Three recent dreamlets and the interpretations

Recently (Two nights ago) I had some dreams which have really affected me:

Dreamlet one:
I was with a friend -- Jennifer Lopez-- and she had a date with or loved the actor or the character from Queen InHyun's Man (QIHM)-- and we were going swimming. I turned and saw that she had left her baby in the foyer asleep. I was worried about this and wanted to move the baby into a sleeping area where the baby would be safe from the neighbors and other folks in the house trampling on her accidentally. I imagined folks just walking into the foyer with laundry or hands full of stuff and not looking down and bingo, the baby gets stepped on. She said, "No, leave the baby there. People must be trained not to walk on it." I thought that was the backward way of looking at it. Shouldn't it be that the baby would be awake and the baby would learn to step aside out of harm's way?

Dreamlet two:
I dreamed I was on my front porch telling someone about a dream. I said, "I dreamed of two pennies on a plane." Then I corrected myself: "No, it was two cents!" Then in the dream I realized that whenever I debated anyone on facebook I usually ended the post with, "My 0.02." I woke up wondering if God was saying I should learn not to be argumentative with folks on facebook. There was just a feeling there that I am a very insightful person but I'm always using that insight...and perhaps I shouldn't.

Dreamlet three:
I got up in church to give a word. I forget the verse but it was about talking to God. I said, "We must learn to talk to God at all times. On earth we talk to him to heal us, to protect us, to give us money, to help us, to guide us. But in heaven we won't need him to heal us, to protect us, to give us money, to guide us...and what will we talk to him about then?" As I was speaking, the leader of the church started on other church business, not really ignoring me but going about some other matter while I was talking. I didn't think she was rude but I thought it was the wrong thing to do. When someone is talking about God, we should listen to all she/he has to say in stead of half-listening and moving on with one's own business?"

Rose-Marie's (I won't link to her site just now) interpretation:

the first dream is about people expecting others to get out of their way--about expectations one has of people that will lead to harm because one didnt exercise common sense in what was precious to them. again, it was lopez's job to protect her baby, not try and teach others how to be responsible.  she was looking out to try and fix things when she she should have been just protecting her baby.

the third one is good advice about not putting your 2 cents worth in. people dont want it, they wont listen to it, and it ends up in trouble. if people want to know they will ask, and then even then if its not what they want to hear they will reject it and sometimes you with it. :( 

I dont know if youremember a long while back i had a dream the nite before
Tammy Bakker died about her and she was all shriveled and i was wheeling her in a wheal chair into a a conference and people were making fun of her and all of  a sudden i could feel hard shards in my mouth and they were bits of razor blades broken off. and i said, "i thought all these were taken out" ....yikes!

i lose my cool a lot lately too so im trying to just retreat and keep quiet.  we cant change people and i should just work on being the most like Jesus i can be and that takes a lot of work! :)   Well, i think all we have is to work on ourselves, i dont think people are listening, for the most part, and all we can do is live in front of them --and therefore our lives will have to be righteous and
anyway, we want to live in peace so we have to get the crap out of us .:)  there is just so much of it!  

Perfectly true. God has called us to peace. 

There is a lot of sneering by Christians about how other people behave. I hate sneering. Sneering is the thing i war against primarily. One Christian in a wheeled chair is sneering about how some flaky woman online is angry at her husband for not taking her to the lake.  I understand that. I know the woman should not be raging at her husband because other people are suffering...and yet if I wished to I could sneer at the Christian woman who is sneering because although she herself is in a wheeled chair, she is not as ill or as poor or as suffering with a sick kid as I believe I am. In addition, she is mocking a woman in a wheel chair and all we have is the husband's viral video upload. Is it possible we aren't seeing everything that needs to be seen? Is it possible that even if the flaky lady at the lake is a total nutcase that we have not experienced her life and we would be more compassionate if we understood her woundedness and where the flakiness comes from? So, in life, what does this do? Lead to comparison and comparison. It leads to the idea that we "know" someone. So should we not sneer at all?

Same thing for a very smug pontificating Christian. We have so many pontificating christians online. They want to help fight evil and to correct the world but 

A) if they happen to be right in the issue they are addressing -- because they are so sneery and so smug, I lose patience with them.

