Category Archives: Family Values

Father, Mother, Male, Female, an, Woman, Husband, Wife, Children, Boy, Girl.  God’s Design = One Flesh!

Which Prison has Stronger Bars – A Prison or the World?

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I have been visiting a State prison for ten years now. Anything I bring in I am required to carry in a clear plastic see through bag. I am searched at the guard gate. I can only carry in my ID, car key and clear bag which is also run through a scanner along with my shoes, belt and glasses. Then I must walk through a scanner, pull out my front and back pockets and pull up my pant legs. Only then can I put myself back together again. Even with all this – bad stuff happens in the prison. It is not uncommon for the prison to be in lock down and I would not be allowed in. If lock down happens while I am there I will not be allowed to leave.

Do we really want to model our schools after a prison? Do we still have the ability and courage to ask the deeper questions about the failure of those in authority whose primary task it is to protect and teach how to navigate the real world of emotions, feelings and balance them with the courage of wisdom willing to search for the cause of the human breakdown and failure so our children may come to understand the lessons taught by Cain and Abel?

Emotions run high in a prison and they are running high in our land! I wonder what we are teaching our children? Emotions are a gift and serve a vital purpose -> send us on a search for wisdom and understanding!

We have an awful lot of unanswered questions about leadership failures of adults in authority! How can a gun law work – when responsible adults knowingly do not report serious problems, if known could have prevented the problem in the first place. And why do we refuse to allow well trained brave people willing to sacrifice themselves defend themselves? When will we ask these questions with equal intensity?

I wonder if modern man has the capacity to use the gift of logic and wisdom or has our modern world of reality TV world of instant gratification and answers over ridden our capacity to search the depths of our soul?

I wonder if we are being manipulated by those who support an agenda to make a “Change we can believe in” without clearly defining the “Change”. Are we going to let our emotions trap us in a prison?

I am a Father and a Grand Father. It is my God given duty and responsibility to protect and defend my children. Our founding Fathers were wise men who understood the lessons of Cain and Abel.

The New God – Head Down and Leading?

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At Heart Dr. Regular appointment – waiting – waiting! Sunday Good Shepherd! First reading about who healed cripple? 1st question who is cripple? Usually we think someone with physical deformity! But could be mental or spiritual! So who is leading us around by the nose? I think most are being led by a smart phone. Head down, unaware of surroundings and sometimes on the brink of danger! Modern day wisdom give your kid a smart phone and it will them to green pastures right! Who is the Good Shepherd modern man looks to these days to hear his voice? Ever wonder why our world is in constant crises? Look no further than arms length and the hand holding the device is a cripple! Modern man has replaced the Good Shepherd with a non living device. Will ever recover?

Designed to Balance on a Spiritual Scale:

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Mercy and Justice

A pair = one flesh that cannot be separated without taking the life of the other. Mercy and justice are like a married couple of one man and one woman. The difference is what makes possible the creation of new life and the possibility of redemption. God created a balance that humans cannot escape without creating a mess! Will humanity ever turn to the spirit of the one who said these words? “Forgive them Father they know not what they do!” In those words lies the secret to humanity finding the way out of a self created darkness into the real possibility of hope! Can we overcome the magnetic field of selfie worship that seeks to isolate us as it strips away the balance that holds mercy and justice together?

Gut Level Reactions – The Spirit is Talking to the Brain!

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Gut level reactions! They are a gift from God. It is God’s way for the spirit that lives within to speak to the body – to tell the body a treasured value has been violated. Some conclude the treasured value must be correct and can not be challenged. However, God gave us the story of salvation history to teach us the truth.

Our values are set while we are children. Just how mature are we as children? God understands our humanity and knows we can not examine our values again unless a gut level reaction takes place that sets us on a serious journey for the cause of the upset!

Jesus Christ came to testify to the truth and told us the truth would set us free (from the constraints of our humanity). Jesus traveled about preaching, teaching and healing. Ask yourself!!!!!!!!!! What was the reaction of the people of his day??? When they came to understand the Good News message he was spreading what did they do???

They plotted to shut him up! They plotted to trick him! They plotted to use the laws of their day to have him shut up by destroying him! We know the gut level reaction of many in his day was to crucify him in a way to shut anyone else up who might dare to speak the Good News he was sent to testify.

