Lamentations

Lamentations

Religion preaches a God who will get you, punish you and torcher you, should you fail to do “thus and so”. This is spirituality “plus”. Spirituality alone is the individually directed and intentional bending of our will in the search for the will of God. Religion and spirituality are both set before us in the poetry of the Old Testament book of Lamentations. What shall it be, religious spirituality or naked spirituality?

The spirituality of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had quickly become a religion. Prophets came and went warning the people that their God assumptions would not pass the test of time. The people had taken the supposed blessings of their God for granted. Their world came crashing down in 586 B.C. with the onslaught of their enemy, the Babylonians. The devastation was horrific. You can read all about it in Lamentations. What are we to make of all this?

Does God rain hell down upon his creation with divine judgment as Lamentations bluntly tells us? Did the people somehow deserved what they were getting because of their inattention to the does and don'ts?  

Some of us believe differently, ours hells on earth are a part of God's created order and we take our chances. King Soloman or whoever wrote the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes agrees saying that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. This way of thinking about violence better reflects the dangerous world in which we live. Ringo (John Wayne) in the 1939 movie “Stagecoach” shares his old west life philosophy. It is radically simple, “things happen”.  

God is not a bully, God is a safe space in a storm. Believe what you will. 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

 

 

Object

The morning star is back. Twinkling like no other about 30 degrees above the horizon but now it is directly over Goat Mountain. All the other stars have long lost their shine. Finally, it disappears as the morning sun rises. We have had weeks of clouds and rain so that I have lost track of the morning spectacle. This object, whatever it may be, just sits there in the same spot.

Again, there seems to be colored blips that defy the normal star array. Are my eyes deceiving me or what?

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.       

No 60

What do you know, the U. S. Senate is voting again. With the filibuster rule in place, both the Democrat 3 year extension to Obamacare and the Republican fix failed to pass, 51 - 48. Therefore the Senate cannot fix this mess that they inflicted on the American people. Even if the four Republican Senators who jumped ship, suddenly became real Americans, the mess will remain a mess. The Democrats will not get their 3 year extension and the Republicans will not get their fix. 

To hell with the filibuster Senators, the rules have changed. Let’s take another vote without the Senate self-imposed filibuster gentlemen’s agreement. Our country is at war with the radical left masquerading as Democrats. Your silly filibuster rule is like going into battle without a gun. As Senator Johnson wisely said today, America is at war!

Problem solved.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.  

  

Brave

Why do I get stuck with calling out Washington Tom foolery? Where are the Fox News and NewsMax interrogators? Such is my life. Senator Kennedy, you are hiding again. Instead of telling us the dirty laundry of the Senate, you deflect, more than likely to sell a book or protect the deep state.

Senator, you rightly tell us that the Republicans in the Senate can pass a healthcare fix by reconciliation, requiring only a simple majority vote. An enquiring mind would ask you a second question. Senator Kennedy, if this fix is so easy, why hasn’t the Senate Republicans already passed a healthcare fix?

There’s the rub. There are not 51 Senate Republicans who will vote for a healthcare fix, any fix, regardless of the pain inflicted on the people. Is this not dirty laundry? Apparently, some Republican Senators have gotten or have always been as crazy as the Democrats. Could it be simply Trump hate? If so, these few Republican Senators are as blind as a bat.

Every healthcare fix will be messy. No matter what alternatives are chosen or not chosen, there will be fallout, some voters will be angry.  The question is, who is going to fall on their swords to get it done anyway. The traditional Senate dirty laundry is backroom deals and kicking the can further down the road.  This time, another payday to the fat insurance companies will be the end of America. Are there no brave souls in Washington?

The brave take a stand and then make an argument to the people back home. The principle or the cause is worth a good fight and it is bigger than any political career. The brave live out every day, God, family and country.

Even when it hurts.

G' Goslaw

Landers Ca. 

   

Bang, Bang

We have a President as never before. It is a joy to watch President Trump and crew operate to reverse the damage done to the people of America by the crazy Democrats. If you are still a Democrat supporter and voter, you are the useful idiots of the Lefties. You can shoot us but you cannot defeat us!

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Dud

 

3I/ Atlas is a disappointment, just a wondering rock, Bye Bye for now.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Best

Best (at least for now)

Bible Book: Ecclesiastes.

Bible Verse: Luke 15. 24 (lost & found).

Book: “Honest to God”, Robinson.

Theologian: Paul Tillich.

Philosopher: Charles Hartshorne.

Spirituality: Quaker (Religious Society of Friends).

Hymn: "Great is Thy Faithfulness", Thomas Chisholm.

Secular Song: "The Impossible Dream", (Sinatra), Mitch Leigh & Joe Darian.

Movies: "Friendly Persuasion", (1956: Gary Cooper); "The Searchers", (1956: John Wayne), "The Outlaw Josey Wales", (1976: Clint Eastwood). 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Sameness

All of us have our intellectual systems. Every system is as special as each of us is special and every system has the need to express itself.  If your system has gotten to the point of writing a book to gather like thinkers, you are already dead. Life is over because life is about a conversation. Life is all about a live give and take in your moment.

People who have it all figured out are stupid. They assume that if everyone had their intellectual abilities, if everyone read the correct books and attended the correct schools, etc., etc., then we would surely agree about everything. 

Forget it, sameness has never and will never happen, sameness is dull and stultifying. Sameness is another word for being dead for it is in our shared experience that we come closest to what is true and noble. 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.   

 

Sue Me!

Give me a break! An Afghan shooter who has killed for money on orders from our CIA for half his life, suddenly decides on his own to show up in Washington and kill our soldiers. No way. The Washington shooter was killing on orders from someone, in or out of government. FBI, follow the money if you can.

The killer was on orders from the left of the Democrat party in order to embarrass our president. Can this be proven? Probably not but don’t tell us we are not at war. Does this not obviously fit the pattern of revolution? The dying has only begun!

