THE MOCK TRIAL

Admittedly, my heart has a personal stake in the NYC trial, but I would be opposed to bringing KSM to NYC for reasons that seem to me like common sense.

WASTEFUL SPENDING:

Why use a Manhattan courtroom? That spot calls for millions of my dollars to be spent to make it "secure"...when they already have spent millions on a specific terrorist courtroom at Gitmo for just such a day. The Gitmo site has all the bells and whistles of protection for the judges and witnesses. The Gitmo courtroom does not have any collateral terror for NYC citizens, and it lacks the allure of a potential prime spot for AlQaeda to show off. So why would we spend twice?

PRECEDENCE:

Have we ever brought a non-national (no uniform) captured on the battlefield...home to our country, entitled them to Constitutional rights that do not belong to them, and provided them with a place to speak internationally (while exposing America's soft security belly). Wow. What a sweet deal! Could we bend over any further?

So why would we set precedence? Let's consider a couple of "why" possibilities:

1. Maybe we need to prove to the world that America is eating humble pie and not seeing herself as the exceptional leader of the free world. Would that buy international "respect points"? How could that contrition be shown? Bow to emperors? Apologize over and over for America's compassionate heart for freedom as she lends a hand to help others escape tyranny?

President Obama shows a mindset born of years of seething over perceived injustice. Rather than read a history book, this mindset foments a supposition that America is the oppressor. That has given birth to an international conciliatory foreign policy called "Let's Talk". It would be helpful to remember that we were unable to talk to Hitler. Do Ahmadinijad and Chavez seem more reasonable than Hitler?

2. Maybe we need to prove that in America, we right our injustices. So our leader promises to close Gitmo and stop torture. Were those shameless campaign promises or did he have a well-conceived plan?

Clearly, there was no plan for Gitmo or it would be closed by now. That was a pandering promise with a huge downside for security needs.

What about stoping torture? Torture is horrendous; so is beheading. Am I saying one wrong deserves another? We live in an evil world and we are up against pure evil. We have faced evil before and it consistently has a murderous face. Still, what hideous disregard for life packs bombs on women and children? I am assuming that everyone in America would prefer not to employ torture as a tactic. But war is hell and we did not start it and we will not finish it unless we are equal to the task...the unsavory task.

Waterboarding is the most humane way to do a job that no one wants to do. Maybe you don't think that is an effective method. The Army does. Now is not the time to be arguing with the Army. Many people don't consider waterboarding to be torture. I don't. Would I want to be waterboarded? No, but I'm not threatening to kill millions. In a perfect world would coercion be necessary? This is not a perfect world. But the rest of the world laughs at us in this area. They know what real torture is.

So all of this proves what? We are going to set precedence because we want international respect and we are sorry for being exceptional? Speak for yourself, Mr. President. But what about one more option...

SHOWCASE AMERICA'S SUPERIOR JUSTICE SYSTEM:

Does the President want justice in the shadow of the Twin Towers? Is it not ironic that the man who would set America's justice system on a shining hill for all the world to see...has already proclaimed KSM's verdict? Doesn't that break all the rules of a system set up to proclaim "innocent until proven guilty"?

What is it called when a guilty man (as proclaimed by our President who assures us that KSM will be executed) is crammed into a system designed to protect the innocent?

Supreme lunacy.

Jesus said "The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness." John 10:10 NLT

BAD MOON RISING

What were you doing in the 60's? Had you shown up yet?

In May of 1965, my high school class at Jonesboro High was marching to "Pomp and Circumstance". My friends and I welcomed that song, but we also loved the Beach Boys and the Temptations and others. My favorite song that year was by these gentlemen on the left..."Louie, Louie" by the Kingsmen. They caused quite the "tempest in the teapot" that year about what the REAL words were that they sang. I read that the song was recorded in a one-mike set-up with the mike hanging from the ceiling and Jack Ely stretching to sing loud enough [while] the braces on his teeth created the mumble jumble vocals. But the band had instructions to say "no comment" when asked about the off-color lyrics and everyone just assumed they were naughty. Well, it sold records.

