Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
I certainly could use more, but this isn’t my problem:
| Can’t get the sandman to stop by? Quit calling the guy. According to reports from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, talking on a cell phone before heading to bed can prevent a person from getting a good night’s sleep. |
The more I learn about cellphones, the less I like them. 😯
But I still like mine enough to keep it. 😳
We were in Mexico City 26 years ago.
These buses were needed then. I’m sure they’re even more needed now.
| Mexico City starts grope-free buses for women
Mexico City has started a women-only bus service to protect female passengers from groping and verbal abuse common on the city’s packed public transportation system. Millions of people cram into subway trains and buses in the Mexican capital, one of the world’s largest cities, and women have long complained of abuse from men taking advantage of overcrowding to sneak in an inappropriate grab. |
Believing the Web and email are both secure and private requires a willing suspension of disbelief.
So read this story and take a lesson for living:
| The Softer Side of Spyware from Sears, Kmart
Googins noted on his company’s blog that the spyware installed by Sears transmitted everything from banking logins, email, and all other forms of Internet usage to comScore for analysis all in the name of ‘community’ participation. This was done without notice, an act contrary to documentation about the community from Sears saying that any data collected would stay within Sears’ hands at all times. |
I’ve been trying to tell people that they shouldn’t assume privacy and security online. Not even in “private” and “personal” email.
But I think most of them think I’m being old-fashioned. Or hypersensitive. Or paranoid.
No. I’m. Not.
🙂
Now, say it with me…all together now…
Mark is not paranoid!
Thank you.
“Are you in treatment for any sort of addiction?”
(Follow-up questions encouraged.)
Doctors in rehab still practice
| Troubling cases in which doctors were accused of botching operations while undergoing treatment for drugs or alcohol have led to criticism of rehab programs that allow thousands of U.S. physicians to keep their addictions hidden from their patients.
Nearly all states have confidential rehab programs that let doctors continue practicing as long as they stick with the treatment regimen. Nationwide, as many as 8,000 doctors may be in such programs, by one estimate. |
I know that’s a MessNBC story, but still . . . .
Over the last two or three months, I’ve had reason to think about that.
And how easily we forget it. Or purposefully ignore it. Even when we know it. And maybe even believe it.
Oh the foolishness (stupidity, if you will) of planting something that will bring us a heart-breaking harvest later!
• contempt and scorn
• mockery and disrespect
• deceit and hypocrisy
• pride and cockiness
• ungodliness and impurity
• wrong example and unwise counsel
So stop and think and analyze and look to the future.
(Yes, this applies to you, believe it or not!)
Elsewhere you can find more I wrote on this subject: here and here.
Well, I ask you right now — do you want to harvest what you planted earlier today?
If not, maybe it’s too late. (Though it certainly isn’t too late to confess and abandon the wrong planting.)
And for sure it isn’t too late to start planting something better — something that you can look forward to harvesting.
For myself, my harvesting continues to this very day. Too much of it is quite wretched. (Yes, I’ve been in some kind of a downer of late.)
Now, having written all that, I urge you to hope! You reap what you sow works for the good harvests just as well as it does for the bad ones.
Anyway, eventually it dawned on me that this might make an interesting search term: you reap what you sow.
