Quotes of Renown

Authors of beauty and Truth

Bullfighter

/ Norman Eric Peterson / 1 Comment

A saying I attribute to Sitting Bull. He spoke of the two wolves inside of us as well. I wondered about this wisdom this morning and ran across more wisdom from Michelle O’Rourke. The little bulls are the battle we have with the little deaths we all must experience in our lives.

The loss’ of physical strength or stability in using what I have left. The bull of my early times swinging spike malls and 16 pound sledge hammers. I agonize over that when I should just join that death with me being the matador and the bull, joined with that blade.

We all have them, those little bulls we embrace. Perhaps the world inside that speaks failure and personal weakness or loss as the source. To rise up from the sand and brandish the blade and put that snorting thought to death. There are also the worlds many wolves that linger, just beyond the glow of our inner campfire. Eyes lit and eager to pounce upon our sense of worth and trample the fire.

That indeed is the leader of the wolf pack, sense of worth destroyer. I think I am worthless because of changes that come to us all. Physical strength, provision fears. What will become of me when those around me see this?

We indeed do change as we approach death. In old age or in disease or accident. All of us.

My favorite quote from Woody Allen: “I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens” Why do I cling so hard to my little bulls when I know they must die with me as everyone knows. Playing games within that perhaps Jesus will return and I will just be caught up with Him. Maybe I am akin to Enoch and will just ‘leave’ (after a long life) or perhaps Elijah who ascends in a flamed out custom chariot with really fancy custom wheels.

Better to listen to our God with his Mighty hand and outstretched arm that delivers time after time and tells me how much He loves me and will never leave me. Loves me the way only He does.

Many times He has shown me my true worth. Small things that are even bigger than the wolves that whisper and howl. He says, “Go here and talk to someone I will show to you” A purpose and all I have got within me. The reason I have had things happen that I cannot explain as excellent and good. My life unfolding with a mystery of loss and gain. Not embracing my mind and the abilities that I have been given as my very own brilliance and creation.

Indeed, the blade must go deep and true to put to death all those thoughts of self importance.

Listen to the creator of all things brilliant. He will give you all the encouragement and worth you ever have needed. He will turn your losses, your grief, and sadness into joy as you dance in the light of His light. Sit at His campfire and the wolfs of the world will not dare approach. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

Interruption

/ Norman Eric Peterson / 1 Comment

How many interruptions occurred today? I just get started on writing some really inspiring column and my phone bleeps. Perhaps Julie stops by my desk in mid word or thought and asks simple question or mentions a task that I forgot or was important to her?

It happens every day to all of us. I have seen drivers behind me get furious when I interrupt the velocity they were driving or even slow down so they can pass me safely. We are a busy people and focused on the tasks of our lives. Driven to accomplish what we have set before us by ourselves. Pushing that shopping cart at warp speed to get to those sale items or just some orange juice. Fuming at a cart parked right in front of the shelf we need to examine.

A very wise older priest said: “ I complained for too long that my work was constantly being interrupted, until I discovered the my interruptions were my work” A.

Resentment that my life was not going the ‘perfect’ way I had planned hours or minutes before. I have learned that instead of the irritation I can turn these things into concentration or even conversation. The shopper or the clerk ‘facing’ a shelf for example. I stop, park my cart out of the way, pretend I am looking elsewhere and glancing at the workers name tag, then address them and ask how things are going. Pretty busy today eh. Or perhaps say: “excuse me, could you direct me to the place where I can find organic beef broth? An interruption for them but not rushed. Quiet and gentle. It works and I learn a little bit about grace and even can ask them as they answer how it’s going today in the store. I learn and once in a while can listen to a slight problem they have, just listen and acknowledge the common lives we lead. Humanity 101.

At home or with friends that stop by (interrupting my precious time at work) I find with listening that what they need done in speaking or asking is an opportunity to give the love and attention I am asked to do. Gently spoken by my best friend and gentle guide, Jesus. He is never interrupted. He teaches me how to live my life and quickly quiets my anxiety with His voice.

The rush and bustle I absorb from the times I live in stops, and helps me realize indeed, this is my work for today. To affirm love and concern to another. To let them know they are important to me and perhaps dismiss apologies from them. “sorry for interrupting you” with a simple “Oh, that’s OK, I was in no rush” something gentle and affirming them that they are more important to me than my agenda. I listen and learn and even affirm. I like it. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator.

