Sat, Jan 31st - 11:44AM

Item number 1

I am accused of:

1) Willingness to participate in a military coup rather than accept a federal leader who exposed a US war as unwise.

I am pretty sure this relates to my comments on the Gore/Bush recounts in Florida and one little fast one that Gore tried unsucessfully to pull off.  The election was tight, and the Winner of Florida would win it all.  Those of you who can remember probably remember the hoopla about 'hanging chads' and the noise surrounding that.  Those of who are not old enough to remember this, you need a few more grey hairs before you slam into me like my wife's uncle does.  You may respectfully question me, and I even encourage that, but I get enough from the college students on the train who know history better from reading about it in college, than I do, having only lived through it, and being obviously uneducated.

¹⁵ I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. ¹⁶ I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message. ¹⁷ Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them.

John 13:15-17 (NLT)

¹⁹If you belonged to the world, the world would treat you with affection and would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world [no longer one with it], but I have chosen (selected) you out of the world, the world hates (detests) you.

²⁰Remember that I told you, A servant is not greater than his master [is not superior to him]. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word and obeyed My teachings, they will also keep and obey yours.

²¹But they will do all this to you [inflict all this suffering on you] because of [your bearing] My name and on My account, for they do not know or understand the One Who sent Me.  (my emphasis)

John 15:19-21 (AMP)

I digress here to make this point:  We all have a master and we follow that master's teachings.  I think most colleges do not follow Christ.  Their world view is 'only' a worldly view, full of worldly (and worthless) wisdom.  Few of these 'slaves' even understand just how enslaved their minds are.  You can have a PhD, but if what you have a PhD in is this world's view that is not in alignment with God's, it is worse than worthless.  It is deception itself.  I think it even becomes one more chain that binds you/us into such spiritual slavery.  I take a lot of abuse from Satan's willing Slaves.  (the SS, as I call them)  But I must admit, I still find it hard to always take joy in that.

Ok, back to the subject.  The item my wife's uncle was refering to was that I said that if the election was won by Gore by a fraud, Bush might be able to say so, and claim to be the 'true' Commander in Chief.  Were that to happen, a few Generals might agree, and if this happened and Bush was right in making such an assertion, they should agree.  The particulars of the fraud do not matter, but I will address them as a side note later.  The underlying truth is that even if Gore won by the Supreme Court making a decision in his favor that was clearly contrary to the Constitution, the fraud would still be a fraud.  The Truth stands on it's own Authority.  The Supreme Court often acts as if they are a higher authority than the Constitution since it is their duty to correctly interprete the laws, and share this with the people.  They are no better than those in Jesus' time who interpreted God's Laws to suit their own desires.  Christ spoke of them.  Every soldier swears to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  Quite a few of us take that oath more seriously than you suspect.

Yes I spoke of the violent overthrow of our government, in this limited scenario, as correct, and if it were to happen in such a way that I would side with those that I thought were correct.  I would oppose one who came to power by fraud if I could.  However, I also said that even though I did think it might have been correct if this were to happen, that I doubted Bush would have raised the issue.  I did not think our country was at the point that he would feel he should do that, or that the Generals would feel compelled to respond.  I said then that I did not think that our country would be there soon.  I recently revised that opinion to say that we are getting there more quickly than I previously believed.  That is most likely what prompted this comment, since he might infer that I think Obama should be overthrown in a coup.  I made no such claim along that line.  I don't think I can, at this point.  But I do think our founding fathers anticipated the very need for a coup to be possible.  That should frighten some of you, for although he discounts my experience as nothing, touching the pulse of a living thing for thirty years does give you some more intimate understanding than just hanging around the bedposts for three.

The second part of his little jab was the obtuse comment that implies he knows my heart.  "...rather than accept a federal leader who exposed a US war as unwise."

Frankly, he has used this saw so much, it is dull. As far as I can tell, his opinion is that all war is unwise.  That is fair to have that opinion, and he might even think that opposing Hitler was a good idea, so I cannot even say that I know his view completely here.  I really don't know that for sure.  However, I know he has no inkling of what is in my heart.  This is the kind of Sophistry I Hate the Most!  The denigrating of another fellow human, even a Brother in Christ, with an air of superiority that belies the claim of being a Christian.  DON'T DO THIS!!!