B) if they have muddled Christianity with their own racial or class issue -- there is no way to unmuddle them so why even challenge them

C) if they are wrong -- see above. And worse, then I become someone who challenges and sneers.

The dream is a good one for me because it is basically, i feel, God saying to get off that merry-go-round of Christian advising and Christian rebuttal and Christian sneering. I generally don't tell folks what to do in my offline life...so why venture into commentary and know-it-all ness in my online life?

If the problem is social, the Christian sneerer is too ingrained with his own class worldview to see. If the problem is personal, the Christian sneerer has too much pride and will not be enlightened. If the problem is spiritual, the Christian sneerer is so indoctrinated with his/her sense of denominationalism, church tradition, etc that talking to them and giving them my two cents is not gonna help. So the question remains: why argue when the listener will not hear?

On a personal level, I think God is saying that my career is my baby. Like Jennifer Lopez, Ms career woman. Should I destroy my future, my baby projects, my reputation among Christians (sneerers or not) by challenging folks just so they "learn a lesson about the path they're taking"?

I want to keep, maintain, and develop a loving heart. The trouble is..if one starts correcting -- even correcting folks who are sneerers-- one has fallen into judging others. Resisting the urge to comment on someone's judgmental post makes me fall back and resist judging itself. However wise I may be, however right I may be...I learn self-control and love by letting what I perceive as "judgment" go. So in resisting the urge to snap at someone who is judging, I resist judging. PLUS, I do not waste my breath. Because this is a complicated matter. The dream came to steer me from lack of love (when I am wrong by judging) but it also came to steer me toward peace (when I am right but the very act of commenting will ruin my reputation, waste time, waste my breath, and make me lose my own peace.)

Jesus brought us the gospel but the gospel battles the old Adam, the tendency in human hearts to be children of the knowledge of good and evil. We all have rules/standards/guidelines/measurements of etiquette, behavior, propriety, goodness, suffering -- this is the effect of living by the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  I heard such a great definition of legalism: The feeling that somewhere someone is getting away with something. In this case, when someone says something sneering and judgmental and I have the perfect comeback/response to silent the person but I do NOT challenge them...I feel as if that person is getting away with something. 

I didn't think I was legalistic but the more i think about it, the more i realize how i have disliked those who were healthy, those who didn't seem to have suffered as I have. And the Lord said to me: "Would you be happy if you heard a mafia hit man who had murdered 100 innocent people had yet another healthy grandchild? Would you be happy if you heard Zimmerman had a healthy child and won a million dollars? Would you be happy to hear that a rich millionaire won another million dollars even though you have no money? That is what i want you to do. To rejoice with those who rejoice, to weep with those who weep...and to push judgment and harshness from your heart." 

I want to be able to see the crap folks write online or to hear the crap folks say in church or on the streets and to truly love folks however cruel their platitudes or judgments or wrong their doctrine. I want to be humble even towards the arrogant and the all-knowing and to say to myself: have a merciful kind heart. They may judge you but you must love them. Lord, have mercy on my soul. 

Travelling Fantasy Roundtable -- July's topic: Intrusive Fantasy

Intrusion in fantasy often occurs in two ways. Either this is the intrusion of something alien, something entirely other, something not normally seen or active in the character’s world, something that disturbs the status quo by it’s arrival.  Or, intrusion is not truly intrusion at all but unveiling, an “apocalypse” where something hidden and secret now makes itself known to the character.

For instance, in the NBC program Grimm, Juliet discovers that monsters walk among us. This is not merely a realization of evil because evil has always been on earth, but a realization that the rules of life are more complicated than she had formerly thought and that certain species of people (hitherto unknown to her) are living lives she had not dreamed about. The fantastical intrusion might be a good thing. Or not. It might give glimpses of the numinous, the awesome, the otherworldly, the kind-heartedness at the center of the universe — thus creating saints (which often happens to folks who have seen angels or God. It might give the one intruded upon a glimpse of evil. . .the result of which is paranoia, conspiracy theories, isolation, prophets, or freedom fighters (spiritual or otherwise.)   

