A Brave Little Flower & Reasons for Thanks

                         
      This past week I saw a Thanksgiving greeting from Joni Ericson Tada. As a teenager she became paralyzed from the neck down from a diving accident.  Today she has an international ministry helping encourage others that face physical challenges.  She said that she has recently been fighting a battle with breast cancer.  In this new battle she thanks the Lord that she has a new platform to build God's kingdom. Here I see a woman that fulfills the command "In everything give thanks."

      In this post I'm reprinting an article by Brother Norman.  It made me think of Corrie Ten Boom and the prisoners she knew in the German concentration camps that tried to remember all the good things they knew before their world was tipped upside down.  If this post in some small way helps you recognize God's blessings to us in the beautiful freedoms we know, it will fulfill my purpose in sharing it.

                         Occasions for Thanks by Norman Ward

     It is Thanksgiving week again, therefore I guess an article on the giving of thanks would be appropriate.  This shouldn't be hard to come up with seeing that everything we have, everything we are or everything we hope to be is a gift from God and thanks to Him are always in order.  This thought brings to mind the Scripture that exhorts us, not only for one special day, but for every day: "In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

     Strangely, it seems that in ordinary practice, often those who have the most for which to be thankful for are the greatest hands to just smugly take everything for granted, while those who seemingly have little to cheer and brighten their life have a more pronounced "habit" of thankfulness.  As a noted preacher from way back in the 1500's once observed, "The greater God's gifts and works, the less they are regarded."

     By way of illustration of this "phenomenon," hear what Viktor Frankl, survivor of the infamous Nazi death camp known as Auschwitz had to say of the experience of himself and other prisoners whose personal property, freedom, dignity and hope had all been stripped away.  They knew they were facing death, either by slow starvation, harsh overwork or the gas chambers.  Frankle wrote, "Prisoners in the camp dreamed at night about such things as bread, cakes, a nice warm bath-- the very things that in our former lives we just took for granted every day."

     Frankl also wrote of an occasion when some prisoners were moved from one concentration camp to another.  He said, weak and despairing as they were, they eagerly peered out the little barred window of their prison railroad car to gratefully take in the beauty of the snow-capped Alps, rivers and farming areas they passed through.  All these were the scenes many of them were very familiar with in their carefree days of freedom, but now they intently drank in their beauty with a new appreciation.

     Gerta Weissman was a prisoner in another Nazi death camp.  She recounted a spring morning when she and hundreds of other fellow inmates stood at roll call for hours on end, nearly collapsing with hunger and fatigue.  But they noticed in one corner of that cold, bleak, depressing gray courtyard that a little flower had poked it's way up through a crack in the concrete.  Although forced to mill around weak and stumbling in such crowded conditions every woman there took great pains to avoid stepping on the brave little flower.  They felt much thankfulness for that one spot of beauty in their ugly and heinous world.

     After the war she was asked how they could find courage to go on in those horrible conditions. She said once while in the camp barracks, staring out a grimy window pane at nothing but barren concrete, the question came to her mind, "If by some miraculous means you could be anywhere in the world right now instead of here, where would you want to be?"  She cherished that thought for awhile and here weary mind considered many possible answers.  "But," she continued, "you know, the scene that kept coming to my mind was mental picture of our living room in my childhood home; a warm fire glowing in the stove, Father reading his newspaper, Mother sewing, my brother and I doing our school homework----in other words, an ordinary "boring" evening at home---- that is precisely where I would most like to have been miraculously transported to!  I realized that the commonplace settings of life were what I was most grateful for."

     The poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that if the stars appeared in the heavens only once in a thousand years, imagine what an exciting event that would be! But, because they are there every night, we barely notice them.

      Helen Keller once said, "I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during their early adult life It would make them deeply thankful for sight and the joys of sound."

      To sum up, thanking and praising God is jut a good thing to do.  Moreover, it is Scriptural to thank and praise God.  A good spiritual exercise for this week would be to read Psalms 105, 106 and 107.  All three start out: "O give thanks unto the Lord..."  They recount the numerous miracles and blessings God gave to the children of Israel.  (Some of them might remind you of miracles and blessing He has given you.)  If so, praise Him in your own words.  Four times in Psalm 107, the writer pauses in his recitation of God's blessing to exclaim, "Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men."  So, let's get with it.

