–Ephesians 5:21, New International Version

I think there are two ways we can look at this verse from Ephesians. One way to look at it would be to know that in order to be saved, it should be witnessed by our fellows in Christ. We should proclaim to one another that the Lord Jesus Christ, only son of our Father, is our personal Lord and Saviour. Another way to look at it would be that in submitting to one another, we are actually called to serve one another as Christ served those around him.

allaboutgod.com says the following about being saved: “Salvation is simply a process of confessing and believing. A man must confess that Jesus is Lord, which signifies his realization that Christ must have full rule over his life with all of His righteous requirements. This confession of Christ as Lord also assumes that it is Christ who will work and fulfill His own righteousness within man.” In confessing that Christ is our Lord and Saviour, we should confess to our fellow Christians. confess in public, confess to your husband or wife or family, or fellow members of your congregation. The Lamb of God will hear your words and welcome you home as you open the door of your heart to Him, just as I have.

I am most comfortable with this interpretation of Ephesians 5:21 as this is what speaks to me from this verse, but I feel that it also means that we should serve each other as Jesus has served us. Of course I’m not suggesting that we should go get ourselves nailed to a cross like Jesus did for us in order to have our sins washed away, but we should serve each other by bearing witness to the Lord to each other. By helping each other with the burdens that life gives us, be they household chores or by even simply providing a shoulder to lean on or a sympathetic ear. These are ways that we can serve each other. How you serve is up to you.

Go With God’s Grace And The Perfect Love Of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

–James 3:10-11, New International Version

 I receive daily bible verses thanks to my wife, who showed me the Heartlight website.  The verses always give me a chance to think, to pay attention to the Bible and reflect on the word of The Lord.  Today, The Lord asks us why we would speak both positively and negatively.

Many of us were raised with a golden rule of “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything.”  Well, I know I was raised with that at least, even if my parents didn’t follow it themselves.  And true to their example, I learned to to curse my enemies and gossip among my friends, even though The Lord would frown upon it.  I didn’t know any better.  The taught me to speak only kind words while speaking words that were often not kind to and about others.  Would they argue with me about this?  Probably.

“OH! We didn’t raise you like that!”  I can hear my mom saying.  “We never did that!  You’re wrong!”  Am I?  Even now in the wake of my Aunt’s death, she calls me to gossip about news from family on the west coast, about how my Aunt lied about her medical condition (likely to prevent people from worrying about her) and how my grandmother is sliding in to senility.  While it is nice to hear news of my childhood home, the way she presents it is as gossip.  I smiled and nodded polietly and silently prayed to The Lord that she’d change the subject.  Afterall, I have two wonderful children that as a grandmother herself, she doesn’t spend nearly enough time with.

Before Aug. 8th, though, I was not a person to observe the golden rule of speaking nice.  Yes, I do know that the real golden rule is treat others as you’d expect to be treated, but work with me here please.  I spent my life cursing people on the highway who forgot to use turn signals or mirrors.  I spent my life cursing politicians as they cursed at each other.  I cursed terrorists for the evil that they do.  I held them all in contempt because of what they did, when I should have been remembering what The Lord said:  “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”  Truely they do not.  They do not know that failing to use a turn signal or to check their mirrors could kill someone.  The politicians do not seem to care that they are wasting the time and money of their constituents as they stand at a podium denouncing wars or presidents or each other, even though they do not have the forethought to offer a peaceful solution that could benefit all.  And the terrorists are only interested in promoting their agenda through any means possible.

Can salt water and fresh water flow from the same spring?  No, my Lord, it cannot, but many of us humans force it to on a daily basis and we know not what we do.   However, my Lord, with your guidance and love, we can do much better.  We can learn through the example you left us in your holiest of books and live the way you intended us to.

 Go With Grace, With The Perfect Love Of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

I went to war in a dry and dusty land and was exposed to other people, other religions in a land where there seemed to be no God, or if there was, he was cast in a different light. I returned home to a wicked woman, a harlot who kept me from the light with soothing words and vicious abuse… and then I returned to a family that while they were happy that I would have chosen to become a priest, they themselves seemed to be without the Holy Spirit in their lives.