In the Christian view, the Revelation of St John is the ultimate intrusion of fantasy. As one of the Old Testament prophets stated, “Tear the heavens and come down!” In the same way, John sees a day when the heavens will roll away like a scroll and the truth about the world — its true ruler, its basic battles, its true moorings— will be revealed.

In Christianity, John saw the revelation of the unveiling when a door opened up in heaven and he was invited into it to “Come and See.” He was trusted with knowledge of how the real world works and told how to declare it. In fantasy novels, the unveiling comes about either through sudden accidental discovery, by a character’s gradual insight and realization, or by trust…that is, another character (good or evil) decides to share the “secret” of the intrusion with the main character. Examples of this kind of encounter with fantasy intrusion in contemporary life are cases of alien abduction, haunted houses, and bumping into bigfoot.

Once the character’s eyes are opened, choices have to be made. The character can choose to close her eyes to the truth, as some do in The Matrix. The character can choose to align herself with other “adepts,” “visionaries,” or wizened souls. . . after all fantastical truth is hard to follow alone. There is the danger of forgetting. Therefore, some kind of fellowship is needed. The fellowship’s duty is to grow in knowledge about this revealed truth, strengthen the will of those who might be tempted to fall back into unknowing. Thus churches, fellowships, partners, support groups are needed, especially if the intruder into the real world is dangerous, the character may choose to fight.

In the end, the character is changed by this sudden intrusion. Something must be done. Or the character must change. Intrusion fantasy shows the main character that the world is not what she had thought it was. Whether this unveiling blesses the main character or curses her is unimportant. What matters is that the character is changed and will never see herself, the world, or her place in the world in the same way again. Thus, those who have seen the God behind the veil will suddenly “bring forth fruits worthy of repentance”  or go about preaching to neighbors with the zeal of an ex-alcoholic or an ex-smoker. Intruded-upon characters generally change. And who would not? They must in order to accommodate the secret that had formerly been hidden behind that closed door in heaven. 

Our collective posts on Intrusive Fantasy is located at:

Chris Howard's Saltwaterwitch Blog

Book III of the Stone Trilogy, Song of the Storm by Mariam Kobras

Book III of the Stone Trilogy, Song of the Storm

by Mariam Kobras

Paperback: 304 pages

Publisher: Buddhapuss Ink LLC (July 16, 2013)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0984203575

ISBN-13: 978-0984203574

When dreams come true for some and worlds crash for others, when friendships are tested and true love is found at last--that is theSong of the Storm.

The conclusion of the award-winning Stone Trilogy brings the love story of Jon and Naomi full circle; with some things lost and some things gained, they discover the true value of love and family, and the high cost of survival in our world today.

Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Mariam Kobras  lived in Brazil and Saudi Arabia with her parents as a child before they decided to settle in Germany. She attended school there and studied American Literature and Psychology at Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen, where she met her husband. She lives in Hamburg, Germany, with her husband, two sons and two cats.

Interview with Author Mariam Kobras

Moving Your Invisible Boundaries: Heart Physics: The Key to Limitless Living by Dr Jim Richards

Moving Your Invisible Boundaries: Heart Physics: The Key to Limitless Living

by Dr Jim Richards

Here's the blurb:
Have you ever set goals, trained for maximum results, and followed the same personal development plan that seems to work for everyone else, only to hit an invisible boundary that causes you to fall short? Unless you know how to expand your heart you will sabotage any success that might take you beyond your current heart boundaries. Even if you manage to push past your current heart boundaries, chances are you will experience some catastrophic event that pulls you back within the limits of life as you have known it! Moving Your Invisible Boundaries is the result of forty years of research and clinical practice. These principles have been proven in counseling sessions, drug recovery programs, personal mentoring and by thousands who have put them into practice through Dr. Jim Richards Heart Physics Programs. This book is designed to take you past information, past self-growth and into a life that experiences God, His promises, and the resurrection life of Jesus. By discovering and implementing the distinctions between the mind and the heart you will experience the secret to limitless living! Rather than just hearing and reading the transformation stories of others, your life will be a transformation story. When you learn how to change your heart you will be able to move your invisible boundaries and begin to experience the joy of limitless living!

