Time, Infinity and jelly donuts

Gentle reader,

 It's no easy task to write about such a vast topic. Please be patient. I 'll have it right soon (maybe) Have a jelly donut while you wait...

Gentle readers,

Many have ask if I wouldn’t expand on my understanding of Time and how infinity is involved. Is time travel possible? What is time, do we recognize what time it is or how much time we have left?

We are all travelers these days. Every one is "going somewhere else" — to England, to Europe, to South America, to the Caribbean. So exciting to most people is the prospect of travel that the destination
itself is scarcely important! The great thing is to be on the move and to be going "first class" if possible.
Probably Americans are the most mobile people in the world — with the exception of nomads!

But there is one journey we are reluctant to think about — at least, we want to postpone it as long as possible. It is the journey out of time into eternity. Yet we know we shall all, or nearly all, have to make it in the end, and at a time not altogether of our choosing. . . .

What can it mean to pass out of this world of space and time and find ourselves in a timeless, spaceless (?) world in which to move from one "place" to another will neither occupy time nor require passing through the intervening space between? How "long" will it take? How does one "go" there?

A propos of the matter of the "time" taken for this journey, I presented a paper in London somewhere around 1998-9 as the crows flies.

After the lecture, a man came up to me and said: "This is all nonsense! How can you say that where there is no space there is no time either? Existence without time is inconceivable!" But then he added, "I'd still like to have a copy of your paper."

So I gave him one. But I hardly felt encouraged by his response to a truth I had only a little while before
perceived as having a profound relevance to what happens when we pass out of this world and go to be forever with the Lord.

What if heaven is just an instant? What if time does not exist as we it does? What if we live our whole lives in only the now?

Some weeks later, I had a phone call from him. "What did you mean," he asked, "by the statement. . . ." and he read to me a couple of sentences that were really the crux of the matter. And I could see that he had been mulling over the subject and was in fact on the verge of seeing the whole point. Indeed, about three months later he was explaining it all to his wife and invited me to come over and help him along! He had gotten the point. And you may imagine how rewarded I felt.

Anyway, you may very well find yourself wondering, as he did. I only hope you will stay with it. I believe it provides an answer to a very profound problem that has been unresolved for centuries but is now within sight of resolution and the prospect is indeed an exciting one.

Someone said that it takes two to tell a truth, one to speak it and one to hear it spoken. 

There are truths that we only grasp after we have given them verbal expression for the benefit of someone else. We may think we understand a truth, but when we try to share it with another person we often discover that we only half understand it ourselves. Then the attempt to communicate it clarifies our thoughts and the would-be teacher becomes his own pupil and learns from himself by the effort of telling.

I believe that each gentle reader will profit most from this study if he will try to share it with a friend with whom rapport has already been established, and will then discuss it so as to clarify its implications.

These implications are profound and far reaching. There is much to comfort those who have fears about the journey that is to be taken from time into eternity when we come to crossing over Jordan. Moreover, some centuries-old questions regarding the nature of man.

The nature of the intermediate state between death and resurrection ( if you are one who believes that we never die but pass on to another plain of existence) are answered in a new way.

Although it seemed necessary to begin with certain aspects of time upon which recent research has shed an entirely new light, the perceptive reader will soon begin to recognize the relevance of this research to a number of more puzzling passages of Scripture, the meaning of which has hitherto
remained somewhat obscure.

New light may also be shed on the phenomenon of expectancy of the Lord's return, an expectancy that seems so clearly indicated in the New Testament and has always been dear to the Lord's people in spite of centuries of "delay." Indeed, so long has this delay continued that many believe such expectancy is both unreasonable and improper. This study, however, will help to show that such a negative conclusion is entirely unwarranted. The Coming of the Lord in glory can indeed be looked for, expectantly, by every believer.

