Beguiled by the Extraordenary

Sometimes you shouldn't speak right away in responding to a news event. This whole shooting at Virginia Tech requires prayer and meditation about it. We need to extend our prayers both for the injured families of the victims, but we also pray for any other mentally deranged people out there that might think about doing the same thing. It's something that people are constantly second guessing. What if the cops had closed down the campus after the first shooting? What if these teachers who knew he was mentally ill had spoken up more vocally. What if the right people has been warned? I think what we need to realize is one source told us to tell our kids is "This is a very unusual event". It's extraordenary. They call events extraordenary because they are events that don't occur every day. But it's pointed out that in big cities violence actually does go on every day and we don't think about it because it's gang violence. It's black on black crime there people think less of it. But we should not be beguiled by the extraordenary. A lot of things can be extraordenary. You could have extraordenary forgiveness. If one of the Black tribes was the sole surviving member of her family the rest of which were slaughtered by the Arab tribes on a killing rampage, and she said "I forgive them", this would be extraordenary. But some would make forgiveness an every day, yes, even a required activity for instance to be "really accepted as a Christian". This is an unreasonable requirement because certain things are notworthy BECAUSE they are UNUSUAL. If they occurred every day or were required they would be "expected" and hence the thing that makes them unique would be lost. You know- forgiveness last I heard was a volitional and conscious act tword another. In order to forgive you have to Remember the offences they did. If you've forgotten them due to the passage of time or surpression of memories, you can't truely forgove the other person. God said "Vengance is mine. I will repay". So even if you say "I leave you to the mercies of God, don't expect God is going to have the same compultion he MUST forgive the other as you have. Some sins are not yours to forgive. (Selah) There are extraordenary meracles such as Jesus rising from the dead. My position on this is even if it happened- even if they had photographic or movie proof of it- - even if they proved the image on the Shroud was some radioactive residu of the "life force" or something, this in itself wouldn't mean that much in the overall scheme of things. Acterall it would be a flook. That's what a flook is. It's something that happens that doesn't have any particular meaning beyond what it is. If Jesus resurrected from the dead it wouldn't mean death was destroyed because it clearly is with us. It wouldn't mean that all our sins were wiped away for all time because they clearly haven't been. You have extraordenary giving. Jesus told about the poor widdow giving her last two mites which was "all she had to live on". Are we to infer that she had no friends and that she now had no place to live and would starve to death? I don't think so. Gene Scott seemed to almost EXPECT people to give "alabaster boxes" in duplication of what Mary Magdolane gave to Jesus. Again, if everybody gave precious gifts the act would not be as extraordenary as it is. Some people are asked to have extraordenary faith and patience. I seem to have been one of these as a Christian. My relationship with God might be defined the way Malery described her relation with Skippy, a boy who had a crush on her. "I thought we each understood our relationship. You get down on your knees and grovel and say you can't live without me- - - and I reject you". (It's always worked in the past) Some people have extraordenary courage throwing themselves on a granade to sacrifice themselves to save all the others in their platoon. But extraordenary doesn't always mean good. What if a man had a fifteen inch long penis that was erect for eight and nine hours at a time and the shaft was three & a half inches in diameter? That would be extraordenary but it would be nothing to be desired. We have a word for "extraordenary" cell growth. It's known as cancer. Sometimes you can have extraordenary luck, as in the case of a person who wins the Lotterey. Yet some one like Joel Olsteen seems to think that if you have the right attitude twords God, everyone can win the Lotterey of life. But if everyone was a winner the prize wouldn't be so high. Some say "You shouldn't be trapped by the belief in limited good". These people obviously have grown up in the family I grew up in or served in the same Christian religion I have served in. Sunday after Sunday we would be treated to sermons on how God is so MAD at those Isrialites wandering in the wilderness and doubting his word- - that he's apparently exausted his mercy and grace for all time so now if you ask for so much as 35 cents to make a phone call God will bite your head off. These are things to think about.

The whole issue of Guns and the availability of them has been raised the past few days by people like Randy Rhodes and Thom Hartman. I'm getting a little sick of it myself. You know the drill. Guns don't kill; people kill. Why blame the guy who sold Chow those guns. He didn't know Chow was mentally ill, as Rush points out. But others did know he was mentally ill. You know- sometimes shit happens. What if you lived in Iraq now. Wouldn't that DEATH qualify as something to complain that "This shouldn't happen again". Nobody thinks of that. Some people repeat the lie that you shouldn't own a gun to defend your home from burglers because the burgler might get your gun and kill you with it. This is a lie often spun by Michal Jackson on his radio show. It's a bunch of "Bulsh". Statistics have shown that where the criminal fears the people of a residence are armed, they won't break into the house. You know people talk about the wild west and yet Jesse James when he robbed all those trains and banks really could count on the fact that the comon people wern't armed. If they had been, he wouldn't have gotten away with the things he did. Now I hear that guns were espressly banned from the Virginia Tech campus. This only will insure that Chow will be uncontested on his shooting rampage. Perhaps, as Rush points out, if people had it to experiance over again they would all rush the suspect and grab his gun to stop him from firing. It would seem to me sort of a group "survival of the species" instinct. Even if one of the people dies, the others by their sheer number will stop the shooter. Why is it we didn't have psychopaths like this in the old West? Some people say that Chow wrote disturbing and disturbed stories. I accessed one on the internet courtesy World Net Daily. The story wasn't my cup of tea but it's absurd to say that people who write about violent things must be violent. What about Samantha Brady killing E J Wells on Days of our Lives? Isn't that violent? Who wrote that story line. Should someone have them comitted? I don't like the term "rambling" to describe letters and speeches and stories of psychopaths. It's one of those loaded red hering words. What about sermons of people like Gene Scott. Those things were rambling. Gene Scott was proactively proud of how disorganized his sermons were and how far they had deviated from any outline. He called it "being carried away in the spirit". People who "ramble" probably (a) have a lot to say and (b) have little time to say it and have to cram it all in quickly.

Rush Limbaugh has said perhaps it's political correctness that's the problem because we are told not to infringe on others lives but to "let them do their thing". Of course the left is running into big problems these days. Gonsolez is going to make mince meat of congress and make all the democrats look like fools. Anyone's a fool if they think the agenda of George Bush can be stopped. People may whine about George Bush but they'll turn around and vote republican next year, probably for Guiliani. Now there's an artical in World Net Daily where a woman shattered one of these new mercury long life bulbs and had to call the toxic control center. She should have just vaccumed it up and that's the point. We kids used to play with mercury at various times during elementry school and got the gray residu on our fingers but I don't remember anybody getting mercury poisoning. People will buy a hybred to save gas rather than by a giant S U V, but at the same time producing that hybred might have expended more resources than producting of the S U V did.

I can only express my joy that the Supreme Court thanks to Justice Kennedy upheld the ban on partial birth abortions passed by Congress in 2003. Rush Limbaugh's joy seemed to be extremely muted but this is a time to celebrate. Justice Sculie said that Roe vs Wade had to be taken down door frame by door frame. If this be the case then I say let us continue that forward march. I think it would be easy to throw out Roe vs Wade because the child in the origional case was never aborted. Therefore you have no case to begin with. You have a void verdict. A few years ago I voted no on a proposition that granted people the power to sue for envirnmental polution that wern't harmed themselves. No. I believe you have to have an actual case.