May Everyone Have a Blessed Thanksgiving Today

No Christian Church Should Allow Non-Christian Worship under its Roof

I was gravely disappointed to learn that on November 14th, the National Cathedral allowed a Muslim only worship service to take place. This is blasphemy to Jesus and the cross. Since when do Muslim mosques allow us in to pray to Jesus? The Episcopal church should not become the namby pamby, stands for nothing version of Christianity, but it is in danger of becoming so. This Muslim service should not have happened.

Endless Middle Eastern Killing: Peter Kassig and Jerusalem Synagogue Victims

Only yesterday American Peter Kassig was executed by the world's ideological and religious bully/ brat pack, Islamic State. Now today four Israeli worshippers at a synogogue were killed by two Palestinians. Hamas has praised this barbaric and sacrilegious attack, even if the attackers were not members of Hamas.

Where does this leave the Middle East, and the Holy Land in particular? Jews want to drive Palestinians out of "their land" even by crushing Palestinian houses without compensation, making people homeless, and Palestinians rightly feel outrage. Both sides kill each other. But now IS just wants to kill everyone and has surpassed Hamas and Israel as dangers.

If IS seizes Turkey, which they are perilously close to doing, then they will be just a hair's breath from Europe, something the West cannot afford. Imagine IS in London or Berlin, only an ocean away from us. This is the real threat no one speaks of.

The US needs to put ground troops to stop IS. Our air strikes are simply not cutting it. The Middle East will always be a land of hatred and killing, but at least we can stop IS from coming into the West, and perhaps destroy them entirely.

On Simon Rattle Conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra

On Simon Rattle Conducting

Brahms’ Symphony no.4

Moving his hands as if culling the sounds from the air-- with care--

He coaxes the music with minimal shapes and delicate grace.

The slightest pulses of his hands to trace the much larger waves of music’s energy.

Pitch, dynamics, timbre; nuance and gradation; resolution—

As waves crash or ebb and flow, commensurately.

His right hand directs the melody, while the other imitates the tremulo of the strings,

With faintest tremors of fingers and flicking of wrist.

As a conductor, he conveys that less is more in this role,

a role so essential yet properly circumscribed,

as the real music is crafted not from him but from the musicians

as it pours forth from their instruments.

He intuits that he needs only to be a skillful beacon,

a lighthouse in the void of unfolding creation---

in the space and silence between the sounds that are made.

Monthly Stats by Country

This month my stats had an interesting international pattern: 91 views from the US, 31 from Poland, and one each from Belgium, China, France and Thailand. An interesting mix that I appreciate!

The Disgusting Mob Murder of a Christian Pakistani Couple

A Christian Pakistani couple were beaten savagely and then burnt to death by a mob over the unsubtstantiated rumor that they had torn up or thrown out a Koran. The wife was pregnant but that didn't stop the savage attack. First, I don't believe they desecrated the Koran, and secondly, I do not think anything warrants an attack like that. When someone desecrates the Bible, Christians don't do beatings and burnings.

My Wishes for American boy Scotty McMillan

What I wish is that the neighbors of Scotty McMillan had done something when they heard a small boy screaming and being tortured for three days--if so, he might be alive now. Now I hope the boy is with Jesus and feels so much joy that the pain he endured no longer matters.

My Church Experience

I once sang in a choir with a man whose voice was so beautiful that I always sang my best because the beauty of his voice drew me in and tranported me; I sang to this man as much as I sang to God, because I was experiencing God through him. My John, forever my John.

When I see the Vortex of Evil in the Everyday World Right Now

I think that perhaps it is not a good time to have a child here on earth after all.

Forgiveness

As Jesus and God the Father would want, I've decided to forgive those who lied so much to me this year and last year.