The Colonel #51 Taxes and Slow Death

 

"No matter what anyone may say about making the rich and the corporations pay the taxes, in the end they come out of the people who toil. It is your fellow workers who are ordered to work for the Government, every time an appropriation bill is passed. The people pay the expense of government, often many times over, in the increased cost of living. I want taxes to be less, that the people may have more." ~ Calvin Coolidge

With endless trillion-dollar spending schemes in mind the President and Congress will have their minions out trolling for popular support for increased taxes on the rich and their corporations and we would all do well to heed the words of our 30^th President. Corporations and the richest of the rich do not pay taxes they pass the along to their customers, tenants, and trading partners resulting in a higher cost of living.

When the dubious pipeline incident occurred recently did you notice how the companies involved took the hit? Oh, so you didn’t go fill up your tank, just in case.

A lot of folks I know like to complain about price gouging by Big Pharma, but they say nothing about it as long as Medicare, Medicaid, or their insurance is footing the bill. They only become concerned when the money comes directly from their pocket. Where does Medicare and the others get the money to pay for drugs—from you!

It is well past the time when the people in this country need to be concerned about the real costs of “free” healthcare, government subsidies, student loan forgiveness, and unlimited immigration of non-taxpaying dependents. Cities like Detroit, Baltimore, and Los Angeles are not anomalies—they are the destination for the entire country.

If the government were truly to cut spending, it would financially impact almost every American and it would hurt. No one would be happy about it. But I wonder who is going to be dancing in the street when it collapses. Our debt payments alone are larger than the entire gross production of the economy. 

It is a problem that I believe can be solved, but not by ignoring it or making it worse by foolishly adding to it in the name of taxing the rich.

I’m unsure how many of you have fasted on purpose. Contrary to what the supermarket tells you, it’s a healthy thing to do. Yes, you get hungry, your stomach might complain, you might get a headache—but you live through it and feel better min the long run. Reducing government spending would be like that. It would be uncomfortable to say the least, but good it the long run. You want to do something for the “good of all” join the fight against big government before it kills us.

 

Maranatha

Know Jack #301 Advice and Instruction

 

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness…”     2 Timothy 3:16

 

I try not to start off a lot of my blogs about my personal experience writing with scripture because it turns people away before they get started. This is not a complaint; I do the same when someone turns on a television to watch Chicago Fire.

But I chose this one because it jumped into my thoughts as soon as I typed the title of the blog. That’s because it illustrates for me the point I hope to make between advice and instruction. I’m going to use writing as my setting, but the principle applies to life in general.

I want to start with advice which can be properly defined as a recommendation or information given. Writers get all kinds of advice, none more heartfelt than: “You should stop this nonsense now.”

Advice properly given is a suggestion. It goes something like: “You should write a story about a mermaid in a castle by the sea who lures men to their deaths on the rocks.” When I hear advice like that, I think about it, weigh the possibilities against my abilities and inclination, and see if a story appears out of the brain fog.

I do the latter because you see, the advice is not a story—it is a setting, not a plot. I must be able to take the suggestion—the advice—and do something that pleases me with it. There is no time limit on the process. In fact, the advisor telling me to sit down and get started is the worst possible thing to do.

I have some unoriginal but worthy writing advice. Write what you know. Find your own voice. Find an editor who will be tough on you. Don’t break the rules until you are well versed in the rules. Write every day. Read a lot. Not everyone is going to like what you write.

Does anyone feel compelled to do these things simply because the are good advice? Not likely, especially at first. However, they may grow on you as you grow.

 

Now, Paul’s admonition to Timothy is not like that. It is a command based on the authority of scripture by his mentor/teacher. It is in itself an instruction—a direction calling for compliance.

You might be familiar with this kind of writing from school. “Write me a 500-word essay on what you did last summer.” You have some wiggle room to stretch the truth and make it fun, but you darn well better write it! Or else! And, of course, it came with all kinds of rules outlining how and when the instructor wanted it done.

Writing instruction covers the rules I spoke of a moment ago, things like grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, paragraph structure, and the king of them all submission guidelines. I promise if you break the rules, especially that last one, your work is bound for the trash.