About the Author

Jim Richards combines spirituality, energy medicine, scientific concepts and human intuition into a philosophical approach that aligns spirit, soul and body, resulting in incredible health, emotional, financial and spiritual breakthroughs. Jim is a life coach, consultant, teacher and motivational trainer. He holds doctorates in Theology, Alternative Medicine and Human Behavior. Dr. Richards is an entrepreneur who has built several successful businesses ranging from contracting to real estate to marketing. As a national best-selling author, Dr. Richards has written several books that have sold several million copies around the world.

Moving Invisible Boundaries on youtube.

Pet peeve #486: Christian platitudes

Yep, I'm always ranting about Christian platitudes. So here's another one:

Platitude spoken by Sunday school teacher: "If you're having trouble and battling Satanic attacks, then God is using you because Satan wouldn't bother you if you weren't going to trouble his plans/empire." 

(The equal and opposite of this platitude is also wrong: "Sister, everyone is suffering. The world is large so other people are suffering more than you.")

Why does this platitude go around? Who started it? 

I suspect some kind soul started the ball rolling in order to comfort the suffering. It was perhaps a response to the question, "Why is my life so hard? I must have done something wrong for God to be punishing me. And even if it is chastising and not punishment, I must be doing something wrong."

So, this statement aims to comfort by showing that God is not behind the evil that is happening in some sufferer's life. 

But as in all these cookie-cutter cake-baked half-baked Christian platitudes there are subtle evils in this statement ...and these subtle evils just lead to affecting one's heart. 

First the statement posits the idea that 

A) good people will suffer and that if someone is not suffering then that means the person is not good enough for Satan to bother them. But is that true? It's a nice platitude which equates the suffering of a Christian almost to Christlike level. But what does it to to the spirit of someone who drinks in such a statement, like water soaking into dry thirsty ground? And how does it make that sufferer think about those who have had only good happen in their lives? Yes, yes, there are such things as people who have had really good lives!

Do we envy the person with the good life? Do we go around listening to everything they say of their lives so we can "accept" that they have somehow "earned" their happy lives? Do they think that perhaps the other person has not been good enough for Satan to bother them? Do they think the happy person has not suffered enough to earn a happy Satanic attack free life? Do they get angry with Christians who have had a good life? 

And how does this affect our view of ourselves? Do we smugly sit by and say "Yes.. I am suffering, but it is because I have some great work to do. Satan is the cause of all my trouble because I am so good."

We then fall into the danger of thinking something like this: “Look how buffeted I am! Come not near me for I am more buffeted than thou!”

It is said that a legalist is someone who fears that somewhere a bad person is getting away with something. Legalists will quote Chapter 33 of Ezekiel. Even the heart of a Christian legalist tends toward legalism more than to love.

Don’t get me wrong. I totally believe sinners suffer and God blesses the good. But I want a heart that doesn't see evil in another's life (or my life) as proof of God working against me or that person. It trips a person up. It mires us in self-judging and takes us away from loving God because He truly loves us. Job's comforters are quick to see things that just may not be there. I remember being on a bus trip once. Not a church i generally went to but hey I was there that Sunday. And there was a drunk with a broken walk, staggering along and limping. Then the pastor's wife chirped up, "The wages of sin," and nodded pityingly smugly.

But who knows? Maybe he became a drunk after the accident, and maybe he was a good person before the accident. And if he did get into an accident because he was drinking too much, we still can’t judge because we don’t know what wounds he carried to make him turn to drink. The entire conversation just really bothered me. That she had the judgment in her heart was bad enough but that she had the nerve to say it.

The Bible tells asks, “Who are we to judge another man's servant?” And if we judge another, we have put ourselves back under the law and are now NO MORE under grace.

The legalist will say: “As Jesus loved the ‘sinners’ and reached out to them with parables, He also told them to ‘go and sin no more.’ So although we are NOT Jesus, I don't believe He would have us turn a blind eye to sin. True, we ARE under grace, but grace is NOT a license to sin.”

My response is: Jesus told us to remove the beam in our own eye before we take the speck out of someone else’s eye. We must love others and never have a heart that plugs people into little categories. I’m not saying it’s a license to sin. It’s just not a license for us to judge others. We must never, ever, ever defend our right to judge another person;

legalism is on one side, license is on the other and liberty in the middle. As David Pawson said, “Legalism is not free to sin; license is free to sin; liberty is free to not sin.”