A. Henri Nouwen “Spiritual Formation”

The Twins of Our Life

/ Norman Eric Peterson / 2 Comments

It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.” ~Fyodor Dostoyevski

It is indeed, Doubt that is essential to the path of faith in Christianity. At first, it seems that doubt is gone, once faith is embraced. But is it? I must confess that I doubt at times in the seemingly impossible promises of eternal life and all that precedes it.

Protection, provision, guidance and comfort. At times it seems my life is not protected nor provided for and the comfort I desire seems as though it is the carot out of my grasp. The guidance is forgotten for a bit and I lapse into some sort of swampy thoughts. It takes the silence to look back on my life when I have been blessed by all the excellent things that I have not even asked for.

Simple things that have been the foundation of the questioning expression on my face. You know that move of your own face. A slight tilt of your head, a slight frown and the wrinkle of the forehead. Looking down a bit and your eyes pulled in along with the frown. Sort of a sad look combined with the look of puzzlement. Trying to understand a missing thing. A lost tool or something said that you didn’t quite hear. Doubt of your ability to understand or grasp reality. Doubt and confusion coupled. That can’t be right. I just saw that object. What did she say? Things akin to doubting your own understanding and not quite trusting your memory of touch, sound, sight and proprioceptive sense of balance. Off kilter in puzzlement.

Perhaps tripping over your own feet and falling to the ground or falling to the depth of your being. Doubt.

In isolation it can be devastating. With the help of someone who loves you, there is a helping hand. Reaching in to pull you up out of your fear. Love abounding to once again, reassure and rescue us from our own self doubt. A rescue that can give faith. “You’ve got this, your OK and I am here beside you, always.

Faith in another one’s words and showing you your own worth. Faith in the words of your rescuer.

This is the path to remove the doubt, the doubt that diminishes and eliminates faith. This path is well known and written about in scripture. Everyone has doubts. I look back when I feel the doubt sleeting into me. I look back on the miracles and to others, impossible communications I have been blessed with. Indeed, the helping hand of our rescuer. Jesus. He has been with me when I did not know who He was. He has whispered words to warn and guide my life to love rather than follow my indifference or even hatred of other people and really, myself.

The only way for me is to silence my mind and listen. A very old desert father in the third century put it perfectly. “Where is your savior? Why don’t you ask Him yourself? He said listen” He doesn’t lie to me and if I really am quiet and listen, He will talk to me and tell me truth about the path of Holiness. That narrow path that anyone can walk. Neither looking left nor right but walking true. Listen and walk true to the spirit of God.

It’s Pretty good. Jack Gator, scribe

Men who cannot be Ignored

/ Norman Eric Peterson / 1 Comment

There have been a few men in history that commanded by their presence and words t hat startled the world and those within their speaking. An example that was written by Ben Johnson of Francis Bacon comes to mind. “The fear of every man that heard him was that he would come to an end” Indeed to have been of that time, to be there, listening “his hearers could not cough nor look aside from him, without loss”

Perhaps we have been in that situation, startled and in the presence of a speaker so captivating, so filled with undeniable truth, that these things would occur to us as well. Billy Graham comes to mind. Standing alone, filling entire stadiums with eloquence and truth that the usual mutter and shuffling was gone from hearing. All within hearing indeed, captivated by one man telling us things we have longed to hear.

Another man, several centuries ago was Cicero of Rome, was similar and heard well. Before him was a man that spoke and wrote of experiences that could barely be understood and continue to this time to be treasured. His experiences and recollections of history cannot be dismissed as mere stories. Thousands of writers confirm what that man wrote and those words must be read and understood by all men. Many efforts have been made to share those words with the world. Even to the point of recording them in languages that have no written language.

Every man with an open heart can read these words and then so moved, read them again and again. This man’s words were written several centuries ago by a man known by most by his first name! He was in the presence of the man that he knew, the man he wrote about. This man, John, was best friends of this man. Beloved actually. The stories he has told stun Norm when he reads them and reveal truth he has ached for all his life. Words that prove that the ache has occurred to many men before him. Cervantes, Defoe, Bunyan and Donne to name just a few of them. Worth the read to understate the beauty that awaits you.

The man that John spoke and then wrote about was the Messiah Jesus who indeed captivated all who heard Him ( what a privilege to have been there for that!) I have attempted to write about these things in my columns and have been chastised and told not to do so. Rather than rant about that, I wrote one more missive complementing my detractors for listening to my words. It was enough to even provoke one them to telling me they admired my boldness and devotion to truth. Still, afraid of offending others, they could not recant. Their loss and the readers of their publications loss.