I wandered the darkness, and there I studied the ways of others. There I called out for Jesus to save me, but the grip of the darkness was too tight around my soul. I confirmed my love for Jesus, even though there was only loneliness in my heart. I didn’t know that even then, even when I was walking in the darkness that Jesus was walking with me, even carrying me. His plan was shrouded in his mystery, but His plan was to introduce me to a woman that would eventually lead me to Him.

I met my wife and married her, and together we faced the hardship that infertility brought us in our quest to complete our family. We saw a cadre of doctors who tried many different surgeries and medications, and through this insane journey, we arrived in the here & now with two wonderful children, my son and my daughter.

Recently, we started to attend Faith Church in Dyer, Indiana and there we’ve met wonderful people. We love it there as do our children. We’ve taken steps to become members and become more involved with the church, and in these steps, we find ourselves coming closer to our Lord. We look for ways to serve our Lord, but we also look for the Lord’s guidance in becoming closer as a family. My wife and I started our own “mini-church” by purchasing an NIV translation of the bible that includes devotionals for couples and talking points. Since starting that, we’ve read the bible every night of the week and it’s started to bring us closer together as we rediscover each other, and learn what the Lord’s plan is for us. It is something we wish we would have done years ago.

But as I said as I opened this post, Aug. 8th was the day that I was saved, the day I accepted the Lord back in to my life for the first time. The day I was born again. Though I’m still a sinner, Jesus loves me and forgives me, and there is nothing else I’d rather have. My Lord continues to carry me through these tough times as we deal with bills, unemployment and my son’s medical needs, but I am confident that the Lord shall provide for my family, for now and forever until the day he establishes his Kingdom on Earth.

Go with grace, with the perfect love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Throughout our years spent at Hogwarts following the story of Harry Potter, we also followed the story of Severus Snape.  Severus Snape the villain, Severus Snape the curmudgeon, Severus Snape the anti-hero.  We learned to hate Snape as Potter muddled through his first four years at Hogwarts, loathing how Snape treated our hero.  Snape and his Slytherin minions were always ready to stand in Potter’s way, right up until the 5th Year when we learned that Snape was actually helping the Order of The Phoenix in their mission to protect Potter from You Know Who.  Then there were the private lessons between Snape and Potter, and Potter’s eventual dive in to Snape’s past in his 6th year, where we really get to know Snape.

We learned of his attraction to Lily Potter, and his undying love for her.  She was the only bright point in his otherwise miserable life, and it brings us to what I’m seeing to be a fascinating parallel between the Harry Potter saga and Star Wars.

In the original trilogy of Star Wars, we are introduced to Luke Skywalker, who had to learn the ways of The Force in order to free Princess Leia and defeat the evil Darth Vader and his master, Emperor Palpatine.  This classic of science fiction fell in line with traditions set by many samurai movies and other classic science fiction, and it appears to be a similar model that J.K. Rowling used in writing Harry Potter’s story.  Harry lost his parent at a young age, and then he went to school to learn the magic that he would need to eventually defeat the evil Lord Voldemort.  Along his way he would quest, finding objects that would help him grow in power and knowledge while making new friends and enemies, all the while being enveloped in a rock star like fame given to him by the wizarding community.

Potter’s own personal Darth Vader was none other than Severus Snape, and while he wasn’t Potter’s father, he did love his mother.  Snape served (for a time), the evil Voldemort who himself was once a student of Hogwarts and sought power ultimate, just as Darth Sidious during the clone wars and the rebellion in Star Wars.

Unlike Vader, there was a question for the longest time of whose side was Snape really on.  We didn’t learn until later in the series why Snape hated Potter, and who Snape had once served or was serving.  As we marched in to The Deathly Hallows, Snape stood at the side of his dark master, and JKR gave us no indication of anything good inside Snape… not up until the last moments of Snape’s life.  Did Snape’s death vindicate him just has Vader’s death did?  It was hard to say, but I would almost guess yes.  The mysterious doe Patronus that guided Potter to the sword of Gryffindor was later revealed to be Snapes, created by the one happy memory he held on to:  Lily Potter.  So even as he stood at Voldy’s side, he still secretly fought him.