The question is: If a Christian has trouble, their reaction to the trouble is often affected by how legalistic they are. Job is the oldest book in the Bible and it is dealing with bad things happening to a good legalistic person. We can get instruction from this book if we approach it honestly and let the book challenge us a we read it and see the strange legalistic things we believe. 

Jesus said that it is the heart that defiles the body because out of the heart comes sins such as adultery, pride, etc. The sin of spiritual pride is a subtle one. And really so many Christians —who would not let a gay person or an adulterer near them— are so full of defiling pride. Is it possible that it is the sin of religious “suffering” pride in our body that is getting in the way of grace working health to our bodies? 

In Matthew 20, Jesus tells a story about a generous landowner who pays those who have only worked for one hour as much as he pays those who worked for an entire day? Needless to say those who had worked the entire day were somewhat legalistic and objected to the landowner’s generosity. The landowner then posed this question to them: “Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?”

A great Christian preacher said, "If there is one thing a legalist doesn’t like, it’s the idea that some bad person is getting away with being bad. Somewhere some bad person is being blessed by God. Legalism and the idea of fairness go hand in hand."

I remember hearing of a man who had won the lottery three or four times. The news bothered me. After all, the man wasn’t disabled or poor…luck just seemed to happen to him. It didn’t seem fair when there were so many poor people out there who could’ve used the money.

There was also a time when I would find myself getting angry at a gorgeous young educated woman who had what I considered a good life. Why hadn’t I had such a good life? Why did life go so smoothly for her? I would resent such a person, especially if they seemed to be happy and empty-headed. At last it occurred to me, I must learn to love people. Whether or not they are rich or poor, deserving or not. Love either kills the legalism in us or legalism kills love. Both cannot abide in the same place.

Legalism says such statements as, “I didn’t deserve to have this (bad) thing happen to me.”

OR “She didn’t deserve to have this (good) thing happen to her.

In Ecclesiastes 9:11, the Preacher says, “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

For the legalist, this is a bad thing because good should happen to those who “deserve” or “earned” it. But I have often considered myself lucky that the race is not always to the swift. There are many battles I have won which I should have lost, and there is much I do not understand. 

Yes, God will judge sinners. The adulterer, the murderer, the liar, even the coward will be judged. But judgment happens too easily in the legalist’s mind because there is always the tendency to compare one’s self with others, to rest on one’s own laurels, or to judge God and to think that God is being unfair.

What I want to do in life is to know how to love. That is all. And if it begins with God teaching me to be very careful what we hear and to not let the traditions and platitudes of men affect my spirit....then so be it. 

Bards and Sages: The Constant Tower Virtual Tour begins

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1381966-carole-mcdonnell-book-tour-begins-7-7

July 7: Collision of Words
July 8: Whimsical Words
July 9: The Lost Party
July 10: Fantastic Adventures
July 11: Tales from the Sith Witch 

Bards and Sages Blog Tour: Lonely Moon by Andrew Saxsma

Lonely Moon  by Andrew Saxsma

  Genre: SF

Paperback: 284 pages

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (February 15, 2013)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1482369958

ISBN-13: 978-1482369953

Book Summary : Earth lies in ruins, destroyed by an unknown enemy. Humanity flees their burning homeworld, seeking a safe place to hide before they can be hunted down and eradicated. 

Alliance Captain Michael Hane watches helplessly while his wife and unborn child fall victim to the random slaughter of Earth. With time running out, he is burdened by the last bits of humanity to find a way to stop this menace before it wipes the galaxy clean of every last human being.

EXCERPT

Almost on cue, Nilus entered the bridge where Hane sat in the pilot’s chair, the only other one on the bridge.

Hane turned and looked over the back of the chair as Nilus walked futher in.

“Report back when you’ve got something,” Admiral Reese said.  “Admiral Reese out.”

“This one had a feeling it would come up sooner or later,” Nilus said, his huge oily eyes staring at Hane.  His eyelids blinked with a wet slosh.

“What is the Hades Station,” Hane asked, point blank.  “And I don’t want any run around, Councilor.”

Nilus nodded in agreement.