Oh it sounds good and 'Puffs up' the one who does it.  But this is the farthest thing from Love and Truth.  Read that famous passage on love in 1 Corinthians 13 and tell me this is right or wrong.

In Prayer and Awe of our Lord,

Mel

Mon, Jan 19th - 9:57AM

The response is hard for me.

Let me explain one thing:

I am not perfect in the one thing that will be the worst.  That is, forgiveness and the abilty to not hold a sin against someone.  For that very reason, I had to let my anger subside before I could even begin to address this.

Now I begin.

This letter was sent to me through my wife's email, which may be appropriate in the eyes of some.  I ask you to re-examine that notion.  I am not easy to get in touch with directly at times, but it can be done if you think it worth the effort.  This would have been better to come to me alone.  Examine what you may think the reasons would be to not do so.  You may be right.  If so, convince me, please, for my good.

Now I need to be clear on one thing:  I may be wrong, and he may be right on the underlying arguement on the rightness and wrongness of actions of our leaders.  He has good points from time to time, and can even explain them with better than empty rhetoric, should he choose to do so.  The underlying theme in all of this is that of Authority.  He may have points right here or there, but is wrong in the overall view, as I see it.

This began with a holiday letter sent out that we received just before Thanksgiving time.  He is my wife's Uncle.  Her mother was married, and although divorced, has not put herself under his Authority and still stands for her broken marriage, even if despondent at times about this.  At least, that is my understanding.

I digress.

The letter itself was fine as far as I could see.  However, included was a little slip of paper with the following on it:

Support Prima Facie
Impeachment

Initial JC Hearing on Bush & Cheney
Held July 25th

And it included a hyperlink that I will not honor here.

Not really a problem, except that his mother, my wife's grandmother, requested that he refrain from such rhetoric around the family.  Now she did not command it.  That is not her way or nature, and I count that to her credit.  I have been asked to refrain from similar things about Clinton.  Ok?

Her authority here is exactly the same as Mary's over Jesus when he performed his first miracle.  Go back and check that one out.  You will find that she does not seem to have given her son any sort of order, and from his response about this not being his time, I would say this was not the will of Christ himself to do this at this time.  Go back to the old testament 10 Commandments if you need to and understand.  What did God (the son) himself do there?  That is powerful to understand!

Understand that the Patriarch Authority he aludes to is very real in my mind, and very ancient as well.  Let me illustrate:

 ²⁴ When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵ he said,
       "Cursed be Canaan!
       The lowest of slaves
       will he be to his brothers."

 ²⁶ He also said,
       "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem!
       May Canaan be the slave of Shem.

 ²⁷ May God extend the territory of Japheth;
       may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,
       and may Canaan be his slave."

 ²⁸ After the flood Noah lived 350 years.

Genesis 9:24-28 (NIV)

What terrible thing had Ham done to deserve this upon his children?  The understanding I have is that he stumbled across his father naked and drunk, and rather than do something about it, he embarassed his father in front of his other sons.  Understand, Noah was drunk and not exactly in the right in all things here.  But the curse stood.  That is just how powerful this authority is!

So without my laying out more here, can you see the problem I have with his claims of leadership over me along those lines?  A hint would be when he talks about my father.

Ok.  He does have age on me.  I must respect his wisdom for his grey hairs.  I do try and do that, and not always do as well as I should.  His point there is sound.  So I have to work on that.  But in the way it is said, I think you can understand how hard that can be at times.  But like Noah's drunkeness, this does not excuse my fault.

The reference is made to approach this scripturally, as if I do not have the support of God's Word in my point of view.  Well, that is fair enough to ask, but not fair to do so in the way of The Accuser, and you know of who I speak.  I'll not bang that scripture out here.  In Acts 17, I ask you to examine the way that Paul addresses the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.  Did he use scripture to talk to them?  Yes, it is fair to ask for scriptural backing to what we say.  We should welcome this.  We should always pursue the Truth, and this is a very good way to do so.

I can speculate on the meaning of the specific charges he lays at my feet.  Some I think I know where they come from and will answer as best I can.  Those accusations actually do not bother me as much.  I attribute them more to my not explaining my position well enough, or <<gasp!!!>>, I am wrong!

Go in Grace,

Mel