If you find the going difficult here and there, don't give up. You will be amply rewarded in the end. Keep going as I write about the various aspects of time and how infinity enters in to our understanding. Gradually the picture will become clearer until suddenly the light will shine and you will say, "Oh, I see!" and you will rejoice in the Lord. Who will have deepened your understanding and faith as this for many of you will be a foray into territory that is not usually explored by the Christian reader, and it stretches the mind in new directions. It is an adventure in ideas that may at first seem to be foreign to the things that matter most to people. But eventually you will find that the Word of God has been marvelously illuminated in an entirely new way as the old Faith becomes doubly reassuring about one of the greatest mysteries of life, the journey out of your time into infinity and eternity.

 So for now gentle reader.... have a jelly donut!

 To be continued. . .

 Love,

Denis

Lest we forget 2009

Gentle Reader,

 

It is the 
VETERAN, 
 not the preacher, 
 who has given us freedom of religion. 

It is 
the VETERAN, 
 not the reporter, 
  who has given us freedom of the press.

It is 
the VETERAN, 
 not the poet, 
who has given us freedom of speech.
   
It is 
the VETERAN, 
not the campus organizer, 
who has given us freedom to assemble. 

    
It is 
the VETERAN, 
 not the lawyer, 
who has given us the right to a fair trial. 


 
It is 
the VETERAN, 
 not the politician, 
Who has given us the right to vote. 

 
 

  

 
 
 
It is the 
VETERAN who 
salutes the Flag, 

Proud to be an American!

The Pub, to some, is Church

 

Gentle readers,

Should we try making our church more like a Pub? Bruce Larson describes how the neighborhood bar becomes the substitute for the church in meeting the needs of unchurched individuals who are longing for friends: “It’s an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality, but it is a permissive, accepting, and inclusive fellowship. It is unshockable. It is democratic. You can tell people secrets and they usually don’t tell others or even want to. The pub flourishes, not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few Guiness.”

If this need for friendship is essential in getting decisions, it is equally vital in keeping new converts attached to the body, both in emotional as well as physical proximity. Jerry Cook says there are three guarantees from the church that people must have before they will risk becoming open enough to receive the healing that brings spiritual maturity and wholeness. First, the guarantee that they will always be loved—under every circumstance— with no exception.

Second, that they will be totally accepted, without reservation. Third, that no matter how miserably they fail or how blatantly they sin, unreserved forgiveness is theirs for the asking.

The first and second of these guarantees are crucial in the impact of friendship for new members. A friend will love a friend and accept that person for who they are—warts and all! A friend will seldom do this for a stranger. Strangers will find little acceptance, little love, and virtually no forgiveness from a group of people who do not know them.

Furthermore, no matter how theologically persuaded new members are of the doctrinal positions of their new church, without friendship it is nearly impossible to remain in fellowship. When new members are recruited on the basis of doctrine alone, without fellowship as a strong and accompanying reality, we set both ourselves and the new members up for failure.

Rather than assuring that new believers either already have friends or gain new friends within the congregation, members often adopt a “holier than thou” attitude that excludes people at the very moment they most need inclusion. As Christians we are rightfully concerned for our unsaved loved ones. Perhaps we should show equal concern for our unloved saved ones.

Applying Cook’s first step to this issue of “having friends within the church,” notice what he says: “Love means accepting people the way they are for Jesus’ sake. Jesus hung around with sinners and if we’re too holy to allow people to blow smoke in our faces, then we’re holier than Jesus was. He didn’t isolate Himself in the synagogue. In fact, He mixed with sinners so much that the self-righteous got upset about it. ‘He’s friendly with some very questionable people,’ they said. And Jesus replied, ‘Yes, because I didn’t come to minister to you religious leaders. I came to call sinners to repentance.’ Isn’t that fantastic? Jesus spent His time with dirty, filthy, stinking sinners. And when those kind of people find someone who will love and accept them, you won’t be able to keep them away!”

This is the very essence of discipling! This is the very process of nurturing new members to the point of fruit-bearing maturity, and the best “first fruit” they can bear will be extending love, acceptance, forgiveness, and friendship with another new believer. “Pastors are not obligated to get people to heaven. That’s the work of Jesus. A pastor’s obligation to people is first to love and accept and forgive them, and second, to bring them to ministry readiness by teaching them to do the same.”