“Very well.  The Hades Station watches and monitors the Hades FTL Bridge at all times.  During my species’ first ventures into space, in the early days of the Faster Than Light Bridge networks, a group of Aurans were charged with exploring the galaxy, creating pathways for which to travel throughout the network.  The very pathways our species use every day.  These explorers were known as the Pioneers,” Nilus said, typing on his chrome bracer.  A small panel opened and a hologram projected from his bracer into the air.  A spherical representation of the Milky Way galaxy slowly rotated in the air above both of them.

“The Aurans created the FTL Bridge network?” Hane asked.

“That is correct.  The basic idea is to set a point of origin,” Nilus said, pressing a button on his bracer.  A bright dot on one side of the galaxy hologram flashed and remained solid.  “Then, the Pioneer uses a ship to trace the route for which the Bridge will take.  Once it reaches its intended destination, it drops a Bridge Gate with which to connect back to the point of origin.  While the Pioneer ships can still travel faster than light with warp technology, it is quite dangerous.  These ships are more or less flying blind, guided by telescopes from our homeworld.  They are unreliable, and most ended in tragedy.  But the cause was too great to quit.  

This one’s species set the tone for other inhabitants of the galaxy to flourish within.”

“What does any of this have to do with the Hades Bridge?”

“One Pioneer travelled too far.  Farther than anyone has ever been in the history of our galaxy,” Nilus said.

“Where did he end up?” Hane asked.  He rose from his chair, interested.

“The Andromeda Galaxy,” Nilus said.  He pushed a button on his bracer and a line traced from the solid dot, across the hologram.  The line shot out of the hologram and into the air, stopping a foot outside of the sphere.  “From start to finish, the trip took roughly fifteen thousand years.  

Upon arrival, the destination Bridge Gate was released and went online,” Nilus said.

“So?  What’s wrong with that?” Hane asked, missing the point.

“An Auran’s life-span is only about three hundred and fifty years.  The oldest Auran recorded was four hundred and thirty-three.”

“I don’t get it,” Hane said.

“The Pioneer died before arriving at his destination,” Nilus said.

Hane stood in silence, trying to understand.

“As a precaution, every Pioneer must enter a code to finalize the connection between the point of origin and its final destination, thus establishing a successful network,” Nilus said, shutting down the hologram.  “Until three years ago, there were one hundred trillion, five-hundred thousand, and sixty-seven invalid code entries.”

“Someone was trying to finalize the connection?” Hane asked in awe.

“That is correct.”

“What do you mean by three years ago?  They stopped?” Hane asked.

Nilus nodded yes.

“But why stop?”

“One correct code was entered,” Nilus said, gravely.  “Something came through.”

Paperback

Kindle version

About the author:

Andrew is a small town author, surrounded by cornfields on all sides in a quaint little mid-western bore.

His style is eclectic and to the point, with some polished flowery imagery for flavoring. His ideas are sharp and grisly and mostly deal with the fringes of reality, the things you hear on dark stormy nights, the things with no names. If the world of Literature was a full-bodied woman, his writing would be the hosiery, tight and fitting.

Genre: Horror, Supernatural, Thrillers, Suspense
Influences: H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Brian Keene, Gregory Thompson, Richard Laymon.

  Link to Book or Author Website : http://www.andrewsaxsma.webs.com , http://andrewsaxsma.blogspot.com

Troubling Questions for Calvinists...And All the Rest of Us

Troubling Questions for Calvinists...And All the Rest of Us[Paperback]

F. LaGard Smith

Paperback: 352 pages

Publisher: Cotswold Publishing (November 1, 2007)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0966006054

ISBN-13: 978-0966006056

What are the hard questions typically never asked by Calvinists?

Why do so many Calvinists live as if they were not Calvinists, and so many non-Calvinists live as if they were?

Is it really possible to be just a three-point or two-point Calvinist?

In what ways does the problem of sin challenge even non-Calvinists?

Do we sin because we are sinners, or are we sinners because we sin?

Is it possible to live without sinning?

Troubling Questions for Calvinists is uniquely designed to ask the hard questions that rarely seem to be addressed about one of religion's most popular belief systems. Even Calvinism's milder forms raise troubling questions about the nature of God, Christ's atoning death, and the nature of man.

