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“Is this…(fill in your name) – I’m calling because your daughter has been in an accident.” Words we fear hearing, we don’t dwell on it, that would be called paranoia, but we don’t like hearing those words, and we dread the thought.  Two weeks ago, some families heard those words, and they were being notified that the man of the family was in a disastrous accident in the Gulf of Mexico- in the worst of all possible end results, eleven of these brave men, lost their lives.
The question now is- is this merely blow-back from the sealant, or is there something else going on here?

When the United States of America begins to dig into it’s so called energy crisis- built around petroleum consumption; three questions come up:  1)  Can we curb our consumption or change the way we consume the petroleum.  2)  Are we so tied into the petroleum use that we cannot change.  3)  If we begin to drill for our own oil resources, designed to come into American tanks for storage, will that lessen our dependence in America on what is called foreign oil?

These three questions eventually hit the cost factor – and the companies which drill for oil, have to operate as any other company for a profit.  So the oil drilling companies are used to a certain standard of operation, and, the consuming and storing companies are also used to a certain standard, and the pricing of petroleum is consigned via certain economic mechanisms having very little to do with consumption, and much more to do with speculative value which homegrown American storage would impact upon.

At the end of the day, the question will come up, was this a disaster that occurred because of error, flaw in design, or- is this something else?  We aren’t talking about a ship which moves with currents and charts and can get off course, or be blown or maneuvered off course through many different factors, rather this is a set platform with set operating procedures.  Were those procedures altered- and if so, was that alteration part of standard or non-standard behavior?  At the end of the day, is this disaster meant to make America once more hunker down about drilling for her own oil?

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Whenever I hear somebody that is just an awesome talent, they stick with me, what about you? So when I first heard John Frazier
hit the sax, it BLEW ME AWAY, bad pun, but TRUE! Check out this tune:
Chris Voss is excited about John and there is a chance that internet marketing may come around to help this rising star really get going…and you, dear reader…can get in on this career as it takes off…for now…just listen and enjoy…John Frazier

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Do not ignore the story of what it means to trade off your soul cheaply; it’s a famous story, retold so many times, from “The Count of Monte Cristo,” to more modern approaches, such as Nicholas Sparks, “The Last Song,” the idea is not hard to grasp, the relationship that is one sided, and the big side of the wishbone, isn’t on your side!  Sure it’s easy to say that we’re going to be big, we’re going to walk away, we’re going to do the “right thing,” only when you come to the point of decision, where it counts, if you are like me, your heart gets in the way, and you run the danger of making a lousy trade and cheapening your own worth.

Truth be told we aren’t people who like solitude, some solitude is good, but a lot of solitude tends to wear us and mold us, and unless it is self imposed; such as the poet Thoreau; it can end, badly.  This means that we form relationships on a constant basis, most of them, good, wholesome, well intentioned.  Many of them deep, meaningful, heartfelt and important, life focusing and life changing relationships.  We form relationships around portions of our lives, such as work and enterprise.  We form relationships based on hobbies and fun, folks who do sports together, or clubs which read and paint together.  We form relationships and we believe that it is a higher form of behavior than animalistic herding?  Truth be told, we aren’t very singular folks for the most part, we form relationships.

The soulfulness in such relationships is often ignored; which is unfortunate because even if there is no higher design than the mental exercise of good social psychology under the guise of hoping for better days ahead, the soulful considerations which are spelled out in so many great religious teachings are of worth and value to guide a person in soulfulness of relationships.  It is one of the unfortunate curses of our modern times that we don’t take soul in man seriously, and that at the same time we reject the notion that there might be something to the deeper choices of the soul, something which might be comprehended were we to open our eyes and choose to see clearly that it is important not to ignore soulfulness in relationships.

The crux of the issue is really gambling with your future by risking your heart in a soulful search for perfection in relationships; while the truth is, it isn’t possible.  Consider that were a person perfect, which none are, they would be able to satisfy every single demand of your soul; think about that one, because at that point, you’d find that your soul was full, but it would be a pretty safe bet, theirs wouldn’t be?  On the other hand consider the imperfections of those who you form relationships with and how the quirky nature of who they are is often the most fun aspects of why we want to associate with them?  As a lifelong rooter for the underdog it is my pleasure to choose to associate with those who are battling long odds.  My gamble is that they will win and my heart felt relationship will be well placed?