The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

     Every day we are bombarded with messages to grab our attention.  It's really amazing how much is spent in order to get our attention.  The reason for this is because there is a lot of power in getting a message to the masses.  This was evident during the recent elections with the record amounts of money being poured into "swing" states. 

     The real issue in getting people's attention is the quality of the message because our time is so valuable.  The value of the message can be lost because of the shear quantity of messages we get.  As a small business owner, I want to get people interested in my product. I'm able to share about my product with enthusiasm because I believe in its value.  This is true with the conflict of ideas.  Each side is fully convinced that the idea they have is right.  Just because we might be right or have enthusiasm won't necessarly mean what we have will sell.  We need to get the information to others and convey that what we offer is truly in their interest.

      An illustration of this is the invention of sliced bread. Otto Fredrick Rohwedder was a jeweler that knew he had a good idea and sold his jewelry stores to fund it.  After building a prototype of a bread slicing machine a fire burned down the factory he housed it in and destroyed it and his blueprints.  After taking few years of coming up with the funds to build a machine, he sold one in 1928.  Within five years there was more sliced bread on the store shelves in America than unsliced. Otto's idea was around for years before it really caught on because of the circumstances he found himself in.  After large bread companies bought his bread slicing machines the popularity of it was so great that when the government made sliced bread illegal in 1943 as a conservation effort the ban was short lived.

  I believe the concept of true freedom is desirable, but it is not being transmitted to the degree competing ideas are.  This is not an accident as the goal to transmit the opposite concept was outlined in the Communist Manifesto many years ago.

     There is a beauty in having private property and belongings, to be able to work with the promise of reward, and to not begrudge those that have already gotten there.  Those that oppose freedom would have us to turn against those that have reaped the benefits of freedom.  None of us will enjoy those freedoms, which is sometimes called the American Dream, if we don't have the good sense to be happy for others that are successful from great ideas and hard work.

     The man that came up with sliced bread must have been on to something because I'm hard pressed to find any bread at the store that's not been sliced.  In the past, the desire for freedom has spread like wildfire.  It could happen again. 

Hymn To The Welfare State & A Visit to the Gods of The Copybook Headings

I miss the old lever and curtains type voting booths!

To commemorate this day in history the following hymn is presented as a reflection of attitudes that have brought us to where we are at:

The Government is my shepherd, therefore I need not work.
It alloweth me to lie down on a good job.
It leadeth me beside still factories; it destroyeth my initiative.
It leadeth me in the path of a parasite for politic’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of laziness and deficit spending, I will fear no evil, for the Government is with me.
It prepareth an economic Utopia for me, by appropriating the earnings of my own grandchildren.
It filleth my head with false security; my inefficiency runneth over.
Surely the government should care for me all the days of my life,
And I shall dwell in a fool’s paradise forever! — author unknown

America is not following a map to freedom, but of serfdom.  Perhaps most disturbing is that people are feeding on lies.  We are told "the best is yet to come" and yet the ingredients are disastrous.  I think of the promise of peace, yet we see what happened to America's ambassador to Libya. 
I think of the promise of no want because of keeping the barbaric practice of abortion.  Poverty
continues, and the worst poverty is of the soul. I'd like to share some excerpts from a poem by Rudyard Kipling that were written over a hundred years ago.  See if they don't describe the world we live in today.

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller life
(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said the "Wages of Sin is Death."

Yes, they tell us they believe in loving your neighbor, but they don't know how because of depraved human nature.  The generosity they offer is stolen from the pockets of others which in the end will not be sustainable because it destroys initiative to produce.

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "If you don't work you die."

My grandpa always said history repeats itself.  Right now we'll watch as people keep burning themselves and are left wondering why things are going the way they are.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man--
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:--
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Destruction comes with the government as our shepherd.  When we have the Lord as our shepherd there comes peace that passes understanding, true productivity that comes from following His principles, and a happy ending.

                                  Psalm 23

1	The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2	He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. Rev. 7.17
3	He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4	Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5	Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6	Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

How Jury Nullification Rescued a Quaker

Because a few jury members practiced jury nullification to protect this man,
America has reaped untold blessings from this Quaker's life.