Yet, non-Calvinists often share many of the same assumptions underlying Calvinism, such as the doctrine of original sin, innate depravity, and the impossibility of falling way from faith. Can those doctrines withstand close scrutiny?

About the Author

F. LaGard Smith is the author of 25 books on a wide variety of topics, both doctrinal and inspirational. He is also the compiler and narrator of the best-selling The Daily Bible. Smith's Restoration background, teaching, lecturing, and wrting have contributed keen insight into both the Scriptures themselves and the practical outworking of God's Word in the lives of believers.

Defeat Cancer Now by Tamara St John

Defeat Cancer Now by Tamara St John

File Size: 2212 KB

Print Length: 206 pages

Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0988767104

Publisher: Tamara St. John (January 2, 2013)

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

Language: English

ASIN: B00AWF1HKA

Here's the Amazon Blurb

After Tamara St. John found Cancer in 2009, she started on an alternative plan to heal her cancer naturally without surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy. Tamara has conducted thousands of hours of research and experimentation to come up with a compatible treatment plan that heals cancer naturally and effectively. Her "Defeat Cancer Now" plan focuses on strengthening the immune system to heal the body naturally using only nutrition, without the use of supplements or expensive fads. 

What makes this book different from most others is that it is a personal account of the mistakes, the triumphs, and the experiments from someone who has actually healed cancer successfully. You will find information in this book regarding which treatments are compatible and contradictory, so you won't make the fatal errors that are made by so many who jump into trying various alternative remedies without proper research. 

You can achieve optimum health through God's Pharmacy and this book will show you how.

About the Author

Tamara St. John holds a Masters in Business Administration with a dual concentration in Accounting and Finance. She is an author, business owner, and an adjunct professor. After finding cancer in 2009 and deciding to heal it using only alternative methods, she wrote this book on how to heal Cancer naturally. Defeat Cancer Now also shows how to heal from other diseases through detoxification in proper order and eating right.

It Happens After Prayer: Biblical Motivation for Believing Prayer by H B Charles

It Happens After Prayer: Biblical Motivation for Believing Prayer [Kindle Edition]

H. B. Charles Jr.

• Print Length: 176 pages
• Publisher: Lift Every Voice; New Edition edition (April 16, 2013)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00B7TGYVC

Here's the blurb:
We can't control the disasters of life, but we can control how we respond 
to life's challenges. Job loss, natural disasters, crime and so many other difficulties plague the lives of believers. So, what do we do when facing tragedies and triumphs? We pray. And then we pray some more. Looking at various principles throughout the Bible, Pastor H.B. Charles writes a passionate and masterful treatise on the topic of prayer and the importance this discipline must have in the life of every Christian. 
 

The Judgment of Osiris -- kindle specfic fiction by Theresa Crater

The Judgment of Osiris [Kindle Edition]

Theresa Crater

File Size: 227 KB

Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited

Publisher: Scribes Books (May 21, 2013)

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

Language: English

ASIN: B00CXWEMPM

Text-to-Speech: Enabled 

X-Ray: Not Enabled 

 “The ancient gods of Egypt reach through time and claim Owen as their next sacrifice. On the last day of the tour he leads, Owen accepts a gift from a rival tour guide Simon. The miniature sarcophagus contains a mysterious white powder that takes Owen into the mythic Egyptian underworld. Will resurrection come for him as it did for his namesake Osiris?”

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CXWEMPM  

Theresa Crater grew up next to an old Gothic mansion in North Carolina. All the kids in the neighborhood were sure the brain surgeon who lived there was making a Frankenstein-monster in the basement. That turned out not to be the case, but making up stories got to be a habit. 

Theresa has published two paranormal novels in the Power Places series, Under the Stone Paw, an Egyptian adventure, and Beneath the Hallowed Hill, set in Avalon. She's also published several short stories, most recently "The Judgment of Osiris" and "White Moon" in Riding the Moon.

Currently, she teaches creative writing and literature at MSU-Denver. Her first serious job was teaching meditation. Theresa's fiction blends lost civilizations, ancient temples and secret societies with myth, metaphysics and just plain good adventure. Her husband, Stephen Mehler, is an independent Egyptologist who has three books out and leads tours to Egypt.