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Thanksgiving

Let us be thankful this Thanksgiving for the gift of laughter. We were born to laugh. Laughter from the belly not just at the funnies but most of all in the midst of adversity. Some of us can at last give thanks to the giver of that certain life confidence, win or lose.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Washington

Washington is at a crossroads. The Republican Big Beautiful Bill legislation is not enough to keep the folk back home engaged for the midterm elections next year. The Republicans must have an even bigger legislative year in 2026. Accomplished Republican Americans with pure motives for politics will not remain at their posts with a do nothing Congress. They will go home.

Winning in Washington is now the only way to keep our Constitutional Republic. It is 4^th and one at the goal line with 10 seconds on the clock. A touchdown wins the game. Republicans, it is time for the Philly push and a big win. They know what’s coming but the team can push our quarterback, President Donald Trump over the goal line. 

Republican Senate, you get no more excuses for playing it safe. It is win or go home time. America is for risk taking winners. John Thune, how do you want to be remembered by your grand children, as a winner or loser? 

Please Senators, do make 2026 a really big year in Washington. No longer will they then say, Washington is for the comfortable losers.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

   

 

Dirty Pill

"Barth was the first theologian to begin the criticism of religion, and that remains his really great merit; but he put in its place a positivist doctrine of revelation which says, in effect, ‘Like it or lump it’: virgin birth, Trinity,, or anything else; each is an equally significant and necessary part of the whole, which must simply be swallowed as a whole or not at all. That isn’t biblical."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Letters and Papers from Prison", p. 286.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Gravestone

Such is Life, there are winners and losers. Most of us just have to keep trying for it is useless to reason why.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Plan

Wait one minute, like always, President Donald Trump has a plan! 

Maybe it’s a New Years plan. Landers is a long way from Washington but shall we guess? The Trump plan could be to combine the $2000 checks to low income citizens with the long standing Republican election reforms that have been repeatedly trashed by the Democrats. Could any politically sensitive lawmaker of either party oppose this legislation and still survive? This could get interesting.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.    

Home

One can always go home, no matter what. It will not be perfect, it never was, but it will be home.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Wonder

Some of us wonder, at what speed would 3I/Atlas have to be making to be captured into an orbit around our sun as another planet? Is it all about speed?

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Helpless

God is on the side of the helpless. If there be God justice in eternity as some of us believe, the party will celebrate the earthly helpless.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Absolutes

What does it mean to be moral? How do we know if a particular action is right or wrong? If you think you know and you have your absolutes, you are a fool. If you knew that by killing one person, millions of lives would be saved, would you do the deed? That was the question that drove German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer to participate in a plot to try to kill Adolf Hitler. Was this action moral?  

Bonhoeffer had a neat ethical system and then he had to live it. Any logical absolutist system will be crushed in the troubled waters of life. Dietrich escaped Germany with his family as the failed plot was being investigated but the justly moral Dietrich made another decision. Returning to his German homeland alone, he was imprisoned and then hanged until dead in the closing days of WWII.

Was this action moral or false guilt? 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.    

Other?

Sean Duffy was questioned by Finnety on Newsmax about 31/Atlas. Mr. Duffy our Transportation Secretary, has oversight authority to include the National Space Agency. Mr. Duffy said all the right things but some of us detected a lack of confidence. Was the shutdown responsible for NASA’s lack of transparency? Why no NASA pictures? We all will find out very soon, natural or something other.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.   

I. D.

They are trotting everybody out these days. You know, the old Republican establishment guard and the likes of Newt Gingrich. The hero of Republican conservatism of 30 years ago has tried to stay politically relevant by running for the Presidency (2012) and writing books about or in support of President Donald Trump. Only to a point however, if he had a vote, which he does not, Newt says, no go on the proposal that the Republican majority of the U. S. Senators discard the 60 vote filibuster rule (60 out of 100).

Mr. Speaker, have you not heard? The old Republican traditional politics is dead, almost as dead as you and I, Mr. Speaker.  Maybe, we should both sit in our rockers and shut up. You can’t and I can’t so let’s have a tussle to the finish line. You have all the credentials, a Doctorate in history, a College professor, a political career in the U. S. House of Representatives and the House Speakership. The tussle would seem to be a mismatch. Not so says this BoBo.

Let’s start from the beginning. Newt, please answer one question. Who first broke the U. S. Senate “gentlemen’s filibuster agreement”? The rule of the Senate is intended to ensue that either party will not make unilateral radical changes to the political status quo based upon a thin majority. This is the spirit of our politics. 

Neither party has broken the agreement you answer. Wrong again. President Biden ungentlemanly broke the spirit of the 60 vote rule when he opened the gates of American to upwards of 25 million potential Democrat voters who would vote Democrat by hook or by crook. The Senate after the 2020 election was split, 50 Democrats to 50 Republicans, Vice President Kamala Harris gave the swing vote to Biden for his disastrous immigration policy. There was no across the ale respect given to Republicans, no considering of half way measures, zero respect was given and all our niceties have been trashed.

This was not an official Senate vote but this one sided decision landed with just as much force upon the other half of the American people, the consequences in lives lost are immeasurable. What do you say Newt? This BoBo really doesn’t know how a reasoned opposing argument can be made. They (the vast majority of radical left Democrats) are not playing nice and we are monumental saps if we remain stuck with our heads in the sand.  

Pass voter I.D. or our Republic is finished.

G. Goslaw

Landers, CA.  

 

 

 

Christmas

Republicans this is no time to relax. The Democrats didn’t cave, only eight democrats caved in the Senate. The vast majority of radical left democrats will never be persuaded to become moderates.  Our American politics needs a one two punch combination, the first punch has landed, now for the knockout punch.

Congress should put up a simple bill requiring citizenship I. D. for all voters in federal elections. Even the Democrat moderates in the House, if there are any, need a check on the radicalism in their own party. Pass it in the House, send it to the Senate now.

If passage is blocked by the filibuster rule, dispense with the filibuster agreement and save America for Americans.

This could be the best Christmas ever!

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.     

 

Flyby?

