Category Archives: Letters
Longer articles, less frequent
Insight from Gandalf the White
Outraged at Outrage

Outraged at Outrage

A Dream and its Sequel

A Dream and its Sequel

A Personal History with Unchurched Believers
Unfortunately, when I returned home, I discovered I had left my jacket, with my wallet, behind, and I didn’t recognize it until I returned home, an hour’s drive away.


A Personal History with Unchurched Believers
Unfortunately, when I returned home, I discovered I had left my jacket, with my wallet, behind, and I didn’t recognize it until I returned home, an hour’s drive away.


Gifts from Father, Son & Holy Spirit
I still can’t completely wrap my brain around the Trinity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three, and yet they’re one. Not just “One with three aspects.” Not just “Three in perfect unity.” Really three. Really one. Weird. Cool, but weird.
When Darkness Comes Into the Light

Father & Sons Development Co.
Did I tell you I’m working in the family business? The day I was adopted, I started working with my Dad. My Dad’s awesome like that.

Once when I was a bit older, I was building stuff with Legos™ in his office, while he worked on something. His desk overlooked the factory floor, and he saw something that caught his attention.
“Son,” he says. “You know Mr. Davidson? Tall guy. Red shirt. Big mustache?”
“I know him, Pop.”
“Son, would you go find Mr. Davidson and ask him to come up to see me? I’ve got something I want him to see.” And I toddled down the stairs to find Mr. Davidson. Soon he and Dad were talking seriously about something on Dad’s desk, and I added a new wheel to the thing I was building.
There was a time after I’d discovered books! Books are wonderful things! I was sitting in a chair in Dad’s office, sounding out a word, when he interrupted me. “Son, Miz Thompson works on the far side of the factory. Would you find her and give her this note?” He handed me the note, and I ran off to find Sally Thompson. She had a wonderful smile, and she used it on me sometimes.
I never did go to normal school. I would say that Dad homeschooled me, except it mostly happened in his office. Is there such a thing as officeschool? We had the best times together in his factory office.
He’d given me an arithmetic assignment that made me think pretty hard. If Mr. Jacobi needs to build this many boxes by the end of the month, how many does he need to build every day? Eventually I puzzled it out right (Dad showed me where I’d forgotten to carry the one, the first time), and he smiled this great big smile! “Son, would you please take this down to Marty Jacobi – he should be in the lunchroom right now – and show him how well you did this.” He wrote his initials on my math paper.
I found Marty. He gave me a cookie while he looked at my work. I munched, and then he smiled, and said, “You’ve got a real smart Dad, you know!” He was right, of course, but I already knew that!
One day he was reading letters. He had a lot of letters, and he read ’em all. One of them made him smile extra big, and he called me to himself. “Son, would you please go tell Bob Davidson that he’s got a new worker coming in the morning. He’ll want to put Cindy on the Quality Control team right away.” I delivered the message. Bob winked at me and nodded. “Sure thing!” he said.
One Thursday morning, Dad pushed my math books out of the way again, and set down his computer in their place. “Son, do you see this? What do you think that means?” and he pointed to a detail on the screen. This was a math test test, I felt sure. I was ready.
“That looks like trouble, Dad. Not big trouble, but trouble. Especially for the QC department. Um… Is that right?”
“That’s right, Son,” and he printed that page. “Would you explain this to Cindy in QC? And maybe talk with her about what to do with it, and bring me your favorite few suggestions.” Later, he picked one of our ideas, and implemented it. That was cool.
So I wasn’t altogether surprised when he set his computer on my desk some time later. He didn’t point to anything, but asked me, “What do you see here, Son?” I studied it a bit, and talked with him about the three or four things I saw. “What about this one?” “Hmm. I saw that, but didn’t think it was all that important,” I answered. “It’s all important, Son. Especially when this is trending,” and he pointed to the first detail I’d seen. “What happens when these happen on the same day?” I hadn’t thought of that! We talked about it and how to help the folks in the factory when that happened. I learn so much from my Dad.
And a few months later, those two things did happen on the same day. “Well, it happened, Dad.” “Yep, it surely did. Well, you know what to do.” I picked up my notes from our planning, headed down the stairs, and called the supervisors together. I explained the problem, and listened to their concerns. One of the guys had already figured it out, so I let him describe the adjustments we needed, filling in details when he needed help. We had the solution in place before the problem was big enough to slow production down.
Eventually we got to the point where I was really running the factory. Dad spent most of his time talking to individuals, or scheduling contractors for the expansion, and he spent a lot of time training some of the other kids, too. If I ran into a problem, he was always right there to help, and there wasn’t anything that he couldn’t figure out.
Figuring things out comes easy when you’re omniscient like my Dad is.
Fab Sandwich: Homosexuality Hits Crit Mass
Fab Sandwich: Homosexuality Hits Crit Mass
SCOTUS redefined marriage as an indication of homosexuality hitting the critical mass stage. It is now a fad. “Coming out of the closet” is no longer “brave” and has lost all of its counter-culture flair. Now, it’s the way to “be like everyone else”. The “fashionable homosexual” will never seem more attractive than he does now… never before, never after. Once something becomes too popular, it loses steam.
The number of open homosexuals will increase. That part won’t fade. But the flair, the pizzazz, the rapture and excitement of scandal—these will be lost for those who jumped in the game too late. Some of it will continue to go up, for a while. The momentum is still there, but the steam is gone.