Lately I've been thinking about another disconnect between words and music. I was watching a YouTube video the other day of Creedence Clearwater Revival (below) performing "Bad Moon Rising". That was one of John Fogerty's best, although "Proud Mary", "Down on the Corner",

SusieQ", and "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" have lasted, too.

Did you know that when some people heard the words "there's a bad moon on the rise"...they thought Fogerty was singing "there's a bathroom on the right"? Either way. The audience in the old video was loving it and singing along and cheering and swooning over these shaggy fellers. But if you remember, that song was hardly cheerful. Fogerty himself described the song as being about the "apocalypse that was going to be visited upon us". No wonder the soldiers in Viet Nam identified with it. Which of these words do you think the YouTube audience could have possibly been thrilled about...?

"I see the bad moon a'rising. I see trouble on the way.

I see earthquakes and lightning. I see bad times today. (chorus)

Don't go round tonight, well it's bound to take your life...there's a bad moon on the rise.

I hear hurricanes a blowing. I know the end is coming soon.

I fear rivers overflowing. I hear the voice of rage and ruin. (chorus)

Hope you got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die.

Looks like we're in for nasty weather. One eye is taken for an eye." (chorus)

Yeah, pretty grim. Recon' Fogerty had been reading Matthew 24 about the end times? I guess modern-day Hollywood has been, considering the new movie coming out called "2012". But if I were you, I wouldn't take my cue from Hollywood or Fogerty.

When God does His end times thing, there will BE no disconnect. Everyone will understand exactly what is said and why; God says what He means and means what He says. But Mr. Fogerty WAS right when he said "hope you got your things together". Perhaps John Fogerty is a prophet. May we all be counted ready.

"Sun will fade out, moon cloud over, stars fall out of the sky, cosmic powers tremble. Then, the arrival of the Son of Man! It will fill the skies - no one will miss it. Unready people all over the world, outsiders to the splendor and power, will raise a huge lament as they watch the Son of Man blazing out of heaven. At that same moment, he'll dispatch his angels with a trumpet-blast summons, pulling in God's chosen from the four winds." Matthew 24:29-31

VETERANS DAY SALUTE

We live in the "land of the free" because of the brave.

Our military is willing to risk all, and that concept is hard to wrap your mind around. It's harder still if you have no personal link to the armed forces.

If you didn't have a soldier husband, or father, or uncle, or granddaddy (great-granddaddy), or son...then it might be harder to understand how military service colors a family.

Mike and I both can turn back the military history pages because we each have relatives who served back in the 1800's.

Mike's great-granddad, George Anderson Johnson, fought in the Civil War. He was from Atlanta, GA and he brought his family to Arkansas after the war because he had served in the northern Arkansas area and liked the countryside. Mr. Johnson is the one who carried his wife's crossstitch "Seek Jesus" (that we have framed over our mantel) in his wallet throughout the war.

Check out Mr. Johnson's fine beard. It is typical of that era, even though we look at it and tend to think of the many "bad beards" we've seen in B movies.

I cannot imagine the hardships this man suffered in his lifetime. Just getting from Georgia to Arkansas on a horse (or walking) would have killed me...and he came twice!

My grandfather, Ransom Clough, was born in the 1880's and had a logging business in Des Arc, Arkansas. The Spanish-American War was fought right at the turn of the century, so Ransom must have been a very young man when this picture was made. We can't see peach fuzz on his face, but we can see contemplative resolution.

Most people know that Mike is a retired JAG officer for the Air Guard. Colonel Cruse spent 20 years serving in that capacity. That meant that he worked 12 days in a row once a month...without a day off. Well, I guess in these days of high unemployment, there are people who would love a chance to work twelve days in a row. But it took perseverance.