Slow down 31/Atlas, hit the speed brake, 150,000 mph is a bit to much. If you are something other than a wandering ice rock, slow down. 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Vote

Let’s take a vote! Senate Majority Leader John Thune, let’s take a vote. That is why you are there in our big beautiful city, is it not? Do your job. Don’t give us that subterfuge about not having enough votes. The folks back home want to know how each Senator is thinking or not thinking. 

No one says that there can be only one vote, let’s keep voting as long as the Democrats keep our government shutdown. Let’s take a vote on the supposed wisdom of that Senate “filibuster gentlemen’s agreement”. Let’s take a vote!

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Simple

Senator Kennedy, you are not being honest. What no cute quips today? What is it going to take for you to be cornered into a come to Jesus moment?  The truth is before all of us. If the Republican senators’ continue to play dumb and lose this shutdown battle, our America is dead. Are you afraid of a bullet from the new Democrat party? To be concerned is appropriate but Kennedy being afraid is cowardly.   

President Trump makes a good argument for busting the filibuster but you somehow know better? This isn't your daddy's America. You didn’t give us your argument because you don’t have one and may just be taking orders instead of thinking. At least you had enough courage to put a face to your ignorance, as un-American as it is. America is at war at home, it is that simple, it is them or us.

Please tell Suzy Collins to come out of hiding.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Goat

Some of us remember when Republican politico Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa was elected in 2015 to the U. S. Senate. Mrs. Ernst was touted as a fighter for everyday Americans and a conservative force to be reckoned with in Washington. Instead, she disappeared for 6 years, maybe she was looking for a hairdresser that could do a proper fix.

Where did she go? Joni got in bed with the Rino deep state to do their bidding. Only in the last few years has she become visibly political, why? Maybe, the anti-Trump Rinos are running out of talking heads. President Trump has beaten the Rinos senseless. President Trump has us on the verge of a booming future for all Americas. President Trump is working his ass off for your America and each of us.  

Senator Ernst, do the honorable thing and join the growing chorus of Republican senators who have spoken out saying that now is the time to discard the Senate filibuster. Now is the time to pass critical across the board legislation. You, Senator Ernest will be retiring soon, don’t go away as one of the goats who hid when their country needed their heroism.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Objects

Update: November 6 @ 5 AM

Object #1 is over 29 Palms but only 10 degrees above the horizon. Object #2 is over Goat Mountain, pulsating like no other star, 40 degrees above the horizon????

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Pioneer

“God is the beyond in the midst of life.  The church stands, not at the boundaries where human powers give out, but in the middle of the village. How this religionless Christianity looks, what form it takes, is something I’m thinking about a great deal, and I shall be writing to you again about it soon.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Letters and Papers from Prison, Touchstone Edition, 1997. P. 282.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Niceties

One might assume from the election results last night that Republican Senators playing nice doesn’t work in certain places. Obama played the shutdown strategy quite well, infuriating the small thinking voters in New Jersey, Virginia and New York City to punish those supposedly hard hearted Republicans. Virginia has Washington government workers who are sitting home without pay. New Jersey insanely voted against its own self-interest, more big expensive government to further burden the homeowners. New York City is the ultimate American divide between the rich and the poor, hungry people living in the midst of wealth do not play nice.

Obama is playing hardball so, Republican Senators, are the niceties still on the table?

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca. 

 

 

Blessings

Grieving for all of us is a tough sled. Each of us handle it differently, there is no right way. Sooner or later, we who grieve move on to rejoicing in the certainty that the missing have joined that great eternal party. There comes a time to put away the tears and laugh again. Mrs. Kirk, some of us wish that for you and your aching heart. Blessings.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Update: 31/Atlas

They are here. Our petty human life and death squabbles are soon to become ancient history in their importance. I am a morning person who watches the morning night sky. In July a star appeared in the east, rising steadily over Goat Mountain, three hours later, as the morning glow begins to pierce the darkness, this star is 45 % above the horizon. All the normal array of stars have disappeared but this star keeps shining brightly, to finally disappear as the sun peeks over the horizon.

Now, in November this star rises to the south over 29 Palms. Is it a star or what? Another unusual star has appeared over Goat Mountain. This apparent star also keeps its shine until the sun rises above the horizon. This morning star, if my eyes do not deceive me, blinks red at times. What is going on in the heavens?

Could these two unusually appearing stars be planes, balloons, satellites or space stations? Or what? Could we be under surveillance from another world? Object 31/Atlas is getting stranger as it heads our way, soon to pass through our solar system in December. 31/Atlas has been a concern to astronomers because one day it has a tail but not every day. Now it also has a flashing blue light. The experts tell us that we will know, comet or other worldly explorers in the next few weeks.

Place your bets, the odds are about 50%!

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.   

 

 

 

Panentheism

The eastern sky is beautiful this morning as the sun came up. There are high cirrus clouds everywhere and one thin cumulus cloud rising from the horizon shaped like funnel or a staircase to the heavens. The temperatures must be right for there are jet trails everywhere, crisscrossing the heavens like checkerboard. One might ask, are we to take the beauty in this world solely as a natural occurrence or is there more going on here on earth?

I have been digging into what the philosophers have to say about our world. It is a slow dig because so much of what is said is couched in the language of the intellectual community. However, it is never too late for an old dog to learn new tricks, particularly when one’s days are so unencumbered. Pantheism says that Gods are all around us in this world. The historical church has almost equated pantheism with the devil or as evil. Traditional theism (God understanding), says that God is located above and beyond our earthly reality yet pulling strings in our world. To this observer, this is one of those bedtime stories.

Panentheism is the philosophical alternative to these two types of theisms. Notice the “en” that is added to pantheism. What I know of philosophy I have learned via the google search engine. Maybe if google had been around fifty years ago, I would have been a better student? Getting the terms down is a lot easier with the computer. Anyway, panentheism says there is a little bit of God in everything in our world and that God is also living, invisible, untouchable and largely silent in our midst.