I suggest to you to read John’s story and his clear recollection of the life and words of Jesus. All the way to the end of the book that contains his and other writers from the beginning to the end of their lives. Many names are used and they all are the names of Jesus. Accurate visions of the times before His birth and His transformation into the most important Son of Man that ever lived, died, and returned to tell us of wonders for our lives to this day.

These stories have been spoken about around our world. The hushed crowds that listened to Billy Graham and Martin Luther King and countless others heard them too. These stories are even found in bedside drawers in hotels throughout the world. It’s the Bible. Venerated by millions and despised by millions. As all men, we are disturbed by these words and we always have a choice to reject them or take them to heart and speak to other men about them. Questions and discussions of that book are encouraged and welcomed. Doubt and fear usually inculcate questions, good questions too. Even the famous writers of old went there. Read them too. “I think, therefore I am… and if I think, why do I think about God? Where does that extraordinary train of thought come to me?” That’s Descartes thoughts. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

Rainbow Over the Garden

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

There it is. A rainbow, in it’s original glory. Rain reflecting the colors of the spectrum. A symbol that the Lord said He would give us as a sign that He would never flood us again.

Quite a few people have taken the symbol and the miracle of refracted light and have used it to illuminate fractured light of their own designated symbols and message.

There are many people that also have taken the beauty of the rainbow and used it as a symbol of a product. Quite harmless but still, diminishing the astonishment a child sees. Do you remember the first time? I remember the first time my son saw it. He was fascinated with the arc and even went to England to meet Ken Ham that came up with building a 1:1 copy of Noah’s commanded Arc. Rainbows of covenant between us and the Lord.

Another outfit decided that the rainbow would instead be a symbol of freedom for them. The concept does not make sense in some ways. Freedom? from what? The rainbow’s only freedom is freedom from an earth flood.

The Governor of our state thinks it is appropriate to fly a rainbow flag for a month celebrating endorsing the hijacking of the beautiful rainbow image. For freedom to embrace perversion. How enlightened. It will please 5% of the population that are on board with birth control by having pregnant men.”How many fingers Winston?” (Brave New World)

Remember Judy Garlands song, ‘somewhere, over the rainbow’ ? That symbolized the promise. We of the last century (don’t ask) would never believed that someday our public schools would be teaching the ‘new’ symbol and language. No more does the rainbow offer a promise of protection and commitment. It now offers the symbol of flesh used for pleasure and a prime focus of our awokened sensibilities. Awoken to the real freedom of endorsement of a child being able to be whatever sex they want to be. When our new Supreme Court Justice cannot define what the word ‘woman’ really means, then we are on the way to Ephesus or Pompeii redux.

Maybe the words ‘on the way’ are inappropriate. That train is here, at the station, engine idling. It has already arrived . How about sliding open that boxcar with the really neat rainbow painted on it? Oh look, it’s already open but there’s nothing inside but an unpleasant odor. What’s in the rest of them? Famous authors and ‘experts’ for Newspeak magazine perhaps. Professors and liberal teachers to indoctrinate the children.

That open boxcar in particular had a whole wardrobe for the King! Splendid it is said. A veritable rainbow of color and coordinated accessories. The parade has already started and has startled one young boy…”the King doesn’t have any clothes on!” He is walking around, prideful in his power. Naked and seen as a fool. You and I know the difference between men and Women. Counterfeit money is in the till. Try and spend it. Jack Gator Scribe

Creativity of a Wordsmith

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, does glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven; and as imagination brings forth the forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing, a local habitation and a name.” a

There is a great deal of unread and unnoticed wisdom floating about. Often, those words get clouded over with brash recitation. The meanings almost completely lost for the listener to the erudite speaker. We all do it. As a radio would just become background noise to alleviate the lack of conversation, so does great literature and poetry become in the hands of a tone deaf musician. After all, music is poetry put to sound. Prose and poetry are intoxicating concertos when done well.

Of course, there is a beginning to listening and that is a decision to be made by us all. Do we believe in what is being said as truth, real truth? Or does the effort to inculcate us with excitement in discovered truth not appeal? After all, You and I are most ignorant of great wisdom that lies just about, flat and bound in cardboard or fine leather. Stacks of those at times around my comfy chair that somehow manages to lull me to sleep. Just when my hungry mind starts to come awake, I fall into a slumber. Too much of the fruit of the mind can be intoxicating. Small doses work better for me.