There is a hard truth to selfishness in gambling with relationships that is often soulfully renounced as unworthy of consideration, it is this; those who you grow the closest to  are the very ones who will have the ability to make you feel hurt.  If you do not care that deeply for the other person, then they have a very limited ability to put your heart in a state of hurt; so, little is at risk.  Gambling under such conditions is hardly a gamble at all, you aren’t risking much, and conversely, you won’t have much to win, or much to lose.  But when you put your heart out there and it gets stomped on, that, hurts; and that hurt, which feels like a big empty hole in your soul, that hurt, doesn’t go away easy and isn’t easily dealt with.  This is the hard truth to gambling with your heart, you may not come out with a winning hand, and so, my sense is, if you are going to gamble this way, be prepared for that.

Why would anyone deliberately hurt another?  This is, again, a classic question, it is certain that there are people who do hurt other people, sometimes, it’s without intent; the husband who forgets an important date to the wife; and if such hurts are not often repeated, a person can accept them as being inadvertent.  But when a person continues to forget important but small details, things which would be important to the other person, then the question must be asked, isn’t this deliberate?  From such a relationship it is very difficult to enlarge a meaningful and loving growth, one of the people in that relationship doesn’t matter, and if that person is you, then you’d better get yourself into another place, it’s not likely to change.  Those who are hurtful to others by inconsideration and dismissive behavior, do so, while justifying their own behavior as being correct, which means that you will likely never matter to them as much as they matter to you.  Such a situation is virtually beyond redemption, and if you are interested in maintaining your own worth as a person then perhaps you can curtail or modify the relational standing to protect your heart?  If you can’t, if that’s not possible then you may find yourself in a situation that is intolerable, at that point, it may make sense to choose the road, over the pain?

So we come to the age old two way street of love, knowing full well you may get hurt if you risk your heart, you know also you will remain lonely if you don’t.  In defense of the ones who have caused heart hurt in my life, the German Friedrich Nietzsche said “that which does not kill me, only makes me stronger.”

What if there were an enormous Christmas secret that was knowable, you could find it out, and it would be wonderful when you did, and you weren’t aware of it? That would be some secret wouldn’t it? You might not like somebody who knew something that would be good for you and chose not to share it, so that they kept it a secret, would you? Ever play a game of hide and go seek, and the other players all got together and left you hiding there? After a while you got suspicious and came “all-e-all-e ins that’s free.” and there wasn’t anybody there? Well this isn’t a secret like that, rather this is more like a fly that is on the wall of the Grand Canyon; you would need to know specifically which rock outcrop that fly was on, to the inch, in order to set your scope up to find it, wouldn’t you? This Christmas secret is going to be revealed to you, and so, in this brief writing that’s what we’re going to get into, the “how do I,” find this Christmas secret?

First we’ll talk about Christmas just a bit, because it is so important, before it happens, as it happens, and after it happens. Then we’ll talk about, in the next paragraphs, the Christmas secret and how you can find it before Christmas, during Christmas, and we hope, after Christmas, so let’s go?

Before Christmas happens things begin to change, in different cultures the world over, people begin to adjust to the idea that something really “neat,” really wonderful in terms of a holiday, is going to happen. Christmas is a world sized holiday, by the way, which, while celebrated differently, by style, takes place on the same day, December the 25^th. For some it’s just a recognition that the rest of the planet sees this day as significant; for most of those countries, however, it is the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ. It’s becoming, in America, and in many other countries, unpopular to state it so, which does not make much sense, given that all that Jesus ever did, no matter what else you may think, all He ever did was good for everybody! So in that He was so unlike so many other people, maybe that is why they have chosen to reject celebrating His birthday? But actually, my sense is that good people everywhere know that Jesus the Christ is real, was a real baby, actually lived here on earth, and really did do nothing but good the whole time He was here. If there’s a problem with Jesus the Christ, it’s probably not about Him at all, but about the people who say they know Him; but act like they don’t. People who are supposed to be loving and kind, but sometimes have a very odd way of showing it? Maybe if they weren’t like they are, people would be happier about celebrating their King’s birth? I don’t know, all I know for sure about Christmas is, it does change the world, each year before it gets here, the world gets ready for it, and if you are looking for Christmas, you might find it in that fact?

When Christmas day shines out, my heart rejoices, with so many other hearts, because it is the day in which Jesus the Christ, was born. Historically, maybe not, history is good to study, my preference is to believe that history is kept in the humans heart who knows love, and this day celebrates the birth of the Man who taught love, lived love; and is love. That to me is what Christmas is all about, but it really happens that morning because the night before we have a family tradition, which began when we were extremely poor, a year where we lost just about everything, and even our families health wasn’t good. That year both of us, the wife and I, were trying to think of something that we could do which would be good; we needed something good to take place, those were hard times. So I’d seen this clip of a movie called “A Christmas Carol.” several great actors who have since died, George C. Scott and Edward Woodward, to name a couple; were in it; it is an incredible movie, if you don’t have it, it’s worth the $5.00 it might cost to get it today. Anyway, in our state of down, somehow this movie seemed from the clip to be good, so my suggestion was, “hey, let’s watch it.” She agreed and so was begun the Christmas tradition of watching “A Christmas Carol,” by Charles Dickens. If I had a wish to be granted, like they do at the TED meeting each year, I wish every wealthy greedy world sized corporate pirate leader, who believed they had no need of Christmas, would get to watch this with us.