Panentheism works for me, it gives credit where due for the beauty in this world and opens up our lives to the true friend who knows our troubles, shares our pain and is the giver of healing hope/joy.

What more could we ask of God?

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.   

  

White folk

If God is our protector, why have 50,000 Christians been slaughtered to death in Nigeria by Muslim terrorists? God as our protector is a lie. A major grey haired TV preacher touted this lie to his grey haired white congregation this Sunday. The Bible can be made to say whatever you want it to say. 

Meanwhile, the blood flows as the world's religious and political elites play dumb. President Trump is right once again. How many of our brothers have to die to get God’s attention? Or, does God only protect we, American, white folk? The jig is up. 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca,

 

Valued

The baseball Gods were with the Dodgers this post season. For some strange reason, the twists and turns of the game of baseball allowed them to win the World Series, congratulations you Dodgers. You were out played, out hit, out homered and except for a few games out pitched. Your defense was at times sloppy and at times miraculous but the tide always turned just enough.

Allow me to make an application. Our lives are like the game that is not a game. Life is for real. There are times when the mojo is working and times when everything seems to be a great disappointment. We have all been there, at these bad times, despite our sloppiness at life, if we listen for the voice of God and that gentle nudge that is bigger than all our disappointments, God will reassure us we have value to God in the game that is not a game. 

Travel on my friends.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.    

   

Birds

Every morning at first light I wander out to check out the owls roosting in the big Eucalyptus. The females are hiding high up and behind as much foliage as possible. On the rare occasion there is a male owl, they roost on the blower branches and look you straight in the eye as if to challenge, this world is mine.

One could easily assume I am making a value judgement between male and female but that is not the point. Among we humans there is room for adjustments considering personality and capabilities but the point is that we all have a roll to play in life and most all of us are naturally better equipped to stay in our natural, God given lane. Travel on you birds.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Power

Doing the right thing is so very hard to do. Have you not found it so? Washington knows so. Our politicians cannot avoid doing the wrong thing at the right time or the right thing at the wrong time. The easy stuff such as spending our tax money is a joy ride for these gutless wonders. Throwing money around is good back home. When the chips are down, however, when it really matters, they jump ship and go home for Halloween.

This time we are talking primarily about the “good o’ boys” of the Senate. The Peoples House, with the narrowest margins, has done their job and passed a clean temporary funding bill to keep the government running, a funding bill that was written by former President Biden.

So why have the Democrats of the Senate suddenly voted no on the Biden CR after voting yes 14 times previously? Why do the Democrats now want federal employees, including the war department, federal law enforcement and air traffic people, insanely working without pay? Why do the Democrats want federal benefits like snap and child care to cease? Why are the Democrats putting the lives and well-being of so many people at risk? The Democrats are now starving the very people that they count on as Democrat clientele.  

It is all about Washington power. Republican Senators, do you not know who you are dealing with? Politics is no longer a gentleman’s game. The world wars of the last century were nothing compared to our present fight from within, these are also deadly times. You and I cannot play nice with those who want to kill us. Playing nice with a gun to the back of your head is more crazy than the crazies who are pointing the gun.

Republican Senators, please join the all-out fight for America. The Democrat party, as presently constituted, will quickly trash the “filibuster rule” when and if they should win a majority in the future. Common sense would say, let’s be a real democracy now. Send the power grabbers home. Join the lead of President Trump who has laid it all on the line for America. To do otherwise will be recorded as the beginning of the end.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.   

  

Vote

Why can’t Kamala be honest about the four years she was Vice President? She can’t be honest because if she was honest she would have to answer the next question, if Biden was incompetent, who was running the country?

The answer to that question would trash for decades all democrats. The actual president was Barack Hussein Obama who is still fighting against the freedom of the people so that he can establish his reordering of America.

Some of us love our country as it has always been, a Constitutional Republic that has the voting people in control of their future. 

Obama go home to your taxpayer funded mansion, wherever that may be.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca. 

Common Sense

Even if one is absolutely sure that the gun is empty, one should never point the gun at another human being and pull the trigger. Gun safety 101, to do otherwise is crazy. If you are so sure the gun is empty, first put the gun in your own mouth and pull the trigger. Then you can safely go about your horseplay.

Is it to much to ask for religion and politics to live under the rule of common sense?  

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

 

Crazy

Democrats are flush (95%) with unaccomplished people.  At all levels of politics, beginning with Barack Hussein Obama, they and their unaccomplished cohorts are about taking a bigger and bigger chuck from the people’s coffers because they have never had to earn a living like the rest of us. They believe that there is no honorable career except living on the public dole. 

This is reason enough not to vote for any Democrat. Wake up you long time Democrat voters, you no long have a Party that is relevant with you or we the national rank and file.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Religion Lie

If you were truly spiritual, you would be just like us.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Readiness

Spirituality is quiet, patient, personal, and for the helpless. Is it any wonder that spirituality is a lesser traveled journey among the religious or the secular? 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Now

What is the Radical Democrat left up to with the government shutdown? It is as plain as the nose on every American face. Everything they do, every decision is about creating chaos in America. The chaos will happen in our streets at the end of this month when Snap food benefits are stopped because of the shutdown. The Snap people will riot like never before making our Federal resources powerless. Why would the Radical left Democrat politicians, who shut down the government with their votes in the Senate, starve their own supposed political base and cause such pain?

The left cares not for people, people are expendable, they value only power, no matter the cost in American lives. More than anything, the radical left wants to destroy our America, our Constitutional Republic. it is that simple.

The Republican Senate must use the nuclear option and their simple majority to reopen the government, now! Senate tradition be hanged.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Fundamentalism

Christian Fundamentalism proved to be one of those religious fads, here today and gone tomorrow.  Jerry Falwell would be disappointed. Charles Hartshorne, one of the founders of process thinking, published his book, "Omnipotence and other Theological Mistakes" in 1984 when the author was 89. Fundamentalism (he didn't use the word) was one of the glaring mistakes considered. According to the fundamentalist, the Bible is the ultimate authority for faith and life, every word supposedly being from the mouth of God. 