Am I getting tedious and bit vague now? Good, that’s the point. Trained at an early age to embrace ‘speed reading’, I become a bit of a prig without understanding well. The words were read correctly and their meaning understood. There is a word that showed up on the old, yellowed report cards now and then, comprehension. A good illustration would be a story about a young boy that had an extraordinary experience. This boy in the story found a treasure that was revealed later in the book. I instantly thought of booty and coin like. My intellect was not engaged in the story.

The story in mind was a fantasy about real things of spirit and life. The author (a recognized master) had written the story to engage both our excitement and awareness of our selves in the story. After a paragraph or two, stories like this one should be vivid. We paint pictures and set in a sound track. After the story or movie per se’, the author rather insists we go beyond and play the melody of words that add a great deal. Great literature can resemble piano lessons. Suddenly the flatted fifth is beauty..

The next time this happens, I catch himself either dozing, editing to make the story make sense in my mind. ‘This isn’t relevant to me. Why am I listening/reading this? Just as wheat is combined, the sifting begins to yield the golden kernel hidden in a plain looking stalk. The loaves of bread in the promise are not seen by casual glances. Gleaning it is called and we are called to glean wisdom from everyone we meet in person or not. Our choice. Be arrogant and think of ourselves as complete as we are, or open up our hearts and find treasure at hand. Treasures abound if we look for it. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe

a. William Shakespeare With much thanks to George MacDonald for his novel, At the Back of the North Wind

The first signs of things to Come

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Signs of otherness. Different ways of looking at the world. Wondering about the people involved in these things. Speculative questions, because history of things of the past can only be derived from writing of eyewitnesses (the best type) or records from the time and place. The more corroborating evidence,the more assured history can be derived. Autobiographies are the best. They have to be believed of course. Fiction does not read as history does. Historical accounts usually have odd things and twists of life that authenticate them.

A few examples: I had the earliest General Class Amateur radio license when I was in grade school. The examiner at the downtown courthouse said that. That examiner didn’t specify whether it was just in the state or the nation. Thirteen words a minute Morse code and the ability to sketch a power supply and an oscillator circuit. Things like that. Laws and rules of radio frequencies and basic electronics/electrical knowledge to round it off.

I remembers too asking my 3rd grade teacher when the class would be studying soil and earth crust stratification. She laughed and said “later for that” Odd, I thought. I really wanted to know those things. ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself and the class’ was also said. Don’t stand out was the message. It won’t go well.

I wondered why his classmates talked about leaves in trees and stars and other things far away. I was very nearsighted and finally was examined and got my first set of glasses. ‘Four Eyes!’ Bullies, finally finding an in road to beating me up. My ‘favorite’ was a Croatian boy. Face washing in the snow was one of the highlights of winter. All that young boy wanted was to have a friend. I was perfect, an outcast and very different. Third grade children do not talk about ionization of the atmosphere and radio signals blocked from the sunspots. I turned out pretty good and I really know now what I have been prepared for. All that curiosity I was gifted with, all those other gifts. These things were designed to help me write about another man. A man that I don’t need a radio to communicate with, a man I can hear in my mind and spirit. Clearly.

That man lived a long time ago, and did such astonishing things that are written down in a very reliable history book. Quite a few books actually. That young man, not a child, but a young man of no reputation, did things that no one has ever done since. He was at a social event, a wedding with his Mother, and the guy who was throwing the party ran out of refreshments. A social blunder of the first sort, especially at so important an event. The revelers had drunk all the wine and it was getting embarrassing for that host.

The young man’s mother, she knew his father very well. She pointed out the problem then, and her son told her it was “not His time”. An odd thing to say of his life from then on. Never the less, Mom told the waiters to do whatever her Son told them to do. As recorded, after a short time, her Son told the waiters to fill up all the empty jugs with water. A lot of wine jugs and a lot of water. One of the guests drew a flagon of the fluid from one of the jugs and pronounced it the best wine of the celebration. “Most hosts save the cheap box wine for the end! This wine is exquisite, the best I have ever tasted!” Water to wine, bypass the vineyard and all that messing about with stomping grapes and aging. This was the very beginning of the young man’s tale. Just a peek behind the curtain of eternity. So, Discerning historical events isn’t too hard to do. No one would make up a story like that.

The things that I write about are similar. No one can make up stories like that. If you know where and how to look, you know. Other historians, distant in the past, or right now on this page, want to tell truth. It is so fascinating and astonishing to discover a world outside of ourselves that tells us who we are. Tells us what we are and why we are here.