So I tried it and among the top 10 (of 208,000) Web-search results are these:
| What You Do Comes Back To You
The words “What you do comes back to you” are an excellent paraphrase of the Biblical truth, “You reap what you sow.” You plant the seeds (sow), and then later you gather the resulting harvest (reap). The harvest that you reap depends on the kind of seeds you sow. If you sow corn, you will not reap olives. 1 Way Only–You Reap What You Sow …what you sow in life has a direct relationship to what you’ll receive in your life. In other words, your actions all have consequences. Good actions result in good consequences, and bad actions result in bad consequences. …But don’t ever be fooled into thinking that your actions don’t have consequences. Don’t think you can get away with bad choices even if you don’t seem to get caught. Remember verse seven tells us that God cannot be mocked. He sees it all. You reap what you sow. Another so-called exception to the rule is the belief that time alters the reap-and-sow principle. That is, if the penalty or reward for an act doesn’t come quickly, it isn’t coming at all, and hence the law of cause and effect is broken. |
And among the top 10 (of about 35) news-search results are:
| Frost Illustrated: Morality in Media leader offers explanation for mass killings
“There is a saying, ‘You reap what you sow,’ and the American people are reaping what the entertainment media have sowed and we have bought for more than forty years.” allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Govt Distributes 535 Ploughs to Farmers “Let us take heed of the saying ‘you reap what you sow’ and make use of the ploughs given to you today. Sow the seed that will give us a bumper harvest,” he said. Moultrie Observer – Rants and Raves for Dec 11 “If we are not careful, nobody will want to come here to coach. No true support, no participation, and we expect to win. After what happened to Coach Singletary, you reap what you sow boys! Football is not king anymore! Queen at best! |
And among the top 10 (of about 14,440) blog-search results are:
| Everyday Woman Radio Show with Vicki Hinze: Stealing Religion
But first it’ll be a long look into a harsh mirror in which nothing is hidden and all that is true is exposed. Then the thief will learn the penalty of his/her actions, and then s/he will suffer the utmost consequences. Because in the very symbols stolen are promises that remain intact: you reap what you sow. And from that, the thief cannot hide. I wonder. When the thief sows, feels the full weight of the consequences of his/her actions, how will s/he feel about stealing then? Because the truth is, the thief(s) might have stolen and damaged and destroyed that family’s property. But s/he did far more lasting damage to him/herself. The kind self-inflicted that requires far more than mere repayment to be satisfied. It requires forgiveness, and that requires divine grace. It is said that we reap what we sow. In fact, it could be argued that even the most fertile soil throughout the world is barren unless time and effort is expended to take seeds and have them properly planted, cultivated and nurtured. |
This week we’re having revival meetings at our home congregation. Our visiting preacher is my cousin AH from Georgia. His message last night was on individualism. Wow! What an excellent message! I’ve got to talk to my friend LM about getting it in MP3 format so I can post it online.
Anyway, about the meat of this post. In his devotional before the message, one of our local ministers (PT) read from and commented on Psalm 26.
These two verses spoke to my heart in particular:
“Judge me, O LORD; for I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the LORD; therefore I shall not slide” (1).
“For thy lovingkindness is before mine eyes: and I have walked in thy truth” (3).
That’s how I want to walk!
Well, that seemed like a good “Search of the Day” candidate, but I opted to use my computer Bible instead of Google.
Not many results. Here are two in the Outstanding to Me category:
“If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot hath hasted to deceit; Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity” (Job 31:5,6).
“And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.” (Isaiah 38:3).
I need to work on that. The talk part of Christianity is important; much more the walk part. If my faith in Jesus doesn’t direct my walk (that is, my life in every dimension), that faith is suspect. Like I said, I especially need to work on the walk part.
Thankfully, it’s not just me at work on me. God Himself is the Master Craftsman!
These days His work has me struggling in deep waters that seem to crash over my head and surge into my nose too often.
So these two songs presented by Voice of Praise in their Reunion release have made new connections with me:
• No, Not One
• Leaning on the Everlasting Arms
God is greatest and John the Baptist was His prophet!
There’s a lesson in this, right?
| A painting found in a pile of trash on a New York street sold at Sotheby’s auction house late Tuesday for a million dollars, nearly 20 years after it was stolen from a warehouse in Texas.
“Tres personajes” (“Three People”), a 1970 work by Rufino Tamayo, one of Mexico’s best known artists, was bagged for 1.049,000 dollars by a north American buyer who fought off a telephone bidder, the auction house said. It had been saved from the garbage by Elizabeth Gibson, who spotted the work while out walking one morning in 2003. |
Maybe even more than one.
The painting, even while in the trash, was valuable.
Value isn’t always recognized by people.
Somebody had to put forth effort to rescue the treasure from the trash.
Does this apply to me somehow?
Jesus rescued me from life’s trash heap.
My value to Jesus wasn’t diminished by the fact I was in the trash heap.
I need to learn to value people better (and more accurately).
I need to work with Jesus in the We Rescue Treasure from Trash business.