Severus Snape was a friend in the end, and I am sad that he died as he lived, shrouded in darkness.  Though there was no heroic redemption in death,  he did die a hero in my opinion and was honored as such by Harry Potter, who granted his name to one of his sons, Albus Severus Potter.  As JKR closed the epilogue, we learned that Potter made peace with his nemesis, just as Luke Skywalker made peace with his father.

Yeah, I know it’s been posted elsewhere, but I sure need some.

The Batman has really  surprised me as a cartoon.  For as long as I can remember, Bruce Timm has been the pagan god of the DC Animated Universe (DCAU), and Batman has looked a little like what you see to the left.  The Dark Knight was really a dark knight.   Dark, brooding and the best at what he did, Batman was not someone to mess with under Bruce Timm.  It was a departure from the Batman of the 60′s and 70′s, more fitting of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight.

“The Batman” on Kid’s WB is vastly different.  With music that is a homage to the 60′s Batman and a storyline that has him at the beginning of his vigilante career, The Batman was rather hard to watch in the first couple of seasons, but as time progress and new characters were introduced, “The Batman” seemed to start falling in line with some of the current issues of DC’s main Batman comics.  I was even surprised to see Black Mask in a recent episode, a villian who was a prominent player in the War Games cross-over series from a couple years back.  The recent season of The Batman has also included Nightwing and Oracle, which also caught my interest.

Now, if they’d introduce Hush as villain, this series will truly rock!

For a long time, I was a Catholic and almost became a priest until I saw the other side of the Catholic Church.  I saw the politics and even a few secrets, and because of that I walked away from the church, no longer able to side with an institution that does not value it’s parishoners.  Now, some of those secrets are coming to light.

 Earlier this week, Pope Benedict started a crusade to toss out the progress that was made with Vatican II by allowing for masses to again be said in Latin.  This (mandate) effectively alienated many members of the church and angred those that had enjoyed diplomatic fellowship with the church, such as the Jews.  It was a major step backwards in progress.

 Today, the Vatican announced with much percieved authority that the Catholic Church is the true church.  I qoute the following from the Associated Press:  “Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.”  So does that mean that anyone who is not a Catholic is pretty much going to Hell?

I’m expecting that the next thing we’ll see is the 2nd Inquisition.  Like I said, this is a major step backwards for the Church and its relations with just about every creature on this planet that has an established language and opposable thumbs.  The Pope claims he’s correcting mistakes made in Vatican II.  It looks to me like he’s trying to get rid of it all together. 

Vatican II was intended to modernize the Catholic Church, which had seen little change in it’s nearly 2000 year existance.  Even that modernization has been slow, leaving young families to depart the Catholic Church in favor of evangelical churches that feature more contemporary themes and music.  Becuase these churches are not Catholic, the Pope states that salvation cannot be found in these ‘false’ churches.

Remember folks, this is the same guy who thinks Harry Potter is evil, even though he has never picked up on of Rowling’s books.  He went off of what he was told, which leads me to wonder who’s actually running the church.  If you ask me, don’t look any further than the Society of Jesus.

God is everywhere, and in everything.  To everything there is a design as God as willed it.  We exist because it is God’s will that we exist.  How we pray, how we believe, God has allowed us free will so that we may pray and believe in our own, unique way.  Every person is granted that uniquness by God’s infinite wisdom, and we shall always find God’s wisdom in the Bible, Torah and Qouran.  It is to us, the faithful, to read, understand and believe.  It is to us the faithful to see our fellow Christian, Jew or Muslim as brothers and sisters under one God no matter the name.  It is not the authority of the Pope to tell us what to hold dear to our hearts and how to profess our faith.