No thinking adult who knows the history of the Bible can defend such a claim. The Bible is full of truth but also full of contradictions, somebody has it wrong. There is no simplified version. The fundamentalist can only slander and despiritualize those who ask real questions of the Bible. In response Charles Hartshorne asks:  

“Is it desirable that religion should seem more and more an affair of the intellectually undistinguished or mediocre?”

Charles Hartshorne, “Omnipotence and other Theological Mistakes”. P. 44.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Why?

Thus as Fechner, Berdyaev, Tillich, and, probably independently, Whitehead held (and Berdyaev most neatly formulated), our existence from moment to moment “enriches the divine life”. And this is the ultimate meaning of our existence.

Charles Hartshorne, “Omnipotence and the other Theological Mistakes”, p. 27.

This works for me, I have found no better understanding as to why we are here, why is this world filled with multiplied dangers, why is life so unpredictable and random? Why does life and death look like the bouncing white ball of the roulette wheel? The only answer possible is that when we look up in spite of our circumstances, it pleases God, joy gushes from his or her belly and enriches the divine life. 

Some day, if the opportunity presents itself, I shall ask God, could you not have gotten your jollies another way?   

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

No Deal

You are leaving on a long vacation, who do you trust with the keys to the house? The United Nations? An international conglomerate? The United States doesn’t want troops on the ground, so who does Israel’s trust? Shall Gaza be divided again leaving the monsters a safe haven from which to kill again? It is time for the U.S. to get out of the deal making business in Gaza.

Give the whole mess to Israel, letting Israel do what is best for Israel!

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Fuss

Christian Universalism is as old as Christian Revivalism (Evangelicalism). Both understandings of the God plan of salvation have always been among us with the times dictating their relative popularity. The preaching of the Church of England Priest George Whitfield in the mid 1700’s began what has been named “the Great Awakening”.

In the Whitfield congregation was the Rev. John Murray who, after hearing about the universal God plan of salvation from James Riley, spoke up with questions and was summarily excommunicated from the church, the kingdom of God or whatever, who knows? Rev. John Murray went to America to share the greater atonement.

In America “The Great Awakening” already had a head of steam and Jonathan Edwards was preaching, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”.  The Rev. John Murray became an itinerant preacher on horseback in New England, spreading his Good News. The vastly different gospels were gathered from the same Bible* but one God plan was more marketable considering the times.

The times were hard for most of the people around the known world of circa. 1750. The ruling classes were busy feathering their nests but the vast majority of peoples were living on the edge of survival. Soon France would erupt into open revolt and the guillotine before the end of the century. All the while, the established clergy, of whatever flavor, took their cues from the ruling moneyed folk.

George Whitfield, John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards all blamed the people for their own lack of upward mobility and excusing God for the hard times. Desperate people will buy into anything that offers a suave for their future. It is ironic that the God suave was already in place for “the whatever” of life. Why all the fuss?

* “The Universalist’s Book of References”, Rev. E. E. Guild, 6^th Edition reprint, Boston Publishing House, 1853.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.      

 

Soft Targets

The British-American Christian revival movement of the last 250 years will pass away in the next 250 years. There is a God cycle in politics and religion, a 500 year cycle of rising and falling. Over time revivalism becomes trite or common, turning off more people to spirituality than it entraps in the corral of acceptable thinking. Just as the socialist will eventually run out of other people’s money, the revivalist will eventually run out of soft targets.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Spiritual Truth

This morning I was awakened by a tune banging around in my head. Do not fear, it is not contagious. Getting personal is not my style but please grant me this one exception. I promise that I will not burden you with repeating what has become for me personal, lifelong unfolding truth. Every tidbit of truth that God has given me can be summed up in the words of this old Christian Hymn (circa 1880) by Clara M. Scott, “Open My Eyes that I May See”.

The words are most important but it was the tune that was banging around in my head. Why a tune? Why this tune? Who knows? Maybe, I should look it up the words? The lyric is as follows.

Open my eyes that I may see

Glimpses of truth thou hast for me;

Place in my hands the wonderful key

That shall unclasp and set me free.

Second verse:

Open my ears, that I may hear

Voices of truth Thou sendest clear;

And while the wave-notes fall on my ear,

Everything false will disappear.

Third verse:

Open my mouth, and let it bear

Gladly the warm truth ev’rywhere.

Open my heart and let me prepare

Love with Thy children thus to share.

Each verse is followed by the refrain:

Silently now I wait for Thee

Ready, my God, Thy will to see;

Open my (eyes, ears and heart) –illumine me,

Spirit divine!

These words mean to me the following:

Truth is always unfolding, always personal and never static. Every given understanding is only a now deposit on the full truth that is not a part of our earthly future. Our now will ever be influenced by our history, personal circumstances and corporate culture. Religion wants to define your truth.

God is a respecter of all persons and our now truth but wants us all to never stop moving. Never shall we stop being personally led by new revelation brought to us through the Spirit of God in whatever context. Freedom resulting from the truth search in our now, it is the ultimate good to be experienced in this life, experienced over and over as we journey on. 

After all, what is truth? Truth is mine to discover. My truth is not necessarily your truth and my truth places no disrespect upon your personal truth search. We are in this life together and the truth search is much like an Easter Egg Hunt on the White House lawn. Finding one egg, as Clint Eastwood once said, “makes my day!” Tomorrow there will be another hunt, God willing.

Journey on.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Legacy

Godliness is a two headed coin. Heads is goodness and tails is freedom. Goodness alone represents God as a haughty self-righteous spirit and freedom alone is only license. Godliness is goodness/freedom that enables respectful dialogue among us all. Goodness alone builds walls between people. Maybe, the balance that Charlie Kirk brought to us should be a model going forward?