And even this emphasis on extending forgiveness and acceptance relates directly back to articulating the doctrines—the most essential one being salvation by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. The Church needs continually to relearn that Jesus accepts us—although our lives have much that offends His holiness. Righteousness by faith in His merits says that His acceptance of us does not imply approval of our misbehavior, but rather it shows love that will transcend our shortcomings and transform our behavior into His likeness if we will only allow sufficient time to interact with Him as “a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24, NIV)!

If we, then, are acceptable to Jesus despite our lack, how could we dare reject others?

If I may just use a thought that has stood me in good stead "You are what you are - because you choose to be that way"  What do you choose?

 Love,

Denis

A song to our mothers

Gentle Readers,

 This is the story behind the song,  While not my story  it is a true story told by many and sung by one. 

 In 1999 I worked for nine months at a Christian group home for boys with ADD/ADHD related issues. Shortly after I started working there, I was asked to teach the boys a song they could sing for their mothers on Mother's Day. I knew one Mother's Day song, but it didn't seem to fit the situation, so I looked on the internet for a Mother's Day poem that I thought might work for these boys. I looked for hours but couldn't find anything that I thought would work. Then one of the boys, who knew I was searching for a poem I could make a song out of, handed me a poem he had just finished writing. It didn't take me long to realize that this was exactly what I was looking for. All sixteen boys sang this song to their mothers that Mother's Day, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house! I only wish I had a recording of that event!

One more thing about this song, the words were written by a boy who had been terribly abused (in every sense of the word) and had to be removed from the home of his birth parents. It was written to the mother who adopted him, and also in a sort of a hopeful way to the mother who had allowed him to be abused.

I know a lot of us come from broken homes, and I certainly am no exception to that rule. My mother divorced my dad when I was two, and my sister and I ended up in foster homes for what seemed like an eternity at the time, but probably was only a few mnths. I have some terrible memories from that time in my life, but I was so young, at least they're distant memories. I don't think my mom meant to abandon us, it just sort of happened. Anyway, my dad finally got custody of us, and at the time he was married to a wonderful woman named Maryanne who was very much like the woman in Tom's poem. So if it sounds like I'm singing this from my heart, you kind of know why.

I LOVE YOU MOTHER
words by Tom D.
music by Jack Marti

Love is on my mind.
Sometimes it's hard to find.
But there is someone out there
Who takes the time to show she cares.

She keeps an eye on me
When Satan tries to tempt me.
She cares when I am ill
Even when I go against her will.

She blessed me when I cursed her
Though deep inside it hurt her.
God made mothers from the start
With an understanding heart.

If you're smart you'll love her too
Just the same way she loves you.
I know that in my heart
We will never ever be apart.

She is a wonderful caring woman.
And I'm her greatest fan, that's certain.
She is so full of love,
She is a gift from God above.

I like it when she laughs with me
Because it shows our love will always be.
Mom, you're the kindest person ever made
And our love will never fade.

So don't give up on me
You have a heart that sees through me,
I love you like no other.
I thank God you are my mother.

 Some stories need to be told!

 Love, Denis

Grandmothers Hands

GRANDMA'S HANDS A must read to the end please!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grandma, some ninety plus years, sat feebly on the patio bench. She didn't move, just sat with her head down staring at her hands.

When I sat down beside her she didn't acknowledge my presence and the longer I sat I wondered if she was OK

Finally, not really wanting to disturb her but wanting to check on her at the same time, I asked her if she was OK. She raised her head and looked at me and smiled. 'Yes, I'm fine, thank you for asking,' she said in a clear voice strong.

'I didn't mean to disturb you, grandma, but you were just sitting here staring at your hands and I wanted to make sure you were OK,' I explained to her.

'Have you ever looked at your hands,' she asked. 'I mean really looked at your hands?'

I slowly opened my hands and stared down at them. I turned them over, palms up and then palms down. No, I guess I had never really looked at my hands as I tried to figure out the point she was making.