     Since publishing a post about the forgotten right of jury nullification, I've been asked if this is a Constitutional right.  It is a Constitutional right in that the Constitution gives the right of a trial by jury.  This can be established when historical purposes of a jury are considered.  The power of jury nullification, for the most part, has been unquestioned, but many believe it is a last resort against tyranny and that it should not be made known to jurors. 

      It is interesting that one of the most prominent stories of jury nullification comes to us from a character in history that had a profound effect on both America and England.  If jury nullification had not been practiced to help this man we would not have a Liberty Bell, no Independence Hall, and no state called Pennsylvania.  This man's name was William Penn.  It was in 1670, and William Penn was on trial in England for breaking the law.  What was the broken law?  He was preaching without a license, and teaching things from the Scripture that were not accepted in his day.  There was no question that he had broken the law, but four of the men that were part of his jury pronounced him "not guilty" because they knew the law was an unjust law as William had harmed no person nor their property.  These jury members were punished in a harsh manner in order to make them change their minds.  They were tortured for nine weeks in prison getting wet with urine and feces spread on their bodies because of not having rest facilities.  They went days without food or water.   Prison in that time was different from today. They would not change their decision.  One of the men, Edward Bushell, a wealthy owner of an international shipping enterprise said, "My liberty is not for sale."
      Because these men decided to not back down, this unjust law called the Conventicle Act lost its power and  Freedom of Religion was acknowledged and became law in England in the English Bill of Rights, and was later repeated in America under our First Amendment.  William Penn's life was spared because if "guilty" had been his verdict he likely would have been executed.  Eventually Edward Bushell was released from prison because of the concept of "habeas corpus." Edward's trial also started a movement that I'm excited about today that is called "freedom of the press."
     Other important events surrounded this pivotal case of jury nullification.  All American colonies except one implemented a trail by jury because they saw the need to preserve people's liberties.  William later left England to come to America and established Pennsylvania.  He remembered the things he went through and sought to make a place that had just laws.     William recognized that freedom comes from God and he gave a prophetic type quote when he said, "Men must be governed by God, or they will be governed by tyrants."

Sources:
Citizens Rule Book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
http://www.awesomestories.com/famous-trials/penn

Roadkill and The Dangers of a Free Lunch

   

We live on a road that zigzags quite a bit and cars go pretty fast as it is a main road in our area. Not far from our house is a wooded area. One day a raccoon walked across the road not far from the wooded area. He happened to get struck by a car and was dead in the middle of the road. Soon after a opossum came through and thought that Mr. Raccoon looked like lunch. Well, Mr. Opossum wasn't quick enough with his lunch because along came a car and he died too. Not long after that, Mr. Opossum's brother came along. He liked his brother so much he decided to eat him.  Unfortunately, like his brother, speed wasn't a family virtue, and his fate was that of the one he ate. He became crow food. The crows seemed pretty smart and had lots of food for days. A turkey vulture wanted to join in for dinner, but seems he wasn't that fast either and was another casualty on that indiscernible heap. I couldn't help but thinking if this would be a continual cycle, and how big this heap could get, but it seemed to end there with feathers all over the place and a big wing that stood up in the air.

It would seem there must be some good morals to this story like “Beware of free lunches” or the quote by Thomas Jefferson that says, “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom."

The Vice Presidential Debate and Inconsistencies

    As the election swiftly approaches, the media is making lots of headlines declaring poll research and the most memorable comments by the contestants.  One question I've been asked is if I watched the presidential debates or the vice presidential debates.  I've had to confess that I didn't when they occurred, but have since watched the debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan.  As the media said it, was very lively.  When asked about this debate, I replied that the issues are more important to me than the performance of the challengers.  What I found after watching the debate was that both challengers were inconsistent.

     The most important issue that I can see in the political realm is the protection of life.  This is the primary purpose of  government.  The fundamental purpose of government is to punish the evil and protect the innocent.  Now we have the very opposite happening to the unborn, the disabled and the elderly.