Mr. Kirk and I would not have agreed on everything, particularly the role of religion in our lives but I respected the man from afar. Charlie appeared to have a rare style; he was first a listener and then he would make a respectful faith based response without putting anybody down. Thinking out loud like that is a rare talent in colleges or our religious circles but Charlie seemed to love it. Most of America considers Charlie a friend who will be greatly missed. We extend our condolences to the family.    

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Missing?

If God can dump what some call wisdom on this 70 year old, foul, ignorant, stubborn and deluded human, all of us are potentially gifted with spiritual ears. It would seem that this is the way God impacts our world (google Jacob Boehme), one set of ears at a time. Such a slow God plan has to have a slow impact in terms of actual numbers. So many of us, for one reason or another, missed or are now missing the bus. Does God not care for those of us without a ticket?

If one claims to believe in God, a caring God, a God of order, a God with a plan, one has to believe in the unlimited seating of eternity. To believe otherwise, is to be less than a God believer. That one is only a cold religion believer.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Adult Theology

The Christian philosophers are stuck. They shall remain stuck as long as their God motive is goodness, where is it, what is it? The good God is a misnomer. We were told the minute we jumped out of the cradle, now, be good little boys and girls. Goodness to some means obedience. We have shaped our God, our theology and our philosophy to fit our human reality. Is God humanlike? Shall we define God with trite human life patterns?

The Godless philosophers tell us there is no God and ours is a completely natural world governed only by mathematics. Maybe, maybe not. Following their advice means we live only for the moment. Suppose there is another alternative? Suppose our God definition is slightly off kilter. God’s motive for our created order has to be something other or something bigger than just goodness. Goodness is always crushed in our world.

Maybe, God has created a world that teaches us about what God most clearly respects, freedom. The time has come for an adult theology, a masculine theology that is rooted in the competitive world we came from and not the Platonic bedtime stories that seemed appropriate 2500 years ago. God is freedom, total freedom, freedom is good. We are here in our now to experience freedom or the lack of freedom.

We learn best about God freedom when we don’t have it. Therefore, evil is a necessary evil in our world. We are slow learners, stubborn idiots who think that life is about gathering up all the available goodies, even when there are none to be had. We religious humans of every flavor tie up our Gods in neat humanlike packages where there is no God freedom. Grow up all "ye" God thinkers.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

justice

The uglier this your world may be, the grander the intensity of your eternity.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Dated

Could suffering be the God appointed, redemptive thing?

William Dembski, Christian Theology, p. 48. Quoted by William Hasker, The Triumph of God over Evil, 2008, p. 108.

“I frankly doubt that a static, dull, monotonously perfect world is what God had in mind in creating our world. The world that God originally had in mind is the world we in fact inhabit, a messy world filled with tragedy, comedy, romance, and adventure. There never was any other world.”

There is no other choice nor has there ever been another choice. There was no Garden of Eden. Suffering is normal. Therefore our world is good “as is”, suffering is the plan. Religion will tell you otherwise, they say that, somehow, suffering is always your fault. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. Religion is always dated.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

  

Heaven

What is heaven you ask? Heaven is the land of no regrets and no surprises. Heaven is the bucket list of every experience of every human that has ever seen the face of this our earth. Heaven is that much multiplied a trillion times. Put that on the internet, “oh ye of little faith”! Amen!

So why wait?  God delays the inevitable reality of heaven for us because you and I, every one of us, has an ever so small contribution (testimony) to make in our short time in this our world. Every contribution is a possible door to heavenly things to be experienced by others in this world. There is a method to God's madness. The goal is to change us, all of us, in this world and not to bring heaven to earth. Ours earth shall remain an "as is" world that fits the purposes of God. Tarry on my brother.  

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca. 

Rabbit Hole

Things were looking bleak. Almost all of my days seemed wasted and wondering, in and out, bobbing and weaving through life without a clear focus. The future was of little concern, tomorrow would take care of tomorrow. Well, not exactly, maybe that summary is a bit skewed or a gross oversimplification. True confession, maybe I was just scared. No maybe’s about it, I was scared but didn’t want anybody to know it, least of all me. Maybe, that is how most of us live our lives.

Then one day in 2012, at age 67, I bought a house. Focus had arrived. No longer was the world and my place in it an overwhelming concern. No longer was the weight of the world seemingly on my shoulders. There was only one concern, all by myself, it was me and my house against the world, nothing else mattered. Why then or why now? Why a house? Who knows? My wife Karen used to say in times like these, no one knows the answer but “the stars and their courses”. There is a reason for everything but some things will ever be a mystery.

Therein lies our frustration. Life is so unpredictable and confusing, so much so that the life that you and I have been given is simply gory. We are told by some voices that the where or when of our being deposited into this world matters little but our experience tells us that most times it matters a whole lot. The contradiction is grotesque. In some worlds there are no good choices.

Sooner or later we have to engage the facts of life, life is about dying. Choosing about how we should live is about choosing how we shall die. That big picture is the search for meaning that has always been and ever will be a life and death issue. We shall discover meaning in this life when we stare down the rabbit hole of death, regardless of our history, and then look upward. All the other stuff about living is mere window dressing.  

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca. 

 

Hallelujah

God allows gross evil in our world because God wants us to experience freedom. Perfect freedom not perfect goodness, is who God is. Knowing or experiencing freedom means that we have to experience, first, the lack of freedom, better called evil. Thus we have to experience wars, the Holocaust or the killing of Charlie Kirk. Evil is an unavoidable consequence resulting from a world that is lacking a freedom priority. Is the search for freedom an adequate justification for evil? 

One would think not. However, all earthly evil, when properly understood and experienced, gives us, at best, only a shallow dive into true freedom. In this world the race is on requiring a shallow racing dive that just skims the surface of freedom. We have only a few undetermined years to run our race. 

The deep dive into freedom and what we understand to be God, that Perfect Freedom, one day we shall all experience as the deep dive. 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

 

Hope

Hope is a bus ticket. Hope is God given permission to travel on. Hope is a window seat. Hope is protesting the pain. Hope is the trip home.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Losers

Believers of every flavor have at least one thing in common, "this world is not our home". We, all of us, the good, the bad and the ugly, including the sexually challenged, are born to be citizens of another better world.  