Publishers besides looking for good writing want to know if you can follow their instructions. They want it their way or no way. And if you sell your writing to them, the work becomes theirs, they are the final authority.

As a nurse, I dispensed both advice and instruction on a regular basis. If I advised somebody to wear a mask and they chose not to, I was not offended by their decision even if they turned up sicker the next day. The mask was just a suggestion.

If I instructed someone to take one pill every four hours and they took eight over two hours and came back with an overdose That bothered the hell out of me because I trusted them to follow instructions—they did not comply with the rules.

 Either way, I took the best care of them I possibly could.

That’s not the perfect example but what I’m getting at is to be aware of whether you are advising or instructing. I don’t think I am unique in the fact that I take advice must better than instruction. Jesus might command, “If you love me, keep my commandments,” and have his hearers obey. People have a much harder time pulling it off with others. 

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #91 Experimental Christianity

 

“O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the one that trusts in him.”

Psalm 34:8

Today my editor and I plan to put the finishing touches on the Afterword of my new book, Experimental Christianity. It will then be ready to put on the market. Sometime in the near future, we will throw it a launch party—you’re invited! It’s a good feeling—completing a new book always is, and yet, this one is different. It is less exciting and more satisfying.

The reason is that this is the first book I’ve done which I still do not feel qualified to have written. Before I even started on it, in my mind, I could already hear the voices of the detractors.

“Just who do you think you are to judge? You’re no better than me, what makes you think you’re so holier-than-thou?” And anyone saying these things is correct. I am no better than the next guy and worse than most.

So, why write it?

The answer is simple enough, I had no choice but to write it. This necessity to write was not because I signed a contract with a publisher. It is because, in my heart, I have an agreement with my God. Am I saying that God told me to write the book? Yes. That God doesn’t seem to care about my lack of scriptural insight, lack of writing talent, or my lack of spiritual depth amazes me.

I’ve spent most of my Christian experience trying to figure out what God is doing. I don’t really even try to discern why He’s doing it. That’s too far beyond me. Seems that all I can do is scratch my head in wonder. I just don’t know any better than to take my best shot and pray it works out.

“Woe is me if I preach not the gospel!” That’s what the apostle said. I think I see a shadow of what he was talking about.

The upside is that people love slapstick comedy. We love to see the guy step on the rake and get whacked between the eyes with the handle. I do have that going for me. So, with a merry heart, I did what I could do. I stepped on the rake hoping for something good to come from the reader’s reaction. I think that’s how faith works, don’t you?  

Know Jack #295 The Cost of Freedom

 

“Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground…”

Stephen Stills

It’s Memorial Day weekend and plans for celebration coming together across America. Briskets are in smokers, hot dogs are on grills, beers are on ice and rowdy friends are coming over. Tuesday morning we’ll know how much we overspent on the party. But will we know the cost of the stories written to be celebrated this Memorial Day?

That cost cannot be measured in trillions of dollars like the nation’s financial debt. It is measured in fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. It was paid in sisters, and brothers—in grandfathers and grandmothers. It is measured in millions of stark white gravestones the world over. And when we have tried to measure the cost of freedom, we succeed only in finding that it cannot truly be counted.

Party like a rock star this weekend. Your right to do so has been paid for in blood. No government mandate gave that right to you and none can take it away from you. To let that happen is to tarnish the names of those who paid the last full measure of freedom. You’ll find what they paid buried in the ground. So, before the party starts think about those names on the small white stones. If you can go, see them, that is the place to say, “Thank You for Your Service”. Stand at their graves and weep for lives too short and love too soon taken away. Those tears that memory calls up, and that gratitude lets flow are the true celebration of Memorial Day.

Maranatha  

 

 

 

The Colonel #48 The Cost of Freedom

A New York Times article recently alerted me to the fact that I could get money, a cruise or a trip to the Super Bowl if I would just come get vaccinated for CoviD19. I like money and cruises, I’m less enthusiastic about professional sports. I’d consider going to the Super Bowl if I couldn’t sell the ticket to someone else. However, none of these things is sufficient inducement to dabble with drugs again.