Soon, closet homosexuals, formerly “fat slob phobes”, will join the movement. Then, once homosexuality is the new normal, the fat slobs will take over that as well. Understanding this requires an understanding of history: Men weren’t fat slobs because they were straight; they were fat slobs because that was the lazy thing to do.
Once the party is over, the new fashion will be eligible “metro” bachelors—these are straight men who have the fashion and cultural brilliance of the “Fab Five” image, and who don’t bash homosexuals. That will be the trend in the coming years. It hasn’t started yet, of course. But when it starts, it will last a long time because it will never hit critical mass. Staying in shape and having children is nearly impossible, too impossible for the masses to ever accept. That’s why many are called and few are chosen.
None of that is opinion, it’s an attempt at a prediction. As for my opinion…
I don’t hate homosexuals. I put myself in the metro category. I am rather disgusted with the in-yer-face, lazy fat-old-fathers the Boomers gave us. They were always disgusting, even in their 20’s. They didn’t listen to their parents and they didn’t listen to their children—and they certainly don’t listen to their wives. The homosexual fashion movement is giving those failed fathers a run for their money.
Would I love it if fathers changed and started to listen for the first time? Yeah. I’d also love it if China would focus on cleaning up their own country before annexing others. I’d love it if Russia would stop acting like a fool just because it’s angry that Obama can’t make other countries like him. And I’d love it if Churchianity would drop dead and resurrect Jesus. I’d love a lot of things. But, I don’t intend to intervene. I’m grabbing my popcorn because I know how this story ends: the metros on top, the phobes on bottom, and the fabs in the middle.
continue readingThe Battle of Sterling Hill
“No weapon against me shall prosper.” That’s apparently “undisciplined” in the minds of some. Paintings of naked ladies on WWII fighters and bombers aren’t “undisciplined”. But if you have confidence that weapons won’t stop you, then the US Marines object.
Do the Marines’ brass want weapons to prosper against the US military? If not, then what is going on in the brass against Monifa Sterling?
Ultimately, this problem comes down to two factors, either one being sufficient to legitimize Sterling’s case. Order in the ranks includes a “nation under God”. Respect for the Bible comes atop all of those orders in the ranks. Presidents, Justices, and elected officials are sworn into office with a Bible. As long as “one nation under God” remains in writing and oaths of office use God’s Word, all military commands must respect that Word. It’s a matter of consistent policy. If the Bible and God didn’t have this, the argument would not be as strong. · · · →
continue readingMistrust of Police is Everyone’s Problem
The mistrust of law enforcement appears to be at an all time high. But how did we get here and how do we fix it? My police friends and co-workers clearly do not accept blame and most do not even see it as a problem. Most of these men and woman see themselves as being on the right side of a two sided fight.
On one side, you have the police, the good, the moral, the just. On the other side, you have the bad, the criminal, the law breaker. Unfortunately, for most officers there is no in-between, you are either with us or against us. This brings a very adversarial tone to the job for many officers and that tone is often resented by the public.
For me, the people I serve with aren’t bad people. Often, they make great neighbors, are loving parents who grew up to make their own parents proud. These men and woman want to do a good job. Most live clean cut lives and have high moral codes.
The problem is not the officers. The problem is systematic. In my department of thirty, nearly every officer comes from the same background. We are white males, raised in rural Michigan by middle class parents. The people we serve are mostly white middle class, but not everyone is in the same demographic. We also have a very large class of poverty stricken people, as well as Hispanics, Blacks and some GLBT.
The mistrust is great among minority groups and it’s not unreasonable. Like many people, the officers I work with have preconceived beliefs and even fears of other groups that they are unfamiliar with. As police, unfortunately, we deal with people on their worst days, who struggle more than average. Our cultural bias and societal prejudices are further confirmed with each dealing we have with people who fit the stereotypes we already have.
Like so many in society, most police aren’t aware of their own prejudice or even the fact they have racist tendencies. How would they know? Many officers have little to no life experience with people outside their demographic.
A year or two at the local community college and a sixteen week police academy does not come close to preparing one for dealing with the culturally sensitive situations that we find ourselves in as police officers. When I went through the police academy, we had four hours of diversity training. Despite, the efforts of the presenters, it was quite obvious to me, that many of my fellow classmates found this topic a waste of time and something that the left wing members of society were jamming down our throats.
What should have been beneficial to these young cadets was actually treated as a waste of time. So what should we do as a society? For starters, leaders in law enforcement need to push for yearly diversity and sensitivity training.
Over my tenure as an officer, I have had hundreds of hours on how to shoot a gun and a total of 0 minutes on coming to terms and recognizing my own bias. Education in law enforcement has to redirected, firearms training is good and needed, but so is training in how to treat others and communicate with others outside of our demographic.
Lastly, and most importantly, we need prayer. Pray for your local department. These people desire to do good and want to keep you safe. Many police have the best intentions. A little extra education would make us all proud and help bring respect back to a respectable profession.
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