After Christmas things aren’t the same. Children who had hoped that Santa Clause, or, Saint Nicholas, Shengdan Laoren of Chinese name, JuiTomten of Sweden or others, can be found smiling. In fact this website: http://www.lone-star.net/mall/main-areas/santafaq.htm seems to be a pretty good one, for checking out Santa’s name, but back to the hoping, smiling, children; they are enjoying what Santa has left. Parents who have actually listened to their children and each other (these would be the 50 or so percent who aren’t getting divorced) are smiling inside, just a little, and that “just a little,” may be the about the only smile they get for a while. Things aren’t the same and that is certainly hard to dispute when such a large scale holiday takes place, Christmas doesn’t leave things the same, so if you are looking for a clue about the Christmas secret, that’s a huge one, things after Christmas change.

We’ve spent just a little time together about before, during and after Christmas itself, because nothing is like it, as a holiday, I don’t know one that world wide, has it’s power? New Year’s is celebrated world wide, but it doesn’t have the significance of Christmas and the secret which we are going to discuss, may be a fundamental aspect of why?

Now let’s go into the Christmas secret, because it can be found before Christmas, let me tell you how. You will need to find a quiet place, where you won’t be disturbed for about five minutes; this is going to be tough on you, so you will really have to want to know the secret, because you will need to find a quiet place for five minutes! Here you do nothing, shut off the cell phone and sit – still. Just sit still, for five whole minutes. While you are there ask your heart how many more hurts it can take before it breaks enough to realize that the hurt that you suffer must tell you something about your ability to take hurt? Ask your heart then, if your hurts are worse than the mother who watched her baby die yesterday; because it couldn’t get water. Water- not food, not medicine, WATER- now, ask your heart if you really understand what hurting is? If you will listen to your heart and be honest, you’ll realize that Dickens’s was right, and in the eyes of God “these may be of more importance than you ever will be;” and, we, you and I, and everyone, are letting it happen. It’ll be an interesting five minutes if you do it; and remain true to your heart, I guarantee it will affect how you look at suffering.

The Christmas secret however, is also to be found, by you, right there in the midst of the great times of great joy; you see, we need those, oh we desperately need them, here is why. When you are down, and those times will happen, even when you compare the depth of your down to the greater suffering of someone else; you need to be able to think about good Christmases and good times- its a way of keeping your balance with reality. The Christmas secret, begins in the persons heart, and so, for some, sadly, it’s gonna remain a secret, their heart, is, unfortunately, only a muscle that pumps blood; and that, is, one of the saddest realities of this world. The Christmas secret might have something to do with, changing that; if it is possible to change that heart with little feeling, to one that feels, the Christmas secret might bring it about.

After Christmas if your heart cannot change, the Christmas secret will help you in ways that you might not believe were possible, but all the time were. A very close personal friend who let other things get between us; realized, not too long ago, that “we don’t talk like we used to.” While I almost said, “
no duh,” I stopped my mouth, stayed quiet (like in the car), and listened, because what they said next was something that if your searching for the Christmas secret, will help you, they said, “so every once in a while, let’s just call each other, think we can do that?” You know I really do think we can, and somewhere I hear Charles Dickens agreeing with others “they’re getting close to finding the Christmas secret aren’t they?” What do you think the others say back to them about us?

…final, I’ve made up my mind.” Those are words that can
go either way, they can be good, they can be bad. All depends
upon which way you are headed as a result of them. For
example, you wanted a raise, you talked it over with the
boss, you get called in and she says “This is…final, I’ve
made up my mind.” Are you gonna get the raise? Or
you might get a call from the Mayor’s office, the mayor
has been after you to work on a committee that she
believes you would be excellent on, and she begins
the conversation by saying, “This is…final, I’ve
made up my mind.” Are you gonna get her approval?

The point is much the same when this occurs:

What do you think Jesus was writing? The Bible
doesn’t say what he wrote, but it sure seems possible
that His mind was now made up? Is yours?

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The bottle was falling – as fast as I could,
with every bit of strength I could muster,
I had to stop it. Grabbed for it, needed to
grip it- sure didn’t want Ketchup all over
the floor! Been there? Milk’s pretty rough
too- have you heard the old cliche’ about
spilled milk? Well, why not cry over it?