And what did his best buddies do? They abandoned him and hide. But hidden in the story is the gut level reaction that took place even in those who failed as a result of his faithfulness. The gifts of the spirit hidden within his friends ultimately worked it’s way to the surface and transformed them! The Spirit touched them and they immediately embarked upon a journey to spread the good news in the midst of a culture that thought it had shut him up!

We are living in a culture that is the midst of an upheaval of gut level reactions. It might just be wisdom to reflect upon the story which communicates cost and price of true freedom brought by one willing to die that we might have the hope true freedom and life everlasting!

P.S. last night in prison, one of the inmates was informed just before he came to the Catholic service, he was unexpectedly going to be set free the end of August 2018. Now I have to tell you that triggers the spirit hidden in the words “Lord Have Mercy”!!!

Pray for our Nation and our people, especially those so caught up in a gut level reaction that the spirit of wisdom and healing is tied up so tight the ability heal the brokenness of humanity is blocked. Remember the words – forgive them father they know not what they do! Lord have Mercy!

1968 A Very Big Year for one Unaware!

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Where were you in 1968? Okinawa on my way home to the USA! Wife and first born son preceded me! Back to college and figure out what I would do to support my family! I was not aware the USCCB had granted approval to restore the permanent diaconate in the USA. Today we are in New Orleans at the 50th anniversary of the permanent diaconate of which I became a part of in 1995.

Proves things are happening that we are not aware and God’s plan may overtake us in the midst of a busy life!

If you can escape the chaos the world seeks to inflict upon in our upside down world – well just maybe some magic is being brewed beyond sight that has long been being prepared for you!

Crises – Through my Bed leads a Road to H___! Yet Hope Persists!

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The news of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is the latest Roman Catholic story to cause the spirit of my soul to cry for all those whose faith is scattered and some shattered! Who am I and what can I possibly do?

But the voice of the one who loves me whispered in my ear! Remember and give thanks that I am always with you in the midst of any fire and storm! I called you by name and sent you where you didn’t want to go. I was always at your side! To the bowls of Atlanta in the midst of the HIV/AIDS crises where I reveled to you the depths of the valley of fear and the tears of so many fooled by the desires and ways of the world enamored in it’s own self glory!. Yet in the midst of the fire, my love of the unlovable was manifest from the souls of the sinner that you might see!

Now this day as I travel to prison, I will encounter throw away humans whose souls search for the hope of redemption – though many cannot articulate the voice that cry’s out from within. A world that stands by with a hardened heart that cannot see the sin that hides itself in the trenches of a facade of mercy, tolerance, compassion, justice and love while it releases upon thirsting souls a spirit of division and chaos on a world bent on self gratification and power rather than the dignity of the man as created by God.

Yet it is precisely for this day that I was born! To not only speak the words no one wants to hear but to proclaim the truth is being reveled in the midst of the fire that the promise of hope shall not be overcome to ears open to hear!

2018 – 1981 Whew! 37 years Really!

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August 3, 1981. Where were you? 11,000 Air Traffic Controllers went on Strike! PATCO the Union associated with the AFL CIO. They had control of the Trucks and Ships! Now if they could control the Air they would have Power to control a nation.

They did an amazing job of briefing controllers and their families on what would happen during a strike. They so convinced many wives, men I never thought would strike did. They help create one of the meanest spirited times in my career!

They did not realize they were also creating a spirit willing and able to overcome destructive spirits! I can not emphasize enough the value of the lessons I learned from this selfish grab for power! It has prepared me well for this day when propaganda driven powers seek to overcome the spirit that transformed this nation into the greatest the world has encountered to this day.

There are those in this nation that at war with the spirit and culture that created it!  Many  are afraid to speak up against the power of the those who seek to enslave us!

In 1981 we had a leader who was Not afraid to call that power by name! “Evil” exists! “evil” divides! “evil” kills! “Evil” seeks to silence the voice of opposition! “evil” has invaded our nation! “Evil” has even taken hostage some who call themselves Christian and leaders of the church!