Of course, the young man was Jesus and his Mother was Mary. His Father I leave to you to discover. It’s a great family tradition. Don’t get confused, Just talk to Jesus. He’s pretty good. Jack Gator

The Straw man Argument

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It’s good timing and it’s also a perfect time to expose the illogical rumors, rumors of rumors and downright lies that can circulate around the drain. Spinning around and around until they are hopefully, flushed down where they need to go. Let me clarify that: Just because these lies are being flushed does not make them good fertilizer for growth. They still smell bad.

There are many ways to lie, but the most effective way is to think you are speaking the truth. To believe the lie so well that you would pass most lie detectors. It’s the lie of non logical thought.

I have recently been studying logic and philosophy and this straw thing is huge in our society. Let’s start with an easy example. One starts with what is called a ‘premise’ An uncontested piece of information we can describe as a truth. Our first premise then will be: “Water is wet” Second premise “Everyone needs water” Both true statements. The intersecting straw man that tries to join these would be: “ Everybody likes to get wet” We do it a lot, most without thinking.

I will put a few sarcastic comments in now but they also apply to him, the not thinking statement. You make a straw man argument out of that as well. Try it on someone and see if they get the illogical. “ Most people read about a lot of things” “Reading is a good thing” “ Not reading is a bad thing” A little more subtle. That’s the way it sneaks in.

A common but false etymology is that it refers to men who stood outside courthouses with a straw in their shoe to signal their willingness to be a false witness. The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the term “man of straw” can be traced back to 1620 as “an easily refuted imaginary opponent in an argument.”

These days the straw men are lining our roads with signs. They tell each other tales of struggle and hatred perceived in their minds. It sounds logical until you draw three interlocking circles. You draw one circle with a true precept naming it. Same thing for the second precept. These are two things that are known truths. Then you interlock a third circle encompassing one and two. Call it what you want to come forth as you think your logic is correct. We do it a lot, more than we remember.

So…here is the straw man that is tumbling our area like a berserk raccoon trapped in a washing machine.

Precept 1. Farmers own a lot of land which they use to support their families.

Precept 2. Huge factories of animal production want to use this land to build factories upon.

Conclusion: Neighbors who don’t want the factories hate farmers. Another Straw Man argument.

Precept 1.I have lived in this area a long time and so has my family. We own a lot of land

Precept 2.You have lived in this area for a short time and do not have a lot of land.

Conclusion: I am more important than you because of my wealth.

We do these things without even thinking about them. We think we know truth. These things can be seen and heard and avoided if you listen. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe

Warp Ten Scotty

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

We have heard the command many times in ‘Star Trek’ for the Enterprise space craft to go as fast as it can to watch where no man has gone before, or to catch somebody that can almost go that velocity in outer space. The speed of light is a measurement as is a cut of precision in a 2 x 4. Measurements great and small are the concept of our minds. We measure everything we live with: “what time will you be here?” “How many of those do you need?” “How long will this trip take? (one minute driving, an hour walking as does my phone map app says) Incidentally, electricity and radio waves travel at the same velocity, speed of light. Why?

Why do we then measure, or try to measure the distance of stars? Because we want to put them all in our concept of time. Absurd lengths as the speed of light and the star group of Alpha Proximas is only four light years away! It’s the closest one to us, let’s get going and see what is around it, at 36 thousand miles per hour it will only take 78 thousand years! That’s were Voyageur is headed after leaving our solar system some time ago. It has a record of Chuck Berry’s ‘Johnny Be Good’ aboard. No record player though. If they get it it will only take four years for them to call us back via radio and ask us how to use it! Light and electrical waves travel at the same velocity. Who do you think set that up? Again, 186 thousand miles per second. Six times around earth in one second. Close to 2 seconds to the moon and back. Eight minutes for sun light to reach us. So when you see the sun it is actually 8 minutes past what you are seeing. It’s quite a distance when I think of those things. And that’s just our neighborhood.

There is research on a warp drive which is much akin to surfing (I surfed for the better part of a year at Hermosa Beach in California) You just ride the wave in an Alcuberre space craft which would only take 20 years! Of course, the space craft is a gram sized wafer. Theoretically of course. Smallish. Coach class only.

We do not understand infinity because we live and think in time. As Novatian stated in the third century (200 to 263 A.D.), “All our thoughts, will be less than He, all our loftiest utterances will be trivialities in comparison to Him”

Of course, being locked into time ourselves, we can’t really understand eternity (unless you are Stephen Hawking who is now dead, eternally) He tried to. We try when it is a convenient time in our comfy chairs or even listening to a sermon about the infinite God. We misuse that word infinite as it is convenient to bring eternity into our reasoning. “It took him infinite pains to paint that!” or “She had unlimited patience with her class” Really? Or as A.W. Tozer puts it, “ We say unlimited wealth or boundless energy” which for us is absurd and only applies to an infinite being.

