Friday, April 26, 2024
Thursday, April 25, 2024
How precious is our hearing
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Sorrows upon Sorrows...and yet I will live for You, O LORD
Sunday, April 21, 2024
Friday, April 19, 2024
Learn the Antidote
"The antidote to indoctrination
is to tell the truth,
expose people to the lies that
would deceive them,
show them how to refute this lies,
and prepare them with
the thinking skills necessary
to continue resisting falsehoods."
-Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews, by Jeff Myers & David A. Noebel, pg. 9
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Thursday, April 18, 2024
For this reason...
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Woman was created from
the rib of man.
Not from his head was she
created to be above him.
Not from his feet
to be trampled upon.
She was created from his side
to be equal to him.
From under his arm
to be protected by him.
From close to his heart
to be loved by him.
~author unknown
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Genesis 2:15-25
..."Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
The Lord God commanded the man, saying,
“From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it
you will surely die.”
Then the Lord God said,
“It is not good for the man to be alone;
I will make him a helper suitable for him.”
Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.
The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.
The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed."
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Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Sunday, April 14, 2024
Who is John Galt?
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"Hear, O sons, the instruction of a father, and give attention that you may gain understanding,
For I give you sound teaching; Do not abandon my instruction.
When I was a son to my father, tender and the only son in the sight of my mother,
Then he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; Keep my commandments and live;
Acquire wisdom! Acquire understanding! Do not forget nor turn away from the words of my mouth.
“Do not forsake her, and she will guard you; Love her, and she will watch over you.
“The beginning of wisdom is: Acquire wisdom; And with all your acquiring, get understanding.
“Prize her, and she will exalt you; She will honor you if you embrace her.
“She will place on your head a garland of grace; She will present you with a crown of beauty.”
Hear, my son, and accept my sayings and the years of your life will be many.
I have directed you in the way of wisdom; I have led you in upright paths.
When you walk, your steps will not be impeded; And if you run, you will not stumble.
Take hold of instruction; do not let go. Guard her, for she is your life.
Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not proceed in the way of evil men.
Avoid it, do not pass by it; Turn away from it and pass on.
For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; And they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble.
For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.
The way of the wicked is like darkness; They do not know over what they stumble.
My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings.
Do not let them depart from your sight; Keep them in the midst of your heart.
For they are life to those who find them and health to all their body.
Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.
Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you.
Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you.
Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established.
Do not turn to the right nor to the left; Turn your foot from evil."
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Saturday, April 13, 2024
A Reason to Mentor Others
~Otters on Yellowstone FB
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"...We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth; just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit.
For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.
For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.
He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach-- if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.
Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.
For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me."
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Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Time to Look in the Mirror
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Monday, April 8, 2024
Sunday, April 7, 2024
According to His Great Mercy
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1 Peter 1:3-9
..."Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls."...
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Saturday, April 6, 2024
Friday, April 5, 2024
God's Creation!
~Yellowstone FB
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It hasn't been that long....since my senior term paper on Bald Eagles...well...just 50 years ago.
Even so, Bald Eagles are still my most fascinating birds.
The term paper is long gone, but God's creation continues to evoke wonder and majesty in His world for me.
Glory to the One and Only!
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Thursday, April 4, 2024
Wednesday, April 3, 2024
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Jesus, Friend of a Wounded Heart
Monday, April 1, 2024
God's Creation up Close and Precious
Sunday, March 31, 2024
Saturday, March 30, 2024
Friday, March 29, 2024
Where there is Faith
Thursday, March 28, 2024
"God is still God and His faith Shall Not fail us"
"The dawn is not distant
nor is the night starless;
love is eternal!
God is still God,
and His faith shall not fail us:
Christ is eternal!"
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Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Secret Sorrows that only the LORD can soften
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
"Be Still, and Wait; and See"
Monday, March 25, 2024
Speaking Truth even through Mallard
Sunday, March 24, 2024
Friday, March 22, 2024
Our Job as a Saint: Do what is in front of you!
The Frenchman who would become known as the world's greatest pantomime artist helped smuggle Jewish children to safety in Switzerland during World War II.
The world-famous mime artist Marcel Marceau worked with the French underground as a teenager and help save many Jewish children from death at the hands of the Nazis during World War II.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed annually on 27 January (the date the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated in 1945), is an occasion not only for commemorating the millions who died during the Holocaust (1933-1945), but also for acknowledging the heroic efforts of those who helped European Jews escape the clutches of the Third Reich.
One of those acknowledged heroes was the internationally acclaimed pantomime artist Marcel Marceau (1923-2007), whose work as a young man with the French underground was celebrated in a Facebook video posted on 26 January 2018:
The same story is told in this excerpt from an unattributed article widely shared on social media since 2015:
Marcel Marceau’s extraordinary talent for pantomime entertained audiences around the world for over sixty years. It also saved hundreds of Jewish children during the Holocaust.
Born to a Jewish family in Strasbourg, France in 1923, young Marcel Mangel discovered Charlie Chaplin at age five and became an avid fan. He entertained his friends with Chaplin imitations, and dreamed of starring in silent movies.