I’m not here today to rant about the omnipotent vaccine. Not directly, that is. But consider, for a moment the unstated truth in the article’s headline. How is it this altruistic vaccine requires expensive inducements? And more to my point, where is all the money coming from to provide them?

I’ve never priced Super Bowl tickets—no point, I know I cannot afford them. Which tells me enough about that. The states of Ohio, Colorado, and Oregon are putting up one million dollars each for the lucky vaccine taker. The city of Detroit will give you a $50 gift card just for driving some to be vaccinated. There’s probably someone in the city who could hire an Uber to transport the intended victim and still turn a small profit.

Admittedly I don’t know the gross profit from a single dose of vaccine. I know from the article CVS has 25 million but has only managed to administer 17 million of those doses. I also know they are charging $40 a dose for the administration of an injection. A minimum wage person off the street could give it with ten minutes of training and another ten minutes to administer.

Let’s see 17,000,000 times $40 comes to $680,000,000. That’s giving the shot. Let’s be conservative in our guess at the profit per dose and say it’s $100. Wow! Getting close to two billion dollars. Now you see why a measly one million dollars is worth paying for promotion (to be written off later)?

It’s for the good of all, and even more for the good of giants like CVS.

The part I find really dismaying is not how many people are being duped by promotions like this. It is that. Like all healthcare in this country, no one cares about the cost. We only want to know, “Is Medicare/ Medicaid/my insurance paying for it?” Like that makes it free.

This old man is here today to tell you nothing is free. More than that—you pay for what you get. You may not reach in your pocket and pull out dollars, but you are paying just the same.

You are paying with your taxes, with that monthly fee Medicare or your gap insurance charges, with a growing national debt, and the rising price of each of these. You are paying with your ability to choose the next time (and there will be a next time) the government wants to inject you with whatever is good for you.

You are paying with the multitude of businesses that closed their doors to create the market for this drug. You are paying with delays in cancer, cardiac, and diabetic care generated by the media, doctors, and governors guilty of pedaling fear rather than peace.

Worse than that, you are forcing everyone else in the country to pay those unseen costs right along with you—and you damn sure gave them no choice.

Enjoy. 

The Colonel #47 Envy and Inequality

 

"The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring." ~ Victor Hugo

 

Equality is a term much bantered about in connection with race, gender, and income. But the term is purposely misused by the many who sling around “the poor” like Tom Sawyer’s rat on a string. The true measure of poverty in American can only be had in measuring it against other places.

For many years I lived looking up at the poverty line. During those years, Bill Gates had a car, but you know what? So did I. His was more expensive and had fewer dents, but we were both driving around on the same roads. Meanwhile in Mogadishu, the poor not only didn’t have a car, they probably didn’t have shoes. Hell, no need to go that extreme. In the UK, many people were not driving cars. (In 2014, 57% reported using a car on a typical day.) I had a color television—Bill probably had one in every room in multiple residences, but we both watched one.

I’m rather an odd sort of person, but I don’t believe I’m that different. I don’t care that Bill Gates has billions of dollars. My needs are met by what I make. If I’m oppressed, I don’t feel it driving my car, while texting on my phone on the way home from the supermarket trying to beat the rush so I can watch hockey on television.

The reason for that is because, until recently, I had the same opportunity to make billions as did Mr. Gates. Now, societal envy has substituted equal outcomes for equal opportunity. There are wicked people living among us who from envy have convinced us that because we are not billionaires, the rich have somehow cheated or are privileged in some way because they look different.

And here’s a truth that is hard for some to swallow. The poor in a free market economy are better off than the poor in centrally managed economies and that being poor in America is a darned sight better than being poor in much of the world.

I know next to nothing about business and it shows. I do know something about people and human nature. I look around town and in almost every business there are help wanted signs. One reason for this is that we have adopted the notion that we all have the right to be wealthy and if we are not, the system is rigged to make us fail.