Most of Mike's service years were spent at the Jacksonville Air Force base, counseling soldiers with problems associated with long deployments or whatever legal issues needed to be attended to. My husband served honorably and made lifelong friends in the service. Mike ate lunch most drills with an unlikely duo: Father Reynolds, a Catholic priest...and Carroll Sites, a Church of Christ pastor. Would you like to have been a fly on the wall? The service binds men together.

My Daddy joined the military like so many of his friends at

the beginning of WW2. He always carried a stigma about signing up and getting sent to Stuttgart, Arkansas. Something in his manhood was embarrassed that he was never sent overseas to fight, but still his military experience changed his life. It caused him to meet/marry Mother and live "down south" (Daddy was a Massachusetts Yankee). And after the war he got to go to college because of the GI Bill. That was huge for a feller who had quit high school to help feed the family during hard times. Jim was one of the oldest boys in a big Catholic family of 10 kids. The military continued to be a blessing to our family as Daddy joined the

National Guard. That was an extra paycheck during his working years, and retirement was easier for Mother and Daddy because of his Guard check. If you don't count the chiggers he always got at summer camp, the Guard was a real blessing.

My mother's sister Margaret married a funny honey, my Uncle Ned. He grew up in DeValls Bluff, Arkansas, and the military took him a long way from home to the Pacific theatre in WW2. Uncle Ned flew fixed-wing planes during the war, but he never talked about it. Ned always had a joke under his breath. I grew up regularly visiting their home at Camp Robinson, where Uncle Ned finished his military career in the active Army Guard. He was in charge of the air strip at Camp Robinson, and over time was the pilot who helicoptered several Arkansas governors around. The military taught him skills and gave him a long and distinguished career.

Our son Brad likes life's adrenaline edge, and we had to sign for him to join the Air Guard when he was 17. After Basic, they sent him to fireman's school. Mike and I couldn't help but smile because he previously had been an amateur pyromaniac. Brad's time in the military gave him an understanding of the commitment required to serve. I remember when he went down to his unit in Ft. Smith to do drills during his college years. The fraternity brothers made fun of that. Brad was incredulous that "they had no idea what the military does for them". The

Air Guard matured Brad beyond his years.

You and I share the privilege of living in a country where the military is a force for good. That is getting to be a pretty rare bird these days. There is no way to repay these men and women...except to pray for them and look for opportunities to do good toward them. Certainly now since the 100 bullets at Ft. Hood, we need to pray for the Lord to protect the ones who would protect us. And another part of "doing good" to them might be to put folks in political positions of authority who understand and appreciate our military.

One final Veterans Day salute: hooray for a brave Army major named Mike Wall. He is such a good man who continues to serve his country well after two long tours in Iraq.

"And here is how to measure it–the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends." John 15:13 NLT

THE REAL RUB

Ever so often, I catch Mike rubbing his shoulder because one of his "itis' " is bothering him. They reared an ugly head here lately because he dug some holes to put in nine maple seedlings. Mike figured it would be well worth the aggravation in years to come.

But yesterday Mike was standing in my dry bathtub talking on the phone (THE premier cell coverage area) and I heard him give out a loud, exasperated "AAAAHHHH!!" He had looked out the side yard and two of his prize saplings had been rubbed by a buck deer. One tree was just stripped of bark and might survive. The other was a gonner...broken in half and stripped of all

leaves. Mike had paid $37 at Lowe's for each of those babies, but as I mentioned before, they cost my husband more than mere money.

Does anyone see the irony here?

When we first moved to DoubleTree, Mike was thrilled to see deer on the property; his face lit up like a lottery winner. Even early this morning, we opened the blinds and there were two doe and three yearlings having breakfast in the back...and he was glad again.

Ya just can't have it both ways...

"For there is division in his mind..." James 1:8

COUNTING TIME

Do you know where we got our calendar?

Or how it is set up?

Or if everyone else in the world

uses the same one?

This weekend we fall back into a new category of time as "daylight saving time" clicks off. Now we have to know how all our appliance clocks work. Aaugh.