There are those Christian ideologues (useful idiots) who want to turn the assassination of Charlie Kirk into an evangelical revival meeting. All God believers do not look to such an atmosphere to be close to God. The crazed Godless are the displaced persons of this world, they are dangerous and the unprovoked enemy of all God believers, not just Christians. Christianity has historically and falsely claimed or assumed that the message of Jesus was the exclusive purview of their exclusive religion. Some of us believe that there is enough evil around in this world to engage all of us, regardless of one’s preferred religion or lack of religion.

As long as it is only a Christian fight, Christianity will always be on the defensive and probably the loser. And then we all lose.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Stand Up America

How should we, among the crowd of Charlie Kirk supporters, respond in the wake of his assassination? Our hearts and minds are full of anger and loathing for that crazy cowardly punk that did the deed. The dirt bag is subhuman. The radical left Democrat politicians are blaming the victim, Charlie, for his own death because he said some things that enraged the shooter. Charlie, you just wouldn’t shut up!

There is a righteous call from the governor of Utah for national unity. These are nice words in a perfect world but they are meaningless because they are divorced from our earthly reality. There has never been unity in America for we are a democracy, the majority rules. It will not happen in our world, now or any time in the future. Forget it, earthly unity is not the future God plan for our world. God must like a good scrap. God must be bigger than our scraps.

We were all put here in our world to live as if we were already home. That is the God plan, to share mercy with the unmerciful, to share forgiveness with the undeserving, to suffer the slings and arrows of the haughty, to run where the weak dare not go, to care for something or someone besides our own well-being. It is hard and against our nature but that is the God plan.

Most of us play the noncommittal waiting game, hiding in the bushes, avoiding having to declare one way or the other, nursing our fears and wants, not Charlie. Charlie stood up to say, our lives do not belong to us, life is a gift from God (Christ). The religious context in which we choose to express our faith is not the important decision. The important decision is to live fearlessly knowing we are destined for the better world, the better unified world. A world with an atmosphere of pure freedom for love is freedom.

Shall we also stand up? Yes or No, check the box?

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Community

If you had a twenty year old socially challenged son with a room full of guns and ammo and no interest in hunting animals, what would you think and do? Some of us don’t get it, these young monster assassins have waved the red flags for years, so how can the parents, family, relatives, friends and neighbors remained silent?

How can the passengers on a public transit train in North Carolina remain cowardly uninvolved when a killing happens in their midst and the victim is left alone bleeding and struggling for her life? One would think we are a nation of robots or demented scarred cats.

Maybe we have always been this way or maybe we, as a society, have lost our sense of interrelatedness or community. Maybe we should have cell phone burnings and start being human again.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

 

Offense

Some have taken offense to the term “useful idiot” in this blog. A useful idiot is not dumb. A useful idiot is one who has set beliefs and conclusions that are considered absolute. There is no need for discussion, in fact, discussion will likely push the useful idiot off the deep end. A useful idiot is desperate to see their truth to be your truth. A useful idiot is easily motivated or manipulated by applause.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Foul

So they say that the assassination attempt in Butler Pennsylvania was not a conspiracy of the many but one solo nut job. Really! The useful idiots are everywhere, in the pew and behind the pulpit. On orders from above, the security plan by the Secret Service on that day is deliberately sabotaged and a shooting perch is identified prior to the event. On the day of the event, all security at the perch is ordered elsewhere.

Months prior to the event, a useful idiot is identified, prepped and motivated to gain hero status among democrats by killing the president. The useful idiot is told of the perch and was assisted in planning the shoot by a solo shadowy perpetrator.

The Secret Service sniper team on the other warehouse roof had standing orders never to fire until a threat first fires. We all are allowed one murder. Prior to the assassin’s barrage of bullets, the sniper team had to have had the threat in sight for as soon as the threat fired, they took him out. You are a hero no more.

Why is this not an extreme likelihood? All the moving parts of a conspiracy are there, however, such a scenario would be very difficult to trace. We can be sure that the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah has a similar scenario. Or, the democrats just got tired of playing games and hired a professional assassin.

No wonder democrats are united and fearful of the radical communist left in their party, most are not useful idiots, they know that any perceived dissent will be extinguished. As a result of democratic cowardice, all democrats, the politicians and the regular voters, are as guilty of murder as the shooter. Democrats have earned a foul reputation that will be long remembered.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Emergency

It is time. The American people need our president to address the nation from the oval office. The Commies are coming from within and without. It is time to stop all imports from China. It is going to get messy no matter what actions we take or don’t take. This emergency requires America to pull out all the stops. 

We the people are behind our president, tell us, how are we to remain a free people? The cost is irrelevant, we all will be heroic Americans in our generation just as many heroic American generations have done for the last two hundred and fifty years.  God and Country forever.

G. Goslaw

Landers, CA.

 

Warning

Sean Hannity you are not that dumb. Me thinks you just want your guests to answer one question but every one of them avoids answering. Please explain that, can’t you find a guest who is willing to state the obvious? Why do Democrats insist on a crime ridden America? Why do they subject every large Democrat run city to rampant crime chaos regardless of the consequences?

Answer: chaos is right out of the Marxist playbook. Democrats are no longer American. The plan that they advance has worked around the world. First trash the legal system, have your partners in crime create total chaos, defend the criminal and thereby destroy the country. The helpless country, in this case America, can then be built back the communist way. Someone needs to speak up and state the obvious.

What do you say, Sean Hannity?

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

 

 

Ponder On

Luke 2: 19.  

KJV:  But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.

TNIV: But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

One might ask, what things? The surrounding stories would suggest the appearance of the angel Gabriel, shepherds, a company of singing heavenly hosts and a message locating the birth of the long expected birth of the Messiah-Savior. This is not Christmas time so let’s get real. Some or all of these stories may be true or they may not, that is not the point of their telling. The possibly exaggerated stories were told only to convince the listener, nothing else. They were not deceitful stories, they were stories told to add an exclamation point.