The fear that is in that moment can’t last
because either, the bottle will be gripped
by your hand, or the floor? Hmm…before
you have time to contemplate it, you’re
into the next, NEXT- a very interesting
place to be. I remember the Colonel I call
him; he had a car had the license plate
on it said, NEXT; it was a half Cadillac
and half Rolls Royce; guy was so wealthy
he had a Rolls chopped in half and somehow
a Cadillac front end was put on that
pup, he said he liked the Caddilac
transmission, but the ride of Rolls was
one of kind? That was one bizzare looking
car- but- that license plate, wow- that
was what stuck in my head, because he
explained it as a theory to life- NEXT!

He said, some will, some won’t, so what?
NEXT. He said if some wanted to follow,
great, next, if some didn’t, great, next,
if somebody wanted to do something, great,
next…he was always onto; next.

Without realizing it, he had put me onto a
course of HOPE- you see, hope is…NEXT!
I believe in next- a lot of people around me
don’t believe in next- they see what they
see as where they are, and they base what they
believe they are going into upon that, so
strongly, that they aren’t ready for NEXT-
even though it just might happen to them?
What about the person who goes to work
every day believing they are going to
experience the same ol’ mess? They really
believe that- they really do- so they
don’t say, “I love you,” to people they
love, they really do, they just don’t say
it, because they don’t believe anything is
going to be different, they believe it is
all going to remain the same…but ever since
that night when the Colonel explained that
license plate to me, life has been a steady
series of, NEXT- so I always try to let folks
know I love them; as a way of getting ready
for NEXT! You see, we are never ready for
disaster- not really- just as we are never
really ready for, success, not really. We
would like to think we are, but the truth
is, we aren’t- because we never really
know, and we can’t really, what is- NEXT!

So now the question becomes, what will you do with what you know?

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(Do you know someone who needs to read this?)
It doesn’t feel good, guarantee you that, when somebody
comes down on you for no reason, it doesn’t feel good.
It forces you to make a choice, take a stand, be about
something or someone that you might not want to be, it
puts you in a position that you didn’t necessarily ask
for, nor want. Unless it is a position that you have
asked for, and do want?

So it is pretty direct, one way or the other,
when it comes to Jesus and being in a position
of being judged, get ready, one way or
the other you are going to be judged. But
who the judge is, you may not be ready for?

Now the really intriguing thing is,
how you feel right this instant, no, NO,
don’t dismiss that, instead, relate to it,
relate, to the feeling that is inside you at this
instant. Now let’s ask ourselves a very serious
question, what is being judged about? Where does
it really come from? Who really, is the judge that
we are being judged by? And so we approach the
throne of grace, but the question is, are we really
ready to approach that throne of grace?

Mat 5:23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar,
and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
Mat 5:24 Leave there thy gift before the altar,
and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother,
and then come and offer thy gift.

This isn’t to cloud the interpretation waters
on this one, but my heart really wants you to
hear this…hear the Shepard’s voice on this one:

Now take it just a teeny bit deeper – do we need to
be reconciled to our Brother? Hmm…

So we come to the crux, who is judging who about
what? When it comes to you, who is the judge?
Until tomorrow let’s pray for one another?

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Remarkable moments – do you sense them? The flashing bye
of life, where one moment is significant? Do you have a
sense that the moment is? To be clear this is the moment
when you see the person you’re going to marry? This is
the moment when you know your life direction, perhaps,
for the first time? This is the moment where you know
what your life is about? Now that you know what moment
we are talking about, have you had it, or some of them?

This week we’re going to deal with the toughest of all
subjects, judging, what it means, why and how we do so,
and, should we or should we not? You see, many Christians,
are not only confused about this, but believe, falsely,
that the Bible teaches against judging. The truth is,
Jesus said that judging was serious, should be taken
seriously, but shouldn’t be ignored. Quickly then,
let’s connect the spiritual worshipful, to the subject-
as tomorrow we will deal with the scripture more
thoroughly, consider these scriptural statements:

Luk 6:37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged:
condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned:
forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:
Luk 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you;
good measure, pressed down, and shaken together,
and running over, shall men give into your bosom.
For with the same measure that ye mete withal
it shall be measured to you again.

Mat 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
Mat 7:2 For with what judgment ye judge,
ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete,
it shall be measured to you again.

So this day let us pray that we shall get the
matter of judgment into our core spiritual nature
and after this weeks review, my belief is you will
not only be a better judge, but you will get the
character concept of God which comes through
His pronouncements about this highly important
part of what it means to be in touch with Him.

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