We believe it is our right to have it all without effort or we are being mistreated and oppressed. We have traded working for the greenback into clinging to the green-eyed monster and called it progress. We’re all sitting here on Biden’s payroll waiting for someone to stand up next to us and make us rich.

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #90 Reconciled

 

“Therefore if anyone be in Christ, they are a new creature…old things are passed away; behold all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation…and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation…be ye reconciled to God.”

2 Corinthians 5:17-20

 

A hallmark of the Protestant Reformation is the idea of the priesthood of believers. That is, that people need no intermediary between themselves and God except Jesus. Praying in Christ believers can take their case directly before God. No earthly priest is required.

This does not mean that the ministry of priests, pastors, and other human ministers is of no value or in vain. God forbid. It means only that God is always attendant to our direct interaction with the divine. And, in fact, God has given to every believer a three-dimensional ministry essential to their own spiritual life and health—the ministry of reconciliation.

To reconcile people means to restore them to friendship or harmony. Reconciliation is an action rather than a belief. A ministry of reconciliation is the believer doing those things that restore them to harmony with God.

Belief in God points us to our need to be reconciled to God; to live in harmony with God. But reconciliation will not happen unless, and until, we act on that belief. God has already taken action—he has taken the first step—and calls on us to respond. The message Jesus preached can be summed up in a few words of response to God’s call to reconciliation, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17)

To repent means to change your mind, or to change sides. Moses called out to a straying nation, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” (Exodus 32:26) Jesus’ call to repent amounts to the same thing. It is to leave what you’re doing now and follow him—this is the kingdom of heaven and the beginning of our ministry of reconciliation.

I say beginning because be reconciled to God involves more than restoring harmony with the Trinity. You must also reconcile with yourself. That is, to restore your inner harmony. Be at peace with yourself by loving yourself enough to forgive yourself just as God has forgiven you.

Once these things are done, you then must be reconciled to others by granting to them the mercy, love, and forgiveness that you have claimed for yourself. Don’t be in a hurry here. You must love and forgive yourself before you are ready to love others. If it does not come easily or in a miraculous rush—wait for it trusting in God that it will come.

Reconciliation doesn’t just involve people. It involves ideas. To reconcile ideas or more precisely ideals is to make them consistent or congruous with our thoughts and actions. I tell people that I do not practice what I preach and that is the truth. I am not ashamed to say so because I preach Jesus and I have not attained to a perfect imitation. I preach perfection—I live only a feeble attempt to reconcile my flawed self with that ideal and am content that I can do no more than that.

In a twisted paraphrase from popular culture (I was a huge Spiderman fan growing up), with great power comes great responsibility. The power of reconciliation to create new divine life from marred clay is beyond my powers of speech. I know it has happened—there is power in the blood. Therefore, I must constantly reconcile my assets. To reconcile business accounts is to check one against another for accuracy. Are my skills, my time, my efforts—my life an accurate record of what I have promised to God?

I cannot repay God or earn divine love. However, I can rob God of his due worship and adoration or his sovereignty over my life in his kingdom. When I’m flying high, have I forgotten why? When I am sitting beneath a juniper tree, have I forgotten from whence comes my help?

Beloved… be reconciled to God.

Maranatha 

Lost Crusader #89 Follow Me

 

And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me.    

Luke 5:27

Many a gospel message has been preached on the “Follow Me’s” of Jesus. So many that I’m sure somewhere someone has touched up the idea I wish to share. That is the idea of consent. The kingdom of God, though an absolute monarchy, exercises rule over its citizens only with their consent.

Levi (Matthew) was a tax collector (publican). His job was to take from his family and neighbors a sum exacted by the Romans. For doing this job he received no pay except what he could extort from his fellow countrymen. So, if Rome demanded a penny per person as tax, Levi could collect two pennies and pocket one penny for himself.

As you might imagine, among a population which refused to even carry Roman coins on them, tax collectors like Levi, were not popular fellows. Hence the complaint about Jesus attending a party at Levi’s house and eating with tax collectors and other sinners.