Grandma smiled and related this story:

'Stop and think for a moment about the hands you have, how they have served you well throughout your years. These hands, though wrinkled shriveled and weak have been the tools I have used all my life to reach out and grab and embrace life.

'They braced and caught my fall when as a toddler I crashed upon the floor.

They put food in my mouth and clothes on my back. As a child, my mother taught me to fold them in prayer. They tied my shoes and pulled on my boots. They held my husband and wiped my tears when he went off to war.

'They have been dirty, scraped and raw , swollen and bent. They were uneasy and clumsy when I tried to hold my newborn daughter. Decorated with my wedding band they showed the world that I was married and loved someone special.

They wrote my letters to him and trembled and shook when I buried my parents.

'They have held my children and grandchildren, consoled neighbors, and shook in fists of anger when I didn't understand.

They have covered my face, combed my hair, and washed and cleansed the rest of my body. They have been sticky and wet, bent and broken, dried and raw. And to this day when not much of anything else of me works real well these hands hold me up, lay me down, and again continue to fold in prayer.

'These hands are the mark of where I've been and the ruggedness of life.

But more importantly it will be these hands that God will reach out and take when he leads me home. And with my hands He will lift me to His side and there I will use these hands to touch the face of Christ.'

I will never look at my hands the same again. But I remember God reached out and took my grandma's hands and led her home.

When my hands are hurt or sore or when I stroke the face of my children and husband I think of grandma. I know she has been stroked and caressed and held by the hands of God.

I, too, want to touch the face of God and feel His hands upon my face.

When you receive this, say a prayer for the person who sent it to you, and watch God's answer to prayer work in your life. Let's continue praying for one another.

Passing this on to anyone you consider a friend will bless you both.

Passing this on to one not yet considered a friend is something Christ would do.

The Pub in my Church

 

Gentle readers,

Should we try making our church more like a Pub? Bruce Larson describes how the neighborhood bar becomes the substitute for the church in meeting the needs of unchurched individuals who are longing for friends: “It’s an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality, but it is a permissive, accepting, and inclusive fellowship. It is unshockable. It is democratic. You can tell people secrets and they usually don’t tell others or even want to. The pub flourishes, not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few Guinness.”

If this need for friendship is essential in getting decisions, it is equally vital in keeping new converts attached to the body, both in emotional as well as physical proximity. Jerry Cook says there are three guarantees from the church that people must have before they will risk becoming open enough to receive the healing that brings spiritual maturity and wholeness. First, the guarantee that they will always be loved—under every circumstance— with no exception. Second, that they will be totally accepted, without reservation. Third, that no matter how miserably they fail or how blatantly they sin, unreserved forgiveness is theirs for the asking.

The first and second of these guarantees are crucial in the impact of friendship for new members. A friend will love a friend and accept that person for who they are—warts and all! A friend will seldom do this for a stranger. Strangers will find little acceptance, little love, and virtually no forgiveness from a group of people who do not know them.

Furthermore, no matter how theologically persuaded new members are of the doctrinal positions of their new church, without friendship it is nearly impossible to remain in fellowship. When new members are recruited on the basis of doctrine alone, without fellowship as a strong and accompanying reality, we set both ourselves and the new members up for failure.

Rather than assuring that new believers either already have friends or gain new friends within the congregation, members often adopt a “holier than thou” attitude that excludes people at the very moment they most need inclusion. As Christians we are rightfully concerned for our unsaved loved ones. Perhaps we should show equal concern for our unloved saved ones.

Applying Cook’s first step to this issue of “having friends within the church,” notice what he says: “Love means accepting people the way they are for Jesus’ sake. Jesus hung around with sinners and if we’re too holy to allow people to blow smoke in our faces, then we’re holier than Jesus was. He didn’t isolate Himself in the synagogue. In fact, He mixed with sinners so much that the self-righteous got upset about it. ‘He’s friendly with some very questionable people,’ they said. And Jesus replied, ‘Yes, because I didn’t come to minister to you religious leaders. I came to call sinners to repentance.’ Isn’t that fantastic? Jesus spent His time with dirty, filthy, stinking sinners. And when those kind of people find someone who will love and accept them, you won’t be able to keep them away!”

