Day 43

The lite of my days now in Landers is a big black cigar.  My doctors rag on me about this nasty habit but what do they know?  Their cautionary tale is worth the listening and I have limited my number of smokes a month but the habit continues to shine.  In the wheeling and dealing of life, another truism has proven to be just as creditable.  Haven’t you noticed, if you are old enough, it just seems that “the good die young”?  There are exceptions but life in this bewildering world just seems to work out that way. We old geezers know our place and our status.

My deceased wife Karen was just such a shining light in this world. She had enormous personal charisma to whom people gravitated because she saw and lived for the best interest of others.  I have come to understand that this quality is the goal of every truly spiritual person but I have been so slow to get the message.  This dunderhead never seemed to get beyond himself while she was with us and that is the great failing of my life.

 

We lived in a number of places and when we looked around she would comment on how this or that structure had potential, it was almost a joke between us but not really a joke.  The positive qualities she saw in the most uninhabitable situations and people were always only a matter of nurturing potential.  This quality made her an exceptional nursing manager, wife and mother to two wonderful children.  Karen missed it with me for I was stuck in my own self-interest but her faith in us lives on.

Somehow this world judged her rightly and she will be ever dearly missed.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca       

Day 42

There are three degrees of spirituality.  God centered spirituality, human centered spirituality, and there is religious spirituality. There are no hard boundaries, we are free to live with all three understandings or only one.  Depending on our life circumstances and choices, we are free to move from one to the other or to remain in place. The choice is ours and the most important first and most difficult choice is to own our own spiritual potential, becoming a spiritual being of some sort.

These three, however, are the only choices.  All three spiritual realities are lived out in our lives and the lives of all biblical characters. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were flawed people yielding their lives to God centered spirituality.  When this spirituality was written down on stone tablets a religion was born and placed the believer in a quandary, to live with eternity in view or to live according to other men, men who may or may not represent God centered spirituality.

Jesus was a 100% pure God centered spiritual crusader.  He understood the ins and outs of religious spirituality and he knew that this kind of spirituality will inevitably yield a self-righteous spirit that is anti-God.  He stood up to religious spirituality advocates every day of his three-year ministry.  They were like dogs snapping at his heels and finally put him on the cross.

I believe that this understanding of spirituality should be the first stop in searching for the context of every biblical passage.

G, Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Day 41

There was a time when the news was just the news, when all the events of the day were summarized for we the audience.  That honest media no longer exists because former President Obama has weaponized the broadcast and newspaper medias to dog his political opponents or cover up his failures.  No longer is all the news that is fit to print been presented to the American people, only Obama’s politically motivated redesign of America.  The broadcast and the newspaper medias have always been the daily voices in his choir and he is still waving the baton as the maestro in charge.  Surprised?

Where have you been the last 10 years?

 

Did O’bama not weaponize the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service to silence the Tea Party vision for America?

 

Did O’bama not weaponize the Environmental Protection Agency to attack and punish landed Americans to promote a green agenda.

Did O’bama not weaponize the Justice Department to criminalize and punish his political opposition and ignore the obvious criminality among his friends, including Hillary and her minions.  All of her partners in crime were given immunity from justice.  Why?

Did O’bama not weaponize the Federal Bureau of Investigation to illegally investigate Donald Trump, the winning 45^th President of these United States, beginning a year before his election and the two years since that great day.  This investigative harassment from a past president is a new American reality never before experienced by a Commander in Chief.  All past Presidents were real men who retired respecting the will of the voter.

Do not relax America, O’bama is designing his next coupe attempt!

G.Goslaw

Landers, CA

Day 40

According to a talking head on Fox News, there are conservatively 10 million illegal aliens in America.  This is an insanely low number that does not adequately describe our national insanity.  Thirty years ago, that was the number and with an estimated half million crossing our borders illegally each year, the number is at least 25 to 30 million.  This number is based on those who are caught, those who sneak in successfully would push the number, conservatively to 40 or 50 million.

 

Then there are those criminals who overstay their legal visas when they commit themselves to going home when they enter.  I have no numbers on these illegals but just guessing we could add conservatively another 5 to 10 million.  The scope of our real immigration insanity is at least around 50 to 60 million persons living and working illegally in America.  The current population of America is 325 million so 15 % to 18% of American residents are illegal. This is not a marginal issue, where will our populace be in another 10 years? 

Exactly what the plan of our politicians may be is open for debate. We know illegal immigration pleases the Democrats because they want new voters even though illegal immigrants are not supposed to vote, small detail. The question needs to be asked, why have the Republicans been suckered into insane immigration laws?  

May I suggest that the Republican power base is much too smart to be suckered.  They have deviously written or endorsed lame immigration policies and laws intended to promote illegal immigration while tricking the people into thinking our government is doing the will of the people.  Their goal has always been to depress wage growth for the hard working folk and it has worked for 30 years until Donald Trump disrupted their play book.  

At least the Democrats are honest brokers while the Republican power base can only be described as devious co-conspirators with the Democrats. 

G.Goslaw

Landers, CA

Day 39

In some circles the Bible is merely an answer book.  With great sincerity, these folks scour the pages of their bible to build a world view and a shield against the tribulations of life in this world.  For most of us this construction project is foundational and it begins in Sunday School but Sunday school is not necessarily an adult biblical education.  Supposed answers alone, whether from scripture or the pulpit, can be a religious group think that may limit our access to our God given spiritual potential.

The temptation is to claim answers in lieu of questions.  We all need answers to hang our lives on but asking questions of the Bible may be more valuable than seeking answers.  At least asking questions raises Bible reading beyond a mere disciplinary exercise, treadmills are so boring.  Prior generations to often read in this manner, moving quickly from one confirmation of already assumed truth to another confirmation passage.

 

Could it be that reading for answers is the reason Bible reading has become so unpopular?  Could it be that telling the folk biblical answers without exploring the alternatives makes the actual reading pointless?  According to the church, we dummy’s in the pew are not allowed or qualified to ask questions, the church says, why ask questions?  Did Jesus only learn a list of answers in Sunday School?

St. Luke 2 is the only account in the Bible of the Sunday School years of Jesus.  At age twelve, on the occasion of a festival trip to Jerusalem, Jesus goes missing from the family.  Verses 46 & 47 tell us that, “After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions.  Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.”

Conclusion, if we cannot handle the questions we cannot handle the truth.

G. Goslaw 

Landers, CA

  

Day 38

Hammer knows.  Loss is also a dog thing.




G.Goslaw
Landers, CA

Day 37

There is no greater friend than a dog.  What masquerades as friendship in the 21^st century cannot compare to the fidelity of the canine species.  Adult fidelity waxes and wanes as does the moon, no disrespect is intended toward any earthly relationship but we all know the truth.  Even parenting can be tricky, at times parenting seems to be the blind leading the blind yet the kids turn out to be responsible adults despite all our efforts. Then, there is Facebook, which has only an ancient linkage to any reputable definition of our understanding of friendship.

Baby Belle looked up at me with trusting and inquiring eyes, why the tears boss?  If she could understand my words I would scream an apology.  Your years on this earth have been shortened by my irresponsibility and I ache because of my failure.  

Please, friend, forgive me!

G.Goslaw

Landers, CA