I asked a question as I was flying over the East Coast, close to D.C. It was a clear night and I figured each light represented two people. I saw lights all up and down the eastern seaboard. I asked our Lord. ‘How can you count every hair on our heads?’ “Easy He said, it’s a finite number”. Oh of course silly me. Enlightening and a very quick response to a fairly decent question.

Why do we do this with our words and thoughts? It’s a toss out in speech or writing to trivialize something we can’t understand. Whether we admit or not, everyone contemplates eternity and even the atheist states that they will be eternally dead as though eternity was a really long period of time.

One of my favorite songs is “Strong Love” and it has the lyrics to describe God as Neither height, nor depth nor length or width can separate us from His strong love” Rightly said. Closely sung and experienced, we are singing about four dimensions which, of course, include eternity. It’s fun to think about our eternal God while eating breakfast and reading one of my favorite books of Dr. Tozer. At some point (another measurement) I reach for my coffee and take a sip and contemplate the day’s schedule.

Much akin to a 20 amp circuit breaker in the gray box, my mind goes to a familiar place and things inside that box. A safer place. A place that has measurement in hours and days and even split seconds as hearing the micro-wave beep finish the now warmed fore mentioned cup of coffee. A place that the circuit breaker is allowed to safely trip and allow some ‘time’ to redirect concentration.

So have fun with the Eternal Revenue Service that only asks for everything you are, everything you have and everything you think and believe. In turn, if you are truthful on your return form and are genuine in your giving everything, then our Lord will give you love and joy and eternal life. It’s pretty good.

Jack Gator, Scribe

Contemplating Eternity

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

“In the beginning” Three words that describe the entry into the creation of time and the impossible comprehension of what time really is and how time and eternity exist together. Heady stuff. Once
in 10th grade physics, I was asked to do a presentation on Einstein’s theory of relativity. It was
impossible and the best that I could do was try to describe the bending of light by suns and massive
Gas giants. Light that would cause the known universe to actually be a sphere. It made our solar system feel like an indoor affair.

The impossible times mentioned by astronomers which try to describe distance by the speed of light itself. A traffic sign out in the Crab Nebula: Speed limit 669,600,000 miles per hour. Light years
used to make it a bit simpler. A few miles a year. A bit faster than the fastest cars on the Autostrada in Europe. After all, the closest stars to our own are only 4 light years away, next door neighbors. So far, the closest exploration of space has been our moon, and recently, Mars. Not much to show for that effort except a couple of reasonably priced ATV’s left behind which are really neat.
The price for them is very reasonable, delivery is an issue and expensive. Really nice though, great on sand!

There is no logic that affirms bigger is more important. Saturn or Jupiter are not more important than
earth. The Andromeda Galaxy is not more important and worthy than our solar system. It’s just a lot bigger, Is a child less valued than a grown man? Logic dictates the answers to this question.
I am assured that I am just a valuable as a President and the opposite. So it begs the question: What is
more worthy than anything we can see or touch or hear?

The dialogue between Lucretius and Posidonius in Voltair’s writings is another, older dialogue between the atheist and a spiritual man. Never grows old, these conversations. Both imaginary men were written into existence by Voltaire and are brilliant and their arguments well versed. I leave it up to
you dear reader to read and enjoy the dialogue. Same one between Steven Hawking and Ravi Zacharias. Many acknowledge Steven’s genius as I, but in matters of creation he was a bit off.

The debate continues throughout history. As for me whom has been spoken to by the living God, it is a moot point. What a privilege to have your life saved to write and speak about Jesus and His gentle ways.

Time and time again He reveals himself to us. Paying attention to that still, small voice
from the Word of creation is key. Impossible it is said. I must be delusional and a fool. Such talk is
humorous and disappointing to me. Seeds of beauty and inquiry are planted at such conversations. Denial is useless. I know my beautiful and incomprehensible Savior chose a drug addicted young man for salvation. Me. No reason other than to be a witness in the dock telling such truths.

Look into my eyes as I tell you story after story that excites me. You can tell. I am not delusional nor insane. Look into my eyes again. The steady gaze I have seen from my King with an unbelievable privilege Is in there. It’s pretty good. Norm/Jack