It is seldom noted except in passing that Jesus also ate with the rich and powerful. The difference was in how Jesus was received. His message to repent and believe the gospel made him a curiosity to the rich and powerful who saw no need for either. They understood his message and challenged it.

Sinners like Levi saw something in him they did not imagine they personally possessed—holiness. And he extended to them something they did not expect—merciful acceptance of them as they were. They were ready to repent, that is consent to his message, and believe what he taught.  

The kingdom of God is unlike the rule of man for it is not lorded over its citizen. It needs no army, no police, no priests. It is held together not by the absolute power of its king, but by the loving affection of citizens who willingly consent to his lordship. He needs only bid them—Follow Me.

 

The Colonel #46 Tell Me Why. Show Me How.

 

“…Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”

Book of James 2:18

 

No, this is not the Lost Crusader. You are in the right place. The scripture text above just serves to highlight what I want to talk about—the why and the how of America.

Have you ever stopped to wonder about why there is a United States of America? Most of the time Americans simply take it for granted since we have not experienced a world without it. People do think about it from time to time however for I have heard many explanations, dressing Uncle Sam in everything from halo to horns.

Yet, why America happens to be is not a mystery. The people who created this country intended the reasons to it to be known to the world and put it in writing. We call it the Declaration of Independence. It is a document with some high ideals for the conduct of government exercised among free people.

Indeed, including ideals that at the writing of the document were beyond the practical application of the men who signed it. This did not negate the principles they espoused but rather challenged them in their hopes for and future practice of those things necessary to their attainment.

The Declaration of Independence is a message to the King of England and to the entire world about why our rebellion was being executed and with what we hoped to replace tyranny.

Fourteen and one-half years later after an open revolt, a war, and some unworkable attempts at self-government, representatives from thirteen independent countries ratified a single document to be the law of the land for everyone. That document is our Constitution.

It did not come easily. People were afraid the new government would quickly become as tyrannical as the king. People living in small states like Rhode Island feared they would soon be under the thumb of places like New York or Virginia. Some thought to abolish slavery as evil, others refused to join if it was abolished. There were debates over words and phrases and how local issues would be affected by them.

To explain what of the Constitution had in mind as to how the new government might work and win its ratification by the states, James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton wrote eighty-five essays in an explanation that were circulated throughout the states.

The Declaration of Independence said why we were creating a unified country, the Constitution told people in simple language and four pages how it would operate. (Compare to the 2,700 pages of the Affordable Care Act. Add in its regulations and the total is around 20,000 pages.) Little wonder one of the Constitution’s writers said:

          "It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood." ~ James Madison

Though the Constitution expressly assigns all legislative power to Congress, (Article. I. Section. 1.) we have allowed the delegation of that right to unelected people who cannot be removed by the President. Can be removed only an act of Congress (Literally. Congress can remove them generally only by restructuring or ending their agency’s existence.) These people are also essentially unanswerable to the Courts, including, by their own ruling, the Supreme Court. If you look at that Declaration of Independence closely, these people are presently doing everything the English kings were accused of doing. And we love to have it so, as shown by our devotion to masks and experimental vaccinations.

Why America? Because we have faith in its principles. How can we be America? By working within its framework. When we cease to do either of these things, we should have the courage to refuse America’s benefits and the name American.

Maranatha

 

Know Jack #293 Faith Not Fear

 

"Faith and fear both demand you believe in something you cannot see. You choose." ~ Bob Proctor

While waiting for an elevator today, I was joined by a man wearing a mask that had the words Faith Not Fear printed on it. I let him have the car with a couple of other mask wearers rather than expose them to an alternate opinion on the current degree of viral danger.

Nevertheless, I could not help but wonder at what the words on his mask meant to him. What was he afraid of? And what did he have faith in? Since I didn’t engage him in conversation, I am not going to presume to know his answers or cast him in a negative fashion.

What I am going to talk about are my answers to those questions in light of the present circumstances. Let’s take fear first. It is my opinion that our government has from the beginning explicitly sought to promote fear with virus control as only a minor consideration—the government’s mask so to speak.

