The World Around Us

I was shocked and saddened to hear that Michael Jackson died today. Shocked, because I remember back in elementary school how he used to be the biggest star on the planet, and he really didn’t seem to me to be old. Saddened, because his life turned out to be so sad.

The Bible says in Mark 8:36, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” For quite a long time, Michael Jackson seemed to have it all. He was young, wealthy, and famous. He was able to afford a dream house, Neverland Ranch, that exceeds almost any child’s fantasy. Michael Jackson seemed to be at the top of the world.

But Michael Jackson’s heart wasn’t in the right place. Sure, he did help out people through various charities, but he spent much of his life in prodigal living. Towards the end of his life, his spending exceeded his income, and he was forced to auction off his most prized possessions. He had a failed marriage, child molestation trial, and generally didn’t seem to be a happy person. While I didn’t know him, he didn’t really come across as someone who was joyful.

Proverbs 10:22 states that “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.” Michael Jackson received the blessings of prosperity during his early lifetime especially, but it was not because of his godliness. Along with his material wealth came sadness.

In Psalm 73, Asaph questions the prosperity of those that did not love God. They lived as if they would never be accountable for their actions. They enjoyed life. The writer was envious of these people, who were able to live their lives for themselves without caring for the things of God. He talks about his envy “until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.”

Sadly, Michael Jackson’s end was not good. Was he a bad person? I don’t know. He was cleared of child molestation, yet the cloud of doubt still overshadows him. Could he have paid off somebody, or hired an expert lawyer that could work magic? It’s possible. I can’t really say anything bad about his character. But I can say that he didn’t pursue the things of God. I can’t tell you whether he was saved or not, but I can say that he didn’t seem to have the peace that God often gives people who live for him. He certainly didn’t use his abundant prosperity to support missionaries to spread the gospel.

Michael Jackson will always be known as a great entertainer. However, in light of eternity, it doesn’t matter how happy you made people. It doesn’t matter how much money you had. It doesn’t even matter whether you helped send food to starving people in Ethiopia. What does matter, what will count for all eternity, is what you did for the Lord. In that regard, Michael Jackson lived his life having abundance in things that pass away as steam coming out of a teakettle, but he was nearly bankrupt in the things that count for all eternity. Now that the steam has dispersed, and Michael Jackson must face the judge of all creation, what does he have left?

Barbara Boxer was interviewing a Brigadier General in Congress the other day, and she got a little miffed when he called her “ma’am”, rather than senator…

Now if he had been calling her dude, Barb, doll, witch, or some other non-respectful term, I could see how she would get upset with him. But really, get over yourself. Personally, I think that it’s more difficult to make Brigadier General than Senator, but that’s just me. Additionally, in the military, ma’am is a title that you give to someone that has a higher rank than you. Considering that you don’t get too much higher of a rank than Brigadier General, that’s a pretty high title.

Her comment reminded me of a parable that Jesus told in Luke 14:7-11:

7 So He told a parable to those who were invited, when He noted how they chose the best places, saying to them: 8 “When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him; 9 and he who invited you and him come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. 11 For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

When you exalt yourself, you will be humbled. Got it? I have a lot more respect for someone who has had some great accomplishments in their life, but doesn’t always bring it up, than for someone who has done much and always toots their own horn. Election day is only a year and a half away… and I must add that there is a growing discontent with incumbents, if you haven’t heard. Incumbents that want reelection need to show us why they should be reelected.

“Oh, the B-I-B-L-E… yes that’s the school for me!”

Our church is getting ready for this year’s Vacation Bible School. I get to be a puppet master for the second year in a row. I like the fact that kids get to come and learn about the Bible, but I’m a little bit disappointed in the Vacation Bible School experience that my child gets, in relation to the experience that I had when I was a kid.

I remember when I was a kid, Vacation Bible School occurred during the day. We’d show up around 8 or 9 in the morning, and we’d stay at church until around noon. We would sing in the beginning, then we’d all go to our classes. In class, we’d learn a Bible lesson. Each class would take turns going to the main auditorium to practice a song or two. We’d have snack time. We’d have time for crafts. We’d also have time for recess. At the end of the week, usually on Thursday evening, we’d have a special program in the evening for parents, singing the songs that we learned during the week. On Friday, we’d wrap everything up and have a picnic.

My daughter doesn’t get that experience. Most moms work now (and not from home like I do), and they have to go to day care during the day, so they have VBS at night, after work. They have a lesson, do about half their craft at VBS (and take the rest of it home), have a short program in the beginning, and then are sent home. No recess, and snacks are handed to the kids as they board the bus or leave with their parents. There is not enough time to learn a special song to sing to the parents. Our church hands out certificates to the children the next Sunday night.

It will be fun. My daughter enjoys it. But I don’t think that it’s the same as it was when you actually got to go for half the day.

Today is Memorial Day. A day that we tend to have a day off… a day that we should take a little bit of time to remember those who died in war.

I’ve been listening to The Great Influenza, a book about the 1918 flu epidemic. The flu took hold shortly after our country went to war. The Wilson administration took an almost dictatorial position during the war, making it illegal for newspapers to publish anything negative about the country that could hurt the morale during wartime, encouraging the formation of groups of people loyal to their country that would spy on their neighbors, and publishing propaganda pieces.