Calendars are a challenge since we're constantly having to throw in some time (like leap year) to make them come out right. Since I am an Americentrist (my map has America in the center), I use the Gregorian calendar. Where did I get that? It came from the Pope who got it from Julius Caesar (the Julian calendar). Our Gregorian calendar is largely a solar calendar, but we place Easter each year by using the lunar calendar. If you are Muslim, you use a lunar calendar. You may think the Jews use the Biblical calendar, but they have tweaked it over the years and added man's tradition. The Jewish calendar is called the Calculated Jewish Calendar. So we can't exactly go by that. We can go to what God told Moses (first five books of the Bible, the Torah) and see what God ordained as the Biblical calendar.

Consider how God counts time. Go back...waay back. If you were dealing with people who did not have a watch like the one above, how would you let them know when to start counting the day? Our day starts after midnight. How would shepherds know when midnight was? You could start the day when the first light was observed, but many would be asleep...so sunset is a much better choice. Everyone could see the sun drop down behind the horizon line. VOILA!...A new day. And that is what Israel did. You saw Fiddler on the Roof. Remember when they were rushing around to set the table before the sun went down? Besides, the Jews went by what God had said: "and it was evening and morning, one day". Genesis 1:5

OK, that's a day. What about a week? A month? A year? How would you break down time into those pieces? Would you watch the moon? It counts their month for them. The moon cycle starts as a sliver and moves until it is bright and full, then keeps going until it is the opposite crescent, then disappears a while, then repeats. When Israel sees the first crescent, if you count to the next new crescent it will be 29.5 days. New crescent moon to full moon is 14 days. Makes sense. And the week? Well, each quarter of the moon is seven days. Yahweh made it easy to count time. They just look up. I'll bet that kept them in better touch with creation/Creator as they were reminded to "look up" for direction.

The Hebrew word for week is "shabua" and it shows completeness or perfection. We first saw the word when God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because in it He had rested from all His work. The word for "rested" is the root word for "shabath"...the Sabbath. Leviticus 23:15 affirms that the Lord intended to use seven days for a week throughout time.

When the Creator divided the year into months, He did not say anything about "January" or "February", etc. Why would He? January comes from a Roman mythology god of the doorway. Good luck getting through that door. And February is also Roman and comes from the Latin for "purification". Can we just agree that there is only one Purifier and Door?

God's names for months were also markers for where He would put His celebration days. ("Look for the new moon of Abib and keep the Passover".) You don't get to move God's special days around to suit people's vacation schedule like we do with George Washington/Abraham Lincoln's birthdays. Our God is a great mathematician and things click right along as they have since time began. The Jews were told exactly (Leviticus 23:2) when the correct days were to observe His feasts in proper worship. The observances are placed for a sovereign reason.

"My days are like a shadow that lengthens, and I wither away like grass. But You, O Lord, shall endure forever, and the remembrance of Your name to all generations. You will arise and have mercy on Zion, for the time to favor her, yes, the set time, has come." Psalm 102:11-13 NKJV

VIEW FROM OUR KITCHEN WINDOW

Is there any doubt that our God does all things well? Check out those four maple trees in our neighbor's front yard. He planted them 19 years ago; they are the "Flaming Red" variety... and don't they flame? Thanks, Mr. Les, for sharing them with the neighborhood. And thanks, Lord, for thinking up maple trees. That Elohim (the Creator God) does an amazing job with rich colors and intricate detail!

Each season is my most favorite, but I do like

fall. If you look closely out our window, maybe you can tell that we had our first frost on the punkin' last night.

The colors of fall are my decorating palette...I love the brick red and orange and spice tones. And I found some lovely half-off fake veggies at Hobby Lobby to make a door wreath. Just call us seasonally appropriate.

I have a personal reason for loving fall - my grandmother LOVED fall and waited for this

tree beside her house to turn every year. I wish

she could see these beautiful red maples in NW

Arkansas. I wonder if "Miss Bessie" ever got this far north in her lifetime. My grandmother grew up, married, and lived all her life in Des Arc, Arkansas. She never owned a car, but walked everywhere. She was a second grade teacher for 32 years in the SAME classroom. Wait! Well...

duh! Grandmother IS seeing way more glorious scenery where she is. Ah, can it be?