Yet in the midst of this battle “evil” will one day be transformed into good lead by the same spirit that created man in the beginning! Flawed sinful humans will answer the cry’s rising from deep within the soul to bring healing to the broken and divided nature of man! Today the unseen breath of God is passing over the wellsprings of new life hidden from those blinded by the power they seek to replace God!

The Journey Includes Crushed and Broken: How to Survive?

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The reading this week used in prison. Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert, until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it. He prayed for death saying:”This is enough, O LORD!
Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”

The desert a place no man controls! A place where nature can wraps it’s arms around man with an embrace of the reality of life and death. A place where the sun and wind can penetrate the soul of the man! A place where the spirit of the man can cry out from the depth’s of the soul where lie hidden the burdens and wounds inflicted from life and can be set free to the ears of the wind. A place where the voice of God who hears is carried on the wind can speak to the soul of the man bypassing his stiff neck and hardened heart and penetrate his soul.

He lay down and fell asleep under the broom tree,
but then an angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat. Elijah looked and there at his head was a hearth cake
and a jug of water.

After he ate and drank, he lay down again,
but the angel of the LORD came back a second time,
touched him, and ordered,
“Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”
He got up, ate, and drank; then strengthened by that food,
he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.

Forty – the extraordinary amount of time it takes before the heart and neck of man can be healed of stubbornness of a self appointed God!

Crushed and broken is the bread of life that man might have life more abundantly!

Secrets Buried in Every Soul

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I took my pigeons to Forsyth, Ga today. 15 miles as the crow flies. It was the 6th day starting from 3 miles. The birds are getting the picture in more ways than one might think! When I let the tail gate down the birds were watching my next move like a hawk. A couple birds tried to fly through the wire of the crate. When I dropped the doors out they came in a rush! It was as if they were attacking the sky! There awareness and observation of their surrounds is far superior to that of man. The dash into the sky is designed to gain speed and altitude while surveying as they circle the sky for dangers ever present. A sense of urgency is communicated within the flock to lookout for hawks. Within minutes a slow weaving to and fro is begun as the DNA created at birth begins to detect the proper direction safety and home are located.

I drove as fast as I could and avoid detection myself. When I arrived thinking I had won the race only discover a bird already in the loft. Where are the rest? A sure sign Mr. or Mrs Hawk had intercepted them near home. A few minutes later the shadow of the flock passed within view. Yep they were home yet very aware of the dangers there! Again and again they passed over a little lower each pass. Where is that hawk with camouflage concealing?

Lessons in life nature provides to those with open eyes. A baby pigeon is born with survival instinct and knowledge of how to find the way home!

Now if we can just teach our children and grand children the secrets buried in every soul before they are born! We sure are slow of heart to observe gifts our creator planted in our DNA before we were born!

The War Below the Surface – Still?

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Seventeen years ago, my wife and I got on a plane in Atlanta. Destination Ft. Lauderdale Florida and a funeral for my wife’s Aunt Norma. We never got off the ground! I thought my mind was running on overtime remembering Aunt Norma. I had no idea what real overtime could be?!?

Aunt Norma spent much of her time in a bar – a bar that became a home for some people from every kind of walk through life’s journey! I don’t think Norma ever met a stranger no matter their status in life from the homeless bum to the wealthy! Some would say Norma was foolish and silly for opening herself to being taken advantage of by some who sought selfish ends. I still remember her smile and greeting! Always room even when room was hard to find.

She loved her children and grand children and gave generously although sometimes her gifts didn’t match up with the hopes she wished! Aunt Norma gave herself away – a gift in itself often misunderstood and unseen by the world of imperfect people she encountered!

Then unfolded before our eyes the gift of self as normally unseen people rushed to the aid of others without thought to the danger an evil spirit can unleash upon a people so busy living the good life no one was paying attention to the evil ever present in the hearts of some!
We live in a world where a war rages below the surface of human eyes but can be seen by spiritual eyes willing and open to the voice of the spirit that created us. Love one another – but do we know what love is?

He said, I came to testify to the truth and gave us a promised gift! The truth will set you free! Truth is love! The source of truth is spiritual and comes at great cost!

Are we ready to run into the burning building of our world to save the bum, orphan, stranger, self observed and those who think we are a fool and tell us to shut up?