Facets/Perspectives

2020!

Now everyone can SEE clearly! The New Year has arrived...

I know it's February - Valentine's Day here in the US...

I love you too... So, I write today... Actually, Father gave me thoughts and said, "Do something with these...".

I recently discovered "Dry Bar Comedy", (clean comedy), and one of their featured comedians asked his audience, " When did it become wrong to have differing opinions?" He made his point when he shared that he is a Black man who respects police officers and that he appreciated the viewpoints of some republicans and some democrats... His point was, people nowadays have the opinion that ONLY their opinion matters and it's the correct opinion and you should have it too!

The audience laughed and applauded!

I agree!

We live in times that George Orwell warned against in his novel "1984". We can only speak the way those presumed to be in power dictate. We can only think one way - their way - least we are vilified. We must act or react to circumstances based upon what is trending... for the  moment.

This sounds really crazy... This in the year 2020 - is what we have come to, in the western world... I'm old enough to remember a time when those with the loudest voice asserted that we should throw off "restraints"... , and everyone was to "make love - not war" and sex was to be revolutionized... Women burned their bras and babies were aborted and responsibility went out the door. Everybody could do whatever they wanted... Power was to the people...

Life was supposed to be better...

Some would say it was, but according to whose perspective...

From where I'm sitting, it seems nothing has really changed and we've come full circle. Oddly enough, we are still following the dictates of the popular masses, (not that these numbers are so large, they are just in charge!), and little has changed as far as what we are following, however the statistics and the carnage left behind increases at an unbelievable staggering rate.

Numbers don't lie.

• There are more Black babies aborted in the city of New York than are born alive. The number one killer of Black people isn't gun violence, but abortion.
• Suicide is the second leading cause for death among teens and young adults.
• And let's look at the opioid epidemic...In just two decades, drugs prescribed by doctors to alleviate pain, were abused, thanks to over prescription and illegally manufacturing... 
• Other drugs and sex-trafficking, (21st century slavery), are multibillion, if not trillion dollar industries... 
• Alcohol once illegal but legalized, didn't help the economy but destroyed families... now add to this legalized marijuana - both are deemed "essential"...
• Legalized gambling that generates billions of dollars was supposed to help our fledgling schools and now with legalized marijuana... for the same reason - to help education/schools... Go figure... One has to wonder, what are we really teaching?... and I don't necessarily mean the teachers - I mean the powers that be...

Someone, once upon a time, thought all this was supposed help... give the populous what they want... Whose standard were these people using? We kill babies, degrade women, break up families in anyway that works and still come up with more insane ideas that wreak havoc... Seemingly for the purpose of someone out there saying, "I did it my way"... Sounds vaguely familiar... "You can have all that you want..." The lie that came out of the Garden via a talking serpent...

Adam and Eve had all that they ever needed in Father God... But, the enemy of mankind gave us his perspective, which was and still is anti-God... I cringe at the thought of what goes on in the mind,... the perspective... of a man or woman, who thinks that God's way is wrong...

Our standard used to be the Bible - God's Word! But then people began to think that they didn't have enough with God, so they went after more, something very different... Their perspective changed... So as their presumed power grew... and the hunger for just a little bit more, became the mantra...

It's sin.

 Let me make myself perfectly clear... If that's possible... (I think I use too many words and ramble on too long...)

I sin everyday.

I try not to, but I wake up and eventually walk out of my apartment. I encounter people. Most people make me react, (positively and negatively), and sometimes in my nonreactive state, I sin then, as well - because I do not have a care for them - I am indifferent to their plight, (the beggar that I pass on Broadway at Argyle - he sneers at me often...). Sometimes, even if I don't encounter people I think of people I know and therefore have sin-filled thoughts... (Some of you are laughing at me... You would not if you knew my thoughts and were honest about your own thoughts and actions). It's sin, folks. Especially, if you hold to the standard - the PERSPECTIVE of God's Words...Which in part is the problem... because too many of us people, do not have nor do we want to use the standard that God laid out for us...

... So, we sin... everyday.

In the Old Testament - the Torah; God gave Ten Commandments. Judaism now has 613 laws... Lord have mercy... In the New Testament, Jesus - a Jew, by the way, (I think too many folks forget this and are weirdly anti-semitic; Christian too - just my perspective folks), ...summed up the commands with one... "Love your neighbor as yourself".

Boom! 

We suppose that our perspective is the right one, when we don't want to use a just standard - Jesus' standard.

LOOK at the world today... What and/or how many standards can you count? Even among those that are supposed to be inclusive - they war among themselves. Look at the various fractions among Christians and let's go to the opposite end and look at the other side of the fence, (and I tread very lightly here - I don't know why I do...), and they too war among themselves - least they be called something that they don't identify as... Human.

Normally, I don't speak for everyone, but WE are, ...so confused folks... all because we have bought into the enemies perspective... We have removed God so far out of our small, tiny, universes and we have tried to become our own gods... and we have messed up so many folks...

Sigh! A very heavy large sobbing SIGH!

I get it... It's not easy loving folks that don't see things your way...

Tell that one to Father God, ...but He does anyway - because you still have breathe and He yet has hope and He knows your future!

2020

An opportunity to SEE things differently - not our way, but Father God's way...

We have tried our way for so long... (Since the Garden, folks). Do you see it working well anywhere? Be honest! Even newborn babies cry, most time out of need, and the inability to communicate, but they are saying loud and clear through their cries - attend to ME, NOW! - I AM THE CENTER OF your universe! And I love babies - I have six of them, (adults now), and soon to be three grand babies. My fondest memories are when I was a stay-at-home-mom, (mother of many:-).

However, like I said, when I simply walk outside my door... I sin. I often react to people who are rude or thoughtless, (I pray they are unintentionally, thoughtless)... but thoughtless nonetheless; and their actions are hurtful and after the umpteenth time, I think something back, and call them anything but a child of God - in my head... Once in a blue moon - aloud... like "jerk! or worse"

In earnest, because of how I know I have the propensity to sin, I try to avoid people and will cross the street rather than engage a person, (see social distancing before it was en vogue - edited 5/19 in light of what has happened in our world in just 3 months since this writing) - especially one with a dog... I hate playing "jump the leash"... So it's not easy... because they aren't using Jesus' standard... They may not have had time to spend with the Father or even care to spend time with Father God and so... are thoughtless and uncaring and in their own world... focusing on their perspective of life.

Got a question:

Is it hard to be mind-filled of Jesus' standard when engaging the world?

With Jesus everything is possible... even seeing 2020 perfectly...

Till the very end.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Nina B

My classroom where I teach ceramics - my foretaste of Heaven.