And speaking of seasons and heaven, I spent all

day yesterday and today working on a Bible study. I couldn't put it down. Mike is hunting and that gave me a pass to go AWOL. I am struck with the Feasts of Israel and how God uses them to speak to the world. What could be more easily understood than hanging a sign in the sky? Everyone could see it...if they just knew what they were seeing...

Here are some things I picked up in the study:

1. When I hear "Feasts of Israel", I think of Golden Corral. But did you know that the Hebrew for that word "feast" has nothing to do with food? Back in Genesis 1:14, Elohim said "let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for SEASONS ("mo'ed") and for days and years." So God calendars by these lights He hung. And the "seasons" are His festivals.

2. That word for season ("mo'ed") is also the word for "assembly or gathering or a set time or appointment. And it also can be translated "feast". So these seasonal gatherings that the Lord sprinkled on the calendar were put there to declare His glory and to "rehearse" His two great appointments on His daytimer (the Biblical calendar). I heard a Messianic pastor say it was much better to hang a sign in the heavens than to hang a signal lantern ("one if by land, two if by sea").

3. The Jewish Feast Days don't exactly belong exclusively to Israel. In Scripture they are known as "Jehovah's Feasts". So they actually belong to the church as well. But not many in the church know about them. They will get interested, though, when they see how related the feasts are to prophecy and Christ's return. We can mark time in our calendars by the sun (the Gregorian calendar) and moon (Israel's calendar). Gentiles see solar eclipses as signs, but Israel notices lunar eclipses.

4. When you read Joel 2:31, Matthew 24:29, Mark 13:24, Luke 22:25, Revelation 6:12, and Acts 2:20...you hear repeated that a sign of Christ's coming will be cosmic upheaval and the moon turning blood red. You can see the picture above of the blood moon over the Temple Mount.

5. Did you know that you can go to NASA's website: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEpubs/5MCSE.html

to find out about solar and lunar eclipses that are past/present/future? The earth, moon, and sun have to be lined up a certain way for a lunar eclipse to happen. This century there have been some, but the only string of four consecutive blood moons that actually fall on God's feast days (Passover in the spring and Succoth in the fall) have occurred when something was going on historically with Israel. Now isn't that interesting? There was a blood moon on Passover and Succoth in:

1493/1494 when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492

Then, nothing in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries

1949/1950 after Israel became a nation in 1948

1967/1968 when Israel won the 6 Day War and took Jerusalem back

The next tetrad (four consecutive blood moons) that match Feast Days are scheduled for 2014/2015. Then, there are none for the next 500 years.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul. And let all that is within me bless His holy name." Psalm 103:1

SURPRISE!

A real surprise for me is when I go to paint my face in the morning, pull the mirror up, and by mistake look into the magnifying side of the mirror. That jolt is a scary surprise, but these days it's getting harder and harder to really surprise anyone. People are urbane; nothing surprises sophistication. They have either "seen it all" or read about it. We are all like New Yorkers in that regard.

Or so I thought...UNTIL...I heard about men willing to strap on explosives so they could go to a land full of virgins. Now THAT was new. We all applaud soldiers who willingly put themselves in danger to protect their country. They risk their lives, but they want very much to come home and LIVE. Remember the kamikaze pilots toward the end of WW2? They chose suicide over the shame of surrender and I get that. But these "modern" terrorists on donkeys volunteer to die so they can score God points. Does God GIVE points for killing yourself and others?

Times have changed and we have an out-dated tendency to think logically and reason about the motivation of our enemies. We need to remember Iran's President Ahmadinejad. We were floored when it became obvious that he wasn't just irrational in the things he was fostering...but that his whole PURPOSE in his actions was to cause instability. We can't comprehend that because it cost the lives of his countrymen. So how would you broker peace deals with that man? We found out that in his belief system, they expect their "Mahdi" to return when things are in a flux. So he's all about causing flux and foment. Apparently in Iran their T-shirts don't say "got milk?" ...they say "got foment?" Ahmadinejad thinks his course is righteous. How far can you torque that twist on righteousness?