      How did these men show inconsistency?  We could talk about issues like the debt crisis that neither politically party has answers for because they both see the problem as the solution (I'm referring to the whole money system that is based on debt).  With the most important issue of the sanctity of life both men were not consistent with their personal views and their political policy.  They both have allowed political expediency to dictate their public policy in regard to protecting  the most innocent and most vulnerable segment of society.  Both men said they believe life begins at conception.  Both say religion holds an important area in their lives.

     The position Biden took was to say his public policy is not influenced by his personal beliefs.  How could it be that a man that has tremendous power to do good will not because the truth he knows in his heart can't influence his public policy?  The truth is that he does allow his personal views to influence his public positions because he later defended his position by saying that abortion was only a matter of a woman choosing what to do with her own body after he said he believes life begins at conception.  His role to protect the innocents goes beyond political affiliation as his responsibility as a public servant is to uphold the Constitution and protect people's rights including the right to life.  For that matter, his responsibility goes beyond the Constitution to the law of nature where we understand it is wrong to kill the innocent.  His responsibility in protecting life  goes beyond the law of nature because of the law of heaven which says "if a man sheds blood, by man shall his blood be shed."  Under the callused belief that Biden expressed no one would be safe.   

      Ryan made it known that his beliefs are the same publicly as they are privately.  He expressed his desire to be consistent and not two-faced.  But then his challenger reminded him of how he changed a position he had before he joined Romney's campaign.  He was against all abortion.  His new position allows abortion in the cases of rape and incest.  The problem is that the innocent party, the unborn child, should not become the victim of murder even if his life was the result of a tragic situation.  He is a real person that is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights, including the right to life.  The tragic problem with taking compromised positions like the exceptions that Ryan took is that it undermines his credibility.  His purposes might be good, but I believe that taking a pragmatic approach will only complicate matters and chip away at giving real solid answers.

     America needs real answers, not great debate performers. I think it is great if someone can express the truth with clarity. The problem is that the truth won't always be popular as Romney found out when he mentioned the problem of having so many people receiving entitlements.  Yet, to truly find answers that will pass the test of time, we need people to speak the truth without apology.

Jury Nullification, A Forgotten Right

                                          Ken Miller might have received a "not guilty" verdict
                                         had jurors known the true rights they have.


There is a forgotten right that many are not aware of that the founding fathers gave to the citizens of America. This is the ability of jury members to not just determine if a defendant is innocent or guilty, but also have the ability to judge whether a law is just or unjust. This is called jury nullification. The name almost sounds opposite from what it means as one might first get the impression that the jury is nullified, but it is speaking of the ability of the jury to nullify the power of a bad law. The jury members can not change law, but they can restrict a law they deem unjust from being enforced. This was a wise safeguard that was given by wise men with a lot of foresight. 
Taking time to fulfill the duty to be a jury member can be inconvenient, but it is a privilege and right that is to be cherished.  It's not very helpful to complain about our eroding freedoms and then not be willing to practice the ones we have.

There was a news story that caused me to think about how the truth of jury nullification needs to be publicized.  This was the case of a pastor who received a felony conviction for trying to help a woman protect her daughter from being given to someone she didn't trust.  This was alleged to be against a court law.  The case was given to a jury to decide the case.  The directions were given to the jury to decide if the pastor broke the law.  The case was more convincing that the pastor broke the law and he was convicted as being guilty.  One jury member appeared to be emotional because of the decision.  Though we don't know why this was the case, if it was because the jury member believed that the law was unjust, that jury member could have said "not guilty" and the pastor would not have received the felony charge.  The pastor would not be faced with going to prison and being separated from his family.  This is the power that that the founding fathers left with us that gives the power to one individual in a jury to determine if a man is pronounced not guilty.

Most juries in the United States are told by judges that they are to only judge the facts that are given to them and if those facts violated a law.  This has left people without the knowledge of their true right to also be able to judge the law that was said to be violated.  John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court said, "The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."
In the first jury trial before the Supreme Court the charge was given to the jury that said, "...it is presumed, that the juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that the courts are the best judges of law.  But still both objects are within your power of decision."  In other words the real power of decision is with juries; the judge is to act as a referee that is bound by the Constitution.

     Perhaps in the future more people will be aware of what "jury nullification" is, and, being armed with knowledge, be able to stop the enforcement of bad laws.

References:
Ken Miller Support Site
 NY Times article on Ken Miller