There's Much To Be Thankful For

The wife and I are off until next week. Soldier girl leaves next Tuesday so we are packing in as much family time as we can. Last night we had an excellent family dinner at our favorite restaurant, Saucy Swan, in Manlius. We were celebrating Danielle's (AKA Soldier Gurl) home visit, Jess's (AKA Goob) graduation with an Associate Degree in Business , Beca's (AKA Boof) acceptance into college (Baptist Bible College in Clark's Summit, PA); Jess's boyfriend, Wayne (AKA Wayne Wayne Go Away but that'll change once we think of something nastier) just got his second BA (Journalism? English? or something) and our oldest, Amy, the Dominatrix (the first born - heh), her pregnancy - very poignant as she had miscarried last Spring. She is 39 so we are all watching the newest grandchild very closely.

The meal was absolutely superb. Two veal marcella's (mumsie and Jess), two fillet mignon (Soldier Gurl and I), shrimp scampi (Beca) and NYS strip steak (2 BA Guy)being the choices. Afterwards we took in a late show - saw the non-3D version of "Avatar." Simply awesome, incredible CG effects but it definitely is a message movie - I renamed it "I Buried My Blue Striped Ass At Wounded Tree;" but we all enjoyed the flick very much.

I am trying a faith approach to anger management. I am getting so pissed off at what is happening to my County, my Culture and my Congress - it is wearing on me, tearing me down a little each day as new outrages seem to erupt like acne on a thirteen year old. I feel like I am under a constant state of seige. And this is probably what the socialists want.

We have so much to be thankful for. But that has been true for so many centuries. We can carp and moan about what is happening to our beloved Country, but that is our fault. We did not place enough value on the things that made this Country what is it. Instead, we focused on the bounty of our labors, forgetting the God who blessed those labors, who through a 1700 year process first created and then placed us in a novel social experiment called the United States of America.

This article from the WSJ this morning set my sights on the true target. I was bull gazing for too long.

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.

Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

For Congress saw that it was so. But while Congress proposes, God disposes.

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

First the unborn, now the infirm and soon the elderly. The progression of tyranny has been reflected for millennia. Christians and Jews are despised, distrusted and dispossessed.

Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.

We march to the beat of a different drummer; that's the way it's supposed to be for we do not belong to the world - we are God's. The beat is not heard by the world nor can it be heard; it is based on faith and they do not understand it. To paraphrase 1 Cor 1:18, the preaching of the gospel is foolishness to those who who are condemned to perdition. Don't despair at what the MSM and college professors and other so called enlightened elite parrot, they cannot help themselves nor do they want help.

So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.

But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

Christ is our Light. Light brings all things into true perspective. In its harsh glare nothing is hidden, nothing can be concealed.

We see where Pelosi and Reid and Obama are driving us (these tyrants do not lead, they impel, they force, they impose their will) as we cry out against it. The liberals march lemming-like to the precipice and want us to join them as they rush headlong off a cliff into slavery; much of the Country is finally waking up and seeing where the parade of insanity is going.

So pray for Light. Pray for the clarity of thought that is a gift from God. Like early Christians who lived under leaders far, far worse than ours, refuse to go where the socialists demand. It will cost us - it always has - but our Drummer has already paid the price.

Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter's star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.

And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." {Gal. 5:1 ~sig94}