was suitable for her. This is just to say that Adam and Eve were a fit. They were quite literally made for each other.

First of course they were a fit in the sense that they understood that they were God’s creatures and were beholden to Him. In our language today we might say that they shared a common faith. No marriage should be entered into where man and wife do not share a common understanding of their shared Christian faith. Indeed Scripture forbids it for Christians when it forbids unequal yoking.

But the correspondence, — or suitability if you prefer — between our first parents of course only began with Adam and Eve’s common faith — a common faith that found each of them trusting in God at each turn.

But beyond this common faith were other commonalities. They were yoked in other ways. After all this was a woman who was, in Adam’s own words, “Bone of my Bone, and Flesh of my Flesh.” Adam and Eve mirrored one another. I suspect that Adam and Eve corresponded to each other in the way that they looked and in their mannerisms, in their likes and dislikes. They not only shared a faith and a bed but they shared common delights, common palates, common speech patterns, and common characteristics.

Rudyard Kipling caught something of what I am getting at in terms of the need for commonalities in uniquely Christian marriage that is never less than a common faith but is always more than a common faith when he wrote,

The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk–
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.

Dr. Clarence Macartney, a well known Reformed Minister from my Grandparent’s generation put this time-tested concept, if also time-worn idea, in a sermon he preached on Marriage and family life. Macartney preached,

“Love imagines that it can overleap the barriers of race and blood and religion, and in the enthusiasm and ecstasy of choice these obstacles appear insignificant. But the facts of experience are against such an idea. Mixed marriages are rarely happy. Observation and experiences demonstrate that the marriage of a Gentile and Jew, a Protestant and a Catholic, an American and a Foreigner has less chance of a happy result than a marriage where the man and woman are of the same race and religion….”

I know that Anthony and Rachel share the kind of commonalities that the Lordship of Christ anticipates for a uniquely Christian marriage. They are not strangers to one another in terms of suitability. They share a common understanding of their common faith. They share a worldview. They come from similar family cultures and backgrounds and they share a people group. They are suitable for each other.

II.) When it comes to a uniquely Christian marriage not only is the Lordship of Christ pursued in the issue of the suitableness of each for one another but it is also pursued in each of them submitting to God’s Law.

Remember we are speaking here of a Christian marriage and in a Christian marriage you have two people who have had wrought within them the desire to look to the interest of the other. You have two people, who, when they say they “love” each other they understand that love is an empty concept unless if is defined by God’s law. Anthony must not love Rachel in ways that are inconsistent w/ God’s revealed word and Rachel must not love Anthony by defining what love is by her own law word. In order for their marriage to be Christian each must love in ways consistent with God’s revealed law-word.

Of course you already know that never was a word more cheapened in our culture than the word “love.” We have sentimentalized it, we have coarsened it, we have invoked it in order to cover the most hateful of actions. And the reason for this is that “love” has no stable meaning because each man loves as is right in his own eyes. This is not so in a Christian marriage that takes the Lordship of Christ into account. A Christian marriage understands that “love” is regulated and finds it’s meaning in God’s law being applied. Jesus Himself draws our attention to the same point when He told his disciples, “If you love me keep my commandments.”

The fact that marriages fail so often can be accounted both by the fact that two people married who did not correspond to one another to begin with and by the fact that both people in the marriage are seeking to regulate the marriage according to their own self-governing law word. In short, marriages fail because one if not both partners are seeking to be God in the relationship. It can get pretty ugly when the Gods go to war.

When both husband and wife submit to a royal law of love that is defined and regulated by God’s Law-Word then the conflict of the wills have a boundary in order to limit them.

So, a uniquely Christian marriage finds God’s revealed law-word governing their marriage and their homes. Anthony shows his love to Rachel by serving her much as Christ served the Church in the washing of his disciples’ feet. He serves her by leading, protecting, providing, and by nurturing her in her undoubted catholic Christian faith. Rachel shows her love to Anthony by submitting to him, by being a complement to him, and as Christ always delighted to do the will of His Father so Rachel will delight in doing the will of her husband who will lay down his life for her.

III.) The Lordship of Jesus Christ is expressed in uniquely Christian marriages by the teleology or goal of the Marriage.

Theologians will tell you that part of what constitutes man as the “image of God” is the fact that he was charged with having dominion over God’s creation. He was to be a ruling steward over creation for God as King.

When God gave Eve to Adam that giving was in the context of Adam’s dominion work. The giving of Eve to Adam was for the purpose of aiding and assisting Adam in his work of dominion.

In the Christian understanding nothing has happened since Adam was created to exercise dominion and since Eve was created from Adam to be a help-meet in that dominion taking that has rescinded the idea that the ultimate goal of marriage is a Husband and Wife co-operating, under God’s regency and Law-Word, in exercising godly dominion. The Husband and Wife, together as man and wife, are to reconstruct all they put their hands too in a Christ honoring direction. Even the having and rearing of children is to be unto the end of being able to more readily exercise dominion to the glory of God.

And clearly we live in times that desperately need humble Christian dominion taking. Clearly we live in times where we should pray that God will raise up a host of Christian marriages that understand the charge to begin dominion taking first by reconstructing marriage and family again along Biblical lines.

You see, the ordaining of marriages is not about our creature comforts. When God joins suitable Redeemed men and women together, as under His law word, they are commissioned to the end of going on quest to reconstruct all of the un-real reality around us so as to be consonant to God’s Kingdom reality. And if the sound of dominion lands to roughly upon your ears look at what I am speaking of as Christian marriages contributing to the healing of a broken world with the medicine of God’s Word.

If we were to put this in terms of a epic adventure novel, Christian Marriage is an adventure where the husband is a Knight of the Lord Christ’s round table protecting his wife and family by taking dominion over the serpent dragon who would seek to destroy Christ’s authority and Kingdom at every turn. The wife is no helpless damsel in distress but she is helping the husband to better able to demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and the advance of His Kingdom.

And so a uniquely Christian marriage looks to the Lordship of Christ in these three areas

I.) Suitability
II.) Governance by God’s Law
III.) Dominion”"