Theresa lives with Stephen, their two cats, in Boulder, Colorado, surrounded by the Rocky Mountains and all its wildlife. 

YES, the proof for The Constant Tower cover just came in

Isn't this lovely? I kinda had to ask the artist to tweak it a bit though. Initially, the person in the foreground definitely looked African and was wearing African clothing. Not something Psal (my main character) does. I would've liked the tower to be shown in two ways -- one side showing the way Ephan sees it and the other side showing the way Psal sees it. But hey, you can't have everything. In this version, he gave Psal the staff, which is very important because Psal limps.

So, finally, here it is. This is just a lovely cover. 

Silly and in need of mental help

If one keeps tracks of the general insults thrown in one's directions, one gets a consensus of what exactly bothers folks about you. So... let me do a mini-survery: Generally, the snide comments I get are: "You're a silly woman or "you are in need of mental help."

Well, that's good. No one calls me a bitch. Or a liar. Or a cheat. Or a gossip. Or incompetent. Or an adulteress.

So, what is "silliness" anyway? And why is "silliness" an insult and who is the kind of person to call another person "silly"?

Silliness is brainlessness, I think. It implies someone is lacking in good sense, is somewhat frothy, is a bit of an airhead, has flaky priorities, is saying or doing something that "everyone else knows" should not be said or done in public.

The person who calls another person "silly" is therefore someone who believers herself to be worldly wise and who believers herself to be aware of all the proper way of thinking and being. The person who calls another person "silly" is either not silly or is careful enough not to be transparent about her silliness. The person who calls another person "silly" also esteems herself above the supposed silly person. She doesn't consider anything else going on in the person's life and has reduced that person to being a symbol of childish stupidity or flakiness.

Before I go on to a few Biblical verses, I want to ponder transparency. Are we not all confused and wounded? Are we not all like sheep having no shepherd, even if we are ultra-educated? Are we not all equally wounded? Is life not a wounded thing? Even if the person deemed "in need of mental help" were to have the money and wherewithal to get the best of psychotherapists, would that person ever be really healed? And would that person not carry some scar which hints at previous woundedness? And should that person -- after their mental help has been achieved-- go about pretending to be sane and healthy in order to appear acceptable to those who judge them?

Jesus said, if anyone says to anyone, "You Fool!" they are in danger of hellfire. Now, let us ponder that. Why is such a comment worthy of hell?

"But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, 'You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. Matthew 5:22

Well, let us consider our personal God for a moment. That's the trouble with a Personal God; HE has a personality. And in this case, we have a God who chooses the foolish.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brothers, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 1 Corinthians 1:27

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? James 2:5 

The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the LORD, what kind of wisdom do they have? Jeremiah 8:9 

 who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense, Isaiah 44:25

 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 1 Corinthians 2:12

Essentially, the citizens of earth have a God who prizes a certain kind of foolishness. Not all, mind you. But worldly wisdom is not something that impresses Him. There is apparently the world's way of thinking and being, and there is God's way of thinking and being. Sometimes they merge and work well together, but often they are at odds.

So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! 2 Corinthians 5:16

Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Philipians 2:3

Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:10 

You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. John 8:15 

We can say with confidence and a clear conscience that we have lived with a God-given holiness and sincerity in all our dealings. We have depended on God's grace, not on our own human wisdom. That is how we have conducted ourselves before the world, and especially toward you 2 Corinthians 1:12

Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. James 3:15 

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, said the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55:8,9

According to the Bible, human understanding can only help us so far.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6 

"My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains. They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place. Jeremiah 50:6 

O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walks to direct his steps. O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing. Jeremiah 10:23,24

Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law does he meditate day and night. Psalm 1:1,2

Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. Romans 14:4

Therefore, the one who calls another person "silly" or "foolish" has compounded sin upon sin. First, she believes herself capable of judging others. Secondly, that person is judging by the world's confused standards. Thirdly, that person is judging another by that person's "apparent" behavior and subtly demanding hypocrisy and the hiding of the true self. Fourthly, the judger is hiding her own self-deception in not admitting that all humans are confused, silly, and wounded.