This is what he showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in his hand.
And the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” “A plumb line,” I replied. Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.
“This is a true saying, If any man desire the office of a Bishop, he desireth a worthy work. A Bishop therefore must be unreproveable, the husband of one wife, watching, temperate, modest, harborous, apt to teach, Not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre, but gentle, no fighter, not covetous.
“I believe in God, the father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.”
What is the beginning? Where is that end? Who seeks a question? How tell an answer. When middle is, “middle,” “now, middle,” is middle, now!
You would think that to love the Lord, God, our creator, would be inherent,… a, “given,” … just an understood fact of life! Who wouldn’t love the one who created everything? That’s easy! … Right? Ahh,…but many do not believe they were created. They do not believe that there is a being to express gratitude towards! They do not believe in God. They believe that randomness and luck are the primordial conditions which have initially catalyzed life!
If randomness and luck were the beginning, (the only, two ingredients which formed the zygote of all of which has ever been,) how is it not random and lucky that there is a God, who, himself, was created by that randomness and luck, thereafter, such God created order and predictability, … the world?
“I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.”
PSALMS 119:10
-Morning-
Sunday is church day.
I attended church service at the Ocala Farm Ministry this morning. It was a light congregation- smaller than it was a couple of years ago when I had attended. Chaplain Bob was so inviting! His smile was the light of the room!
Before the service began, I wrote about a recent experience. I wrote:
“The Scout goes by compass, both morally and navigationally and ventures only to glean the best of the whole. Mankind is dependent on The Scout. Information is The Holy Grail. Clarity is the Treasure! In our Scouts, our Rangers, the young men of the old, Mankind instills its faith.”
-Christopher Van Hassel
MSA
Non Nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed Nomini Tuo da gloriam
“In arrogance, there is great ruin and great instability. In idleness, there is loss and dire poverty, for idleness is the mother of famine.”
Book of Tobit 4:13
“Do not keep with you overnight the wages of those who have worked for you, but pay them at once. … Be on guard, son, in everything you do; be wise in all that you say, and discipline yourself in all your conduct. Do to no man or woman what you hate yourself.”
“And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.”
“… speaking of it in terms of a man’s Christian walk. He needs mature Christian men to mentor him He needs Christian brothers roughly the same age to walk with him through life. He needs younger men to mentor.”
“There is no time in nature. There is rhythm in nature, yes. There is motion in nature. But the clock as a measure of motion is a human artifact. The world, as it spins on its axis, doesn’t tick.”
Alan Watts, excerpt from seminar TIME AND THE FUTURE, July, 1967.