Without that little tidbit of knowledge, I used to think of the days of WWI and WWII as very patriotic. Where people loved their country, where our country was determined to win the wars that we had been drug into. I always thought that that was admirable. We are very disintegrated today. While I don’t like how fractured we have become as a nation, I also don’t think that sending out the goon squads to enforce patriotism is right either.

When officers take the Oath of Office, I find it interesting that officers pledge to “support and defend the Constitution.” They don’t pledge to follow the president or support the government. This Memorial Day, our Constitution is being trashed by the current government. It has been for years, but many of us are just waking up to the facts about how much the Constitution is being trashed.

It makes me sad to think that all those people have died in war, yet nowadays the ideals that they have fought for are being thrown out the window like it doesn’t matter. Perhaps the Tea Parties and new awareness of how far we have strayed will create enough action to get it back on track. Otherwise, these people have died in vain.

Tonight is the Survivor Tocantins finale. Who do you think is going to win? My guess… J.T. I think Taj might make it into the final two, but I really hope she doesn’t win. After all, she’s a grammy-winning musician, her husband was a professional football player, and they had their own reality TV show. She doesn’t need it. If she does, they waste their money.

After the Survivor finale, of course, they will be announcing the new Survivor location… Samoa.

Today I was just looking around and rating different Zazzle products, and I found a bumper sticker that I wished to rate:

Speak Out Against Socialism by Uncamarc
See other bumper sticker designs on zazzle.com

While I was rating this bumper sticker and leaving a comment, I took a look at some of the other comments. One of the authors wrote “Why don’t you just create you own country and leave America if you don’t like socialism?”

The author of that ignorant fact not only didn’t realize that this country was formed on Capitalist principals, as you can tell if you read the 5000 Year Leap, but they also thought that services like libraries, police officers, and firefighters were socialist principals. Ummm… no. For one thing, in almost all cases, libraries, police officers, and firefighters are funded at the state and local level, not the federal level (there are exceptions like the library of congress).

I was saddened to see a statement like this in our once proudly not-socialist country.

Unfortunately, Google hasn’t seemed to have found my latest Survivor recap yet, so if you’re looking, here is my latest recap on Survivor Tocantins Episode 12.

I’ve been working on creating some Zazzle products lately. It’s a lot of fun. These are some of the items that I’ve come up with so far:

buy unique gifts at Zazzle

I started writing for Empirical Marketing, which pays a nice paycheck, but that will probably mean that I’ll be writing less for Associated Content. I’ll just write things for fun, like Survivor Recaps… although Survivor will be over on Sunday, when they will announce the new season, Survivor Samoa.

The main ASU graduation ceremony takes place tomorrow… my husband is a student at ASU, and although he would like to be out of school finally, he is glad that he is NOT graduating tomorrow… for several reasons.

1) Barack Obama is the main speaker.  Blech.  With a 43% disapproval rating (30% STRONGLY disapprove, according to Rasmussen Reports), there are a lot of people who probably aren’t exactly pleased that he’s going to be speaking.  Of course… the disapproval rating is probably lower among college students that have been brainwashed by primarily liberal professors for the last 4 years.

2) The graduation was moved outdoors, into the 100+ degree heat, probably as a result of the speaker that 43% of the nation disapproves of.

3) Alice Cooper is the entertainment.

When I graduated from USC, Bill Cosby was our speaker. Very cool. It was outdoors, but Southern California is pleasant on a sunny May afternoon. Hopefully when dh graduates, they’ll have a good speaker, instead of one that can’t hang without a teleprompter.

Lately, I’ve been having a lot of apocalyptic dreams. Last night I dreamed that there were tons of tornadoes outside. I went into this fortified bunker type place (it was a school) to escape. I remember that there was a (very strong and thick, obviously) glass ceiling over part of this building, and the tornado passed right over the school, but we were safe. I got to look straight up into the middle of the tornado through the glass, and I took a photo. Later during this storm of tornadoes, the rapture took place.

This hasn’t been the only apocalyptic dream that I’ve had recently. I normally never dream dreams, but it seems like I’ve been having apocalyptic/rapture type dreams almost every night. I also thought I heard a horn (kind of like a car horn) before I fell asleep, but I don’t think that it actually happened though.

I have had apocalyptic dreams before, but they were usually few and far between. Having them nightly is a little strange.

My husband called me about an hour ago to tell me that swine flu has been discovered in the United States. Because I write for money, I wrote an article about it, which you can read here. Oddly enough, I wrote another article last month about how H1N1 (the same strain designation as this current pig flu) is becoming resistant to Tamiflu.

My great-grandmother died of the last major world flu outbreak in 1918. I remember reading about that epidemic, and about how they would close churches to prevent the spread of the virus. They have already closed a school in Texas, and all schools and universities in Mexico.

Whether my apocalyptic dreams have anything to do with the flu, I have no clue. Probably not. But it is odd. I’m glad that both myself and my husband make our money from home, and could hole ourselves inside if we had to. We also have a supply of vinyl gloves.