This is the very essence of discipling! This is the very process of nurturing new members to the point of fruit-bearing maturity, and the best “first fruit” they can bear will be extending love, acceptance, forgiveness, and friendship with another new believer. “Pastors are not obligated to get people to heaven. That’s the work of Jesus. A pastor’s obligation to people is first to love and accept and forgive them, and second, to bring them to ministry readiness by teaching them to do the same.”

And even this emphasis on extending forgiveness and acceptance relates directly back to articulating the doctrines—the most essential one being salvation by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. The Church needs continually to relearn that Jesus accepts us—although our lives have much that offends His holiness. Righteousness by faith in His merits says that His acceptance of us does not imply approval of our misbehavior, but rather it shows love that will transcend our shortcomings and transform our behavior into His likeness if we will only allow sufficient time to interact with Him as “a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24, NIV)! If we, then, are acceptable to Jesus despite our lack, how could we dare reject others?

If I may just use a thought that has stood me in good stead "You are what you are - because you choose to be that way"  What do you choose?

 Love,

Denis

Poverty in America

Is this the land of milk and honey or a land of Greed?

Gentle Reader,

Let me take a break from telling you the truth about Christianity to tell you the truth about where I live . I am in the State of Indiana and while it's flat and smells like car exhaust it's as good a place to be from as where you live. Why? Because we have a common problem! Let me be specific . There is a new bill floating around our government called the "Farm Bill" part of it deals with the food stamp issue. Well let me rant about what is really going on in this country. (Like you didn't know already) 

It takes a hurricane. It takes a catastrophe like Katrina to strip away the old evasions, hypocrisies and not-so-benign neglect. It takes the sight of the United States with a big black eye—visible around the world—to help the rest of us begin to see again. For the moment, at least, are Americans are ready to fix their restless gaze on enduring problems of poverty, race and class that have escaped their attention? Does this mean a new war on poverty? No, especially with Katrina's gargantuan price tag. But this disaster may offer a chance to start a skirmish, or at least make Washington think harder about why part of the richest country on earth looks like the Third World.

"I hope we realize that the people of New Orleans weren't just abandoned during the hurricane," Sen.(now President) Barack Obama said two years ago on the floor of the Senate. "They were abandoned long ago—to murder and mayhem in the streets, to substandard schools, to dilapidated housing, to inadequate health care, to a pervasive sense of hopelessness."

The question now is whether the flood waters can create a sea change in public perceptions. "Americans tend to think of poor people as being responsible for their own economic woes," says sociologist Andrew Cherlin of Johns Hopkins University. "But this was a case where the poor were clearly not at fault. It was a reminder that we have a moral obligation to provide every American with a decent life."

In the last four decades, none of of that obligation has been met. Social Security and Medicare have not made or eliminated poverty among the elderly [not any longer they don't even try witness the inflated salaries of your elected officials and compair that with the fact that they don't even hide their disregard for your needs ] . Food stamps  (See the food stamp challenge a way to make you think that these politicians care) we don't need another election where its politics as usual we need Statesmen NOT politicians have made severe hunger in the United States mostly a thing of the past [that’s way we go to bed hungry each night]. A little-known program with bipartisan support and a boring name—the Earned Income Tax Credit—supplements doesn’t help the puny wages of the working poor, help to lift millions into the lower middle class.

But after a decade of improvement in the 1990s, poverty in America is actually getting worse. A rising tide of economic growth is no longer lifting all boats. For the first time in half a century, the third year of a recovery (2004) also saw an increase in poverty. In a nation of nearly 300 million people, the number living below the poverty line ($14,680 for a family of three) recently hit 37 million, up more than a million in a year.