The measures promoted as viral control have been around and advocated by healthcare workers every flu season for years. These measures have generally gone unheeded by the at-risk population. Even though the flu killed people—to which I am witness, the government issued no mask/stay home mandates, closed no businesses, or discussed mandatory proof of vaccination. Historically, responsibility for personal and community health/safety has rested with the individual.

CDC guidelines were shouted from the rooftops—but not the real guidelines. It has been the practice of the CDC to test until the virus is confirmed in an area, then stop testing and treat empirically. This is one of the few fiscally responsible government practices in existence. But then, there are already flu viruses and annual sales are probably topped out. CoVid 19 was an entire new money-making machine.

That the CDC did not follow its own guidelines suggests to me that there was an agenda to build numbers. I have heard this was done to prevent Emergency Rooms from being mobbed. But the use of the ER as a first-use facility is incentivized by government policy and what great photo-ops frightened crowds make! The media flocked to make sure no related death went unreported and stories of mild symptoms and recovery ignored. Distance and masks for the infected are CDC practices that never before required the shutdown of American small businesses.

So, I will tell you my fear is an unrestrained government especially one whose incongruent, constantly shifting policies are blindly followed by my neighbors and local businesses.

As to Faith, as a nurse for over 25 years—I have no faith in masks. Neither do I have a kind of faith that says, “God will protect me.” I do have faith in divine protection and health, but I do not believe that means I will never contract a disease. In fact, I have a disease that is slowly killing me. Denying it is not going to change that. I have prayed about it and taken steps to slow its progression, but one day in the not too distant future diabetes will be the cause of my demise—unless, of course, I am run over by a bus, fall off a seventy story building, drive my car into a tree, being eaten by a bear while hunting Sasquatch, or being struck by lightning. The latter many believe will be the cause if I stay still long enough for God to get a clean shot.

I fear that which would take my life from me. I have faith that death cannot and will not do that. Therefore, I choose faith, not fear.

Maranatha

Know Jack #292 Go Outside and Play!

 

“Well begun is half done.”  

English language proverb.

The proverb is meant to belay the fears of those considering first-time endeavors. You will never accomplish your dreams unless, and until, you get off your backside and get to work. Taking that first step is huge. How big it depends on you.

I have a very hard time accepting defeat and giving up on tasks that are important to me. That should make it harder for me to commit to new projects, new arenas, and new directions. It should, but it doesn’t. Unfortunately, I jump in with both feet to things that inspire me without regard to my skills and experience.

That’s why at sixty-six I’m building a publishing business in a field where it is nearly impossible to succeed. Of course, my idea of success is not the standard notion. I’m attempting to tell stories and open doors to new writers, not amass riches.

I chose the proverb for this blog because I want to share with writers that the act of typing The End on your manuscript is not the end, it is not even the beginning. It is more like the first bit of empty air under your butt as you rise to begin. And I say that knowing most would-be writers never get that far.

After typing The End comes the editor—and multiple retyping of those words. Hemingway, who knew a bit about writing, once said, “The first draft of anything is shit.” Your first draft, despite its golden glow, is no different. Self-editing may reduce the smell. It will not alter the substance. I speak from experience. That’s why you are seeing my books being re-released.

When the editor finally agrees that the baby you have given birth to is cleaned up enough to hand to a publisher, it has to be dressed up and laid in front of the maternity ward window with the other babies born there.

Done at last, right?

You could say that, but you won’t. There’s nobody there to look at your creation and ooh and aah at what you’ve done. Now comes promotion and marketing—most of which is left entirely up to you.

Unless you already have a string of bestsellers to your credit, the publisher has only a marginal interest in expending any more effort. It’s up to you to prove yourself and your book is worthy. It up to you to hustle to get the word out and inspire, cajole, exhort, convince, and persuade people to not only read your book but pay you for the privilege to do so. And that, my fellow scribbler is a never-ending job.

You will find that you have done more than write a story. That baby analogy was not a coincidence. You have a child whose life is every moment dependent on you, your energy, and your life. How that relationship develops over time is not unlike that of a child. And how well your child does in life, is up to you and a reflection of your commitment to its care.

Maranatha