Now we need to rethink motivation and consider in that there are some people who LIVE for the exit door and doing harm to innocents in the pursuit of their cause is considered honorable. How topsy turvey is that? Didn't God say "choose life"? Where is their regard for life? Are they hearing from their Maker? Those poor souls deal daily with a punitive mentality and think God is like them (also punitive) and they die punitively. Trouble is...they take others with them.

Which brings us to the current state of our nation. In America, our starting place has traditionally been a place of reason, but we can no longer be sure that we all launch from that common spot. Reason would say that if leadership governs recklessly, they must either be newbies or inept. But that's true only if we launch from the same goal: i.e., the good of our country. We need to realize the possibility that current leaders have another view of "the good of our country".

The Obama administration is taking our country on a wild ride. Now these words aren't meant to imply that our President is a Muslim. Why bother speculating about President Obama's religious roots...when his philosophical roots are openly revealing contempt for the "sweet land of liberty". Listen to the cheery economic optimism from the White House these days about our economy turning around. Really? Only 4% of the stimulus money has been released into the economy, with the rest coming in 2013. Huh? We sure were in a desperate hurry to get that piddlin' 4%. Can a single-digit percentage really be jumpstartng the economy? Where did the rest of the money go? And what if the US economy is spiraling down as the dollar devalues? "Well, it IS!"...you might say. And what if nothing seems to be addressing the problem...but in fact, just more insolvency was coming to pass as more as more folks lose their jobs? "It IS!"...you say again. Then logic would demand we try something different to get better. But what if insolvency WAS the plan? What if economic takedown might be a way to take America to a desperate place that would allow paradigm change. We were promised change. But it may be morphing our country into something she never has been before. It all goes back to context and belief systems.

There was very little context offered to explain Candidate Obama's thinking when he arrived on the national scene. The things he said were lofty, but didn't quite match his voting record. The press brought softball questions to Mr. Obama's altar (if they brought any questions at all). We never found out why those radical people who hated America and could be placed on a flow chart with connections to our president...weren't seriously examined. They were either poopooed (like Bill Ayres) or sacrificed (like Jeremiah Wright) or ignored (like Sol Alinsky). How many Americans do you think even has heard the name Sol Alinsky? Yet our President patterned his beliefs after Mr. Alinsky.

And so now, little by little, we are seeing the president's true colors. Van Jones is "who Mr. Obama is". Valerie Jarrett (the president's Senior Advisor/ Assistant) LOVED Van Jones and so did Michelle Obama. Do you know what Mr. Jones espoused? A former Communist and Black Nationalist, he is NOT a friend to Israel and he thinks Bush masterminded 9/11. Is he crazy or does he really think those things? It makes the regular corrupt politicians who just broke the tax law to pad their net worth...seem like harmless underachievers.

Van Jones has resigned now. But he is a young version of the 60's generation who were radicalized under college professors and took to the streets to protest the country's capitalist system. They are all grown up now, and in grey hair they may look harmless (think Bill Ayres). But their choice to leave the streets and work within the system has paid off. I would think having a number of czars in Mr. Obama's cabinet would certainly qualify as success at "working within the system". I heard someone say the other day that this radical "ruling elite" were openly flaunting their arrogance in power grabs and that their arrogance was building a tower to the heavens. Well, that sounds familiar. Wasn't Babel the test run on that project? Hey Yogi Berra, it's deja vu all over again!

They have not taken into consideration that there is already Someone in the heavens in charge. He will have the final say about this "tower of power"...just as He did the last one. Man persists in trying to make a name for himself while God's purpose is for us to make a name for Him. Rebellion is a tired, old story with yet another new face on it.

"An astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end?" Jeremiah 5:30,31 NKJV