The food stamp challenge is another example to the rich trying to identify with the poor. Gentle reader, let’s face it America has lost it’s moral fiber and has totally disregarded the poor in America. It’s time to take back what was stolen from us, our rights

 Just my opinion,

Denis

When "Junk" DNA" isn't "Junk"

In the Darwinist repertoire, a standard response to evidence of design in the genome is to point to the existence of “junk DNA.” What is it doing there, if purposeful design really is detectable in the history of life’s development? Of course this assumes that the “junk” really is junk. That assumption has been cast increasingly into doubt. New research just out in the journal Nature Genetics finds evidence that genetic elements previously thought of as rubbish are anything but that. The research describes tiny strands of RNA, previously thought to be junk, that now turn out to play a role in gene expression. Another finding by Dr. Geoff Faulkner shows that “retrotransposons,” a further variety of “junk” as the dogma previously taught, play a similar role.

Nearly half of the mammalian genome (less than 45 percent) is comprised of DNA sequences thought for decades to be but evolutionary flotsam and jetsam or junk: retrotransposons. Found along every one of our chromosomes, retrotransposons mobilize within our cells via RNA copies, copies that are then converted into DNA and afterward pasted into different DNA sites. To be sure, the vast majority of these “jumping gene” duplicates, well over a million elements, appear to be little more than pseudogenes, defective images of master templates that merely drift by mutations into a phylogenetic oblivion.

Retrotransposons appear to fit the neo-Darwinian story perfectly. First, the master templates of these elements seem to serve no other purpose than to promote their own replication at the expense of the cell, and so, by the criteria of Richard Dawkins’s 1976 book The Selfish Gene, retrotransposons are selfish genes par excellence. Second, the DNA progeny of such “endogenous viruses” are without a doubt marred in various ways, as just mentioned. Relative to the original, in other words, they are junk. Third, a retrotransposon inserted into a chromosome can disrupt normal gene functions, and mutations due to these sequences have long been detected. Fourth, only a comparative few retrotransposons are conserved across different groups of mammals, with most of the DNA families being restricted to certain families, genera, or even species. Humans and mice as well as mice and rats can readily be separated solely on the basis of their retrotransposon profiles. So the bulk of these sequences do not merit being retained by natural selection.

With such facts at hand, it is no wonder that retrotransposons and other “non-coding” DNAs are part of Exhibit A on the side of the neo-Darwinian prosecution, over and against the intelligent design defense.

But there have always been big holes in this tale of selfish, junk DNA. We have known since the late 1980s that retrotransposons are distributed non-randomly along chromosomes. Even though humans and mice and rats have different families of these sequences — ultimately a reflection, according to neo-Darwinists, of randomness — the linear pattern of placement of the elements is uncannily similar. Likewise, data accumulated throughout the ’80s and ’90s which indicated that normal gene regulation can be controlled by pieces of such mobile DNA. Evidence for other diverse regulatory roles of retrotransposons has also continued to mount till the present.

But it wasn’t until recently that we learned just how extensive is the informational impact of retrotransposons on the mammalian genome. The recent study by Geoffrey Faulkner et al. (2009) is only the latest. Using the RNA expression profiles of the human and mouse genomes as a backdrop, a number of key facts were uncovered. For one thing, tens to hundreds of thousands of transcription start sites — the beginning points of RNA transcripts — occur in retrotransposons. According to the data they gathered, anywhere from 6 to 30 percent of RNAs in the two species arise from repetitive (aka “junk”) DNA. For another, elements that reside in or near protein-coding genes provide alternative regions to initiate transcription, many previously unknown, and they allow for the production of various non-translated RNAs. The “start RNA production” signals conveyed by retrotransposons such as the mouse-specific VL30 retrovirus-like sequences are also markedly tissue-specific. Altogether, the results point to retrotransposons being “intrinsic components of the transcription forest regions of the genome” (Faulkner et al., 2009).

This is all rather awkward for the Darwinian side, obviously. Another standard weapon in their armory is to charge intelligent-design theorists with making a “God of the gaps” argument, where gaps in scientific knowledge are assumed to be evidence of design. The reality is that the case for Darwinian evolution is much more reasonably shown to depend on gaps — in our knowledge of what “junk DNA” does, for one thing. Hence a sobriquet for the view that evolutionists are saddled with defending: “Darwin of the gaps.”