When Marcel was 16, the Nazis marched into France, and the Jews of Strasbourg — near the German border — had to flee for their lives. Marcel changed his last name to Marceau to avoid being identified as Jewish, and joined the French resistance movement.
Masquerading as a boy scout, Marcel evacuated a Jewish orphanage in eastern France. He told the children he was taking them on a vacation in the Alps, and led them to safety in Switzerland. Marcel made the perilous journey three times, saving hundreds of Jewish orphans.
He was able to avoid detection by entertaining the children with silent pantomime.
Documentary filmmaker Phillipe Mora, whose father fought alongside Marcel in the French resistance, said, ”Marceau started miming to keep children quiet as they were escaping. It had nothing to do with show business. He was miming for his life.’’
Marcel’s father perished at Auschwitz. Marcel later said, “The people who came back from the camps were never able to talk about it. My name is Mangel. I am Jewish. Perhaps that, unconsciously, contributed towards my choice of silence.”
While fighting with the French resistance, Marcel ran into a unit of German soldiers. Thinking fast, he mimicked the advance of a large French force, and the German soldiers retreated.
Much of the above was confirmed by Marceau himself in his acceptance speech when he was awarded the Raoul Wallenberg Medal for humanitarianism in 2001.
I will speak only briefly about my own deeds. It is true that I saved children, bringing them to the border in Switzerland. I forged identity cards with my brother when it was very dangerous because you could be arrested if you were in the underground. I also forged papers, not to save only Jews, and children, but to save Gentiles and Jews, especially Gentiles because there was a law in Vichy-occupied France — to send the young French men, who were eighteen, nineteen years old, to factories in Germany to work for the German Army. And then I had an idea to bribe the officials, and make people look much younger in their photos. I was born in Strasbourg on the Rhine and when the war was declared in September 1939 all Strasbourg had to be emptied by the French government to save the people because we were on the border between Germany and France. Then we were sent to Perigord in the south of France. I was sixteen years old.
As the speech went on, Marceau also paid homage to his father Charles, a kosher butcher in Strasbourg who was deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz (never to return), and his cousin Georges Loinger, a Resistance fighter who would later confirm some of Marceau’s wartime exploits. When Marceau died in 2007, Loinger’s remembrances were quoted in an obituary published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:
When the French Jewish Resistance decided in 1944 to evacuate Jewish children hidden in an orphanage west of Paris, Resistance commander George Loinger called on Marcel Mangel.
Mangel, Loinger’s younger cousin, helped sneak the kids out of the Parisian suburb of Sevres to Annemasse, on the Swiss border.
The episode represented one of Mangel’s finest hours, but it was not what would make him world famous. After the war, Mangel changed his name to Marcel Marceau — after a general in Napolean’s army who hailed from the Alsace region — and became a world-renowned mime artist.
Marceau died in Paris on Saturday at the age of 84.
“The kids loved Marcel and felt safe with him,” said Loinger, now 97. “He had already begun doing performances in the orphanage, where he had met a mime instructor earlier on. The kids had to appear like they were simply going on vacation to a home near the Swiss border, and Marcel really put them at ease.”
The anecdote about Marceau persuading a unit of German soldiers to surrender by “miming” the imminent arrival of French forces appears to have been mythologized a bit in the telling. For instance, Loinger didn’t mention Marceau’s using pantomime to subdue the Germans in his 2007 account of the incident:
“He and several other French soldiers were in the field in Germany, though I don’t remember where,” when a group of 30 German soldiers led by an officer surrendered to him,” Loinger recalls. “He brought them all back to his base as prisoners. Marcel always said that was his greatest exploit as a soldier.”
Marceau’s own version of the story (as related to American historian Timothy Ryback in 1997) confirms that role-playing was integral to the event, but it does not imply that Marceau played a non-speaking part in that instance:
He claimed he had learned the power of illusion on a sun drenched afternoon toward the end of World War II while fighting with the French Resistance. He and a companion had entered a clearing and suddenly found themselves face-to-face with a unit of German soldiers. Startled, Marceau acted as if he was the advance guard of a larger French force and demanded the German surrender.
As Marcel related the incident, he suddenly sprang to his feet and struck a predatory pose. The night air filled with menace and, an instant later, triumph. Though it was well past midnight, I still see the helmets of the surrendering Germans glinting in that sunlight meadow.
Marceau confirmed that his first public performance as a mime was on a stage in front of 3,000 U.S. troops in Frankfurt, Germany after the war’s end. “I played for the G.I.s and two days later I had my first review in the Stars and Stripes,” he said in his Wallenberg Medal acceptance speech.
Observers sometimes remarked that part of the great mime’s allure was a deep sadness that lurked at the heart of his performances. “You see the pain and the sadness in his mime skits,” Georges Loinger said after his cousin’s passing. “The origin of that pain was his father’s deportation.”
Fittingly, Marceau is honored as both a victim and a hero of the Holocaust, the event that more than any other shaped the course of his life.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/marcel-marceau-saved-children-nazis/