Was Mary pondering the stories or something else? If you or I were an unmarried pregnant teenager, what would we be pondering? If you or I were an unmarried pregnant teenager who had heard from somewhere that God was up to something in and through your child, what would we be pondering? If you or I were a newly wedded pregnant bride, with a doubting virgin husband, what would we be pondering? If you or I were a homeless couple taking shelter with the animals, what would we be pondering?

Maybe Mary was pondering over the question, "Is God really in the midst of my circumstances?" How can it be?  

Yes, Mary, your child will be speaking my things to your world, some will listen but most will not. By trusting in the midst of your questions and doubts, you have done your part.     

For us, take heart, we too are not alone in our questions. The only answer that matters is yes, I shall trust today and fight the fight of faith again tomorrow. 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

 

Tradition?

So, the television puppeteers are threatened. Could it be that this blog is making sense out of the Bible? They say, no Christian commentator has ever proposed such a conclusion based on Scripture. Therefore it is not Christian. Fair enough, some of us just say, “thank you for the compliment”.

In some quarters, love for the Bible is about the search for truth for living. The truth search is holy while all religions, including Christianity, block the search for the people. If there is disagreement be honest and make an argument. Religion hides behind tradition.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Freedom

“What we have here is a failure to communicate”.  Cool Hand Luke

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

sparrow

There are a few words in the Bible that we might consider to be Jesus words. You know, those Jesus words that some scholars tout to be historically authentic. The words that could have been spoken before all the interpreters of religion stacked the deck with additions. Jesus had a thing for sparrows, to him, the sparrow is the national bird of God’s world.  

Why did Jesus use the sparrow to teach us about God? Sparrows are everywhere, they are short lived, they are of little earthly value and they have no power. Every day, every hour could be their last, they are at risk of everything. They are totally fragile but as Jesus said, God cares for them! Despite all the evidence to the contrary, God cares for them. 

Jesus may also ask us, is it therefore lunacy to believe that God could also care for all of us, for you? Well, it is lunacy and it is not lunacy. Shall we ask the sparrow? .

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca. 

Freedom, Freedom

If there be a God, that God is to be experienced as freedom. Dictators are all about this world, even the dictators who use only the name God. They are ignorant of what it really means to live our days in the fresh air of freedom.

How do we know that God loves freedom? God loves freedom because all of us were dumped into this risky, dangerous world where the monsters are allowed to live among us. God wants us to learn of the other world by living in ours. Our world is a teaching tool, are you learning?

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Scandal

The scandal of particularity is a God scandal that looks human. It is a scandal for any human to say to this world of multiplied billions of humans that somehow, God has noticed me. Some would say such a claim is craziness and that may very well be. However, is such a claim only Tom foolery? Does or can God scandalously influence the particular individual?

Some say that God does so influence the individual, one on one, and that religion most times is at war with these same individuals. Religion and God are not always comingling because religion is about control and God is about freedom. Those who have been impacted by God do not talk about it, they just go on about their God directed business. They are not broadcasters, they are doers. They are not virtue signalers, they give virtue away.    

The ultimate scandalous question needs to be asked. Could God likeness be advanced among men through the life of an individual as seemingly undeserving as that of a bastard individual? You know, those of us who did not ask to be born at a particular time and place but born they were, born to live their lives in the midst of a very real social stigma and the resulting turmoil. Such a notion would even be a bigger scandal. Some of us believe that God did just that when he scandalously chose to influence Jesus.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

December

What are you 31/ATLAS? Are you an interstellar object on a parabolic orbit through multiplied solar systems to return again in thousands or millions of years? Better yet, are you an interstellar life probe from a distant solar system looking for others of us? We are about to find out in three months. Will our world be a stopping point or will the interstellar object merely wave to us from its orbit, 168 million miles from earth? Hold on to your hats.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Fun

The Bible as in every word is either, truth from the lips of God, or none of the words of the Bible are truth from the lips of God. We believers cannot have it both ways, picking, choosing and ignoring the words that are discomforting. The Bible has been passed to us as a hand me down from God but it is not true blue God. That supposed Bible is an idol, along with the other everyday idols of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Every writer of every book is a unique interpreter of God with unavoidable blind spots and expressed God clarity. All the words of the Bible have value but only as they are put into the context of their historical time, made relevant to our time and the 5000 year God narrative. All Scripture has value but not equal value, that is where you and I come in. The complicated can be fun.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca. 

What if?

Good morning Mr. Westman, welcome aboard. You are dead before your time and so are the children, do you feel any better? Looking up, Robin responds, well, no. 

Could it be that believing a mother’s lie can have eternal consequences? What say you? Dejected, Robin looks down and is silent. The prosecutor says, “God don’t make mistakes!” The Judge says, "Please go to the back of the bus".

Court of no appeal.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.  

 

Hope

There is absolutely nothing we can do or confront in this life that would warrant the taking of another life or the life that God has given to us. God will always have our backs in the midst of all of our suffering because hope is so much more than wishful thinking, hope is God given permission to journey on.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Sick

America is sick. We are a nation of hypochondriacs, obsessed and disengaged from living by an overwhelming concern for how we look and feel. Big Pharma and the cosmetics crapola are racking in the dough treating our wrinkles, pains and aliments.

Look around among us, what do you see? Those of us who are taking street drugs are sick. Those of us who buy supposed healthy gimmicks are sick. You folk are the reason some of us have to tolerate the druggy, gimmicky commercials. Go on, get your needed exercise by peddling a machine while sitting in the easy chair. Sickness is craziness.

Maybe, it’s a death wish. Maybe, it’s a cry for interpersonal attention. In any case, stop talking about your sicknesses and start looking in the mirror, get a life. Stop talking about your inabilities and start doing for the betterment of yourself and those around you. Better yet, get a backbone and live regardless of your age or supposed pain. 

Sorry, there are more important things in life than how you feel. No sympathy here. Knock on wood.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.