Quotes of Renown

Authors of beauty and Truth

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