So long as love is in our hearts, we shall feel God’s love for us.

Today is 7-7-07. Her mom is certain her baby is in heaven, at peace and finally at home in the Lord’s loving arms. She was a fighter to the end.

“Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars”

“Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We’ll rise above these earthly cares”

Here’s the part where I should have remembered that I have a “No Soliciting” sign on my screen door.

The technician then starts to pitch Comcast’s services to us because he noticed on his forms that we did not subscribe to their digital TV or phone service.  Now I wasn’t aware that techs also dabble in sales too, but my wife and I listened because that magical carrot bearing the phrase “save money” was dangled in front of us, and after about 30 minutes or so of talking to the ‘technician’, including his repeated assurances that their cable service had Boomerang and several other channels we currently enjoy through our dish provider, we decided to sign up.  He did offer the opportunity to discuss the offer, but we thought (silly us) to go ahead and do it.

So we filled out the forms and bid him good evening and sat down to look over the channel list.  We’d had Comcast Digital Cable when we first moved in to our house, but when we found out that we could get more for about the same price by switching to Dish Network, we ditched Comcast.  Well, we looked at their channel listings, and we came to discover that there was no Boomerang, and that half of the kids channels my kids like would go away in lieu of dozens of sports & Latin channels which we didn’t watch anyways.  We even went online to confirm this, and sure enough it was true…

…but we’d be saving money.

Well I got bummed because there were several shows I wouldn’t get to watch anymore, and I wouldn’t be able to introduce my son to the cartoons that I watched as a kid.  My wife (bless her heart) picked up on this, and added in that shows the kids watch now would go away.   She decided that she’d call Dish Network to see if maybe they could do something. 

To their credit, and to keep good customers, Dish Network set us up with a DVR and lowered our bill by $10.00 a month.  However, here’s the irony:  The day they were to come out, a box on the dish goes out.  Amy called Dish and they said there was no problem on their end and that it would cost us $60.00 for a tech to come fix it and that it would have to be scheduled for another day.  We also found out that our new DVR was going to cost us another $60.00 when we were originally quoted that we’d get it for free with the service as a means of thanking us for staying with them.

Amy was livid!  The cause of the problem was no fault of our own, and as it turned out, the box failed due to it outliving its expected lifespan.  She called and spoke with Dish Network management and explained everything.  She’s not sure what they did, but they didn’t charge us for the box, the installation or the repairs, and by the end of the day, our account had a $35.00 credit to it.

 So here’s the lesson:  If you have a no soliciting sign on your door, enforce it, and if you’re happy with what you have, keep it.  Getting talked in to something better isn’t always better in the long run.  Case in point:  WBBM Radio here in Chicago reported yesterday that the FCC was introducing new regulations regarding digital cable, requiring digital cable customers to own their cable boxes, and would allow for cable companies to be able to sell the box to the customer and still charge for the use of the box.  Upon hearing this I realized that ultimately we wouldn’t be saving a dime.

My wife and I looked at each other in shock and then I backtracked to the trailer again.  Sure enough, it was “Avenging Angel” the title of what looks like it’s going to be some kind of docu-drama on the history channel.  “Avenging Angle also happens to be the title of the second novel I’m writing in my “Alliance Chronicles” series.

Some time back, I did some research in to titles and copyrights.  Fortunately enough, titles are not subject to copyright laws (at least in the United States) and can be used by anyone.  Trademarks are a different story and fall under different laws.  “Avenging Angel” is a title only.  It’s not a trademark like Star Trek or Star Wars.  “Avenging Angel” doesn’t invoke thoughts of the USS Enterprise, Capt. Kirk, Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader.  “Avenging Angel” also happens to be the title of a mid 1980’s movie and the title of at least one romance novel.

So someone else has used the title.  That doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon the title to my next book.  Hell, if the TV show is popular, it may even spark some interest in my book, which has nothing to do with cowboys or gunslingers…

Well, not entirely.  I guess there are some gunslingers and cowboy types in the Migichinan Universe.

 Anyroads, stay frosty!