I Have THE Answer!

By justifiably unknown & ignored philosopher-historian-theologian David L Lewis

Have told the story many times because it has proved too true: In 1974 Evangelist Billy Graham said, Every problem we solve creates two new, unintended problems which we would not have had it we’d not solved the first problem. The problem is now so complex there is No answer. In 1974!

Believe it or not they ‘solved’ a lot of problems in last 50 years, result being it’s getting a bit scary out there. Have you been watching the “News” lately? No, not the ‘our-way-or-the-highway’ shows which use ‘news’ stories to keep attention of their target (i.e. money) audience. Rather, are you watching what is actually going on in the world? If not, DON’T!

If you knew everything bad that was going to happen worldwide in next ten minutes, the volume of information would drive you mad: Wars and rumors of war, earthquakes and volcanoes in numerous places, plague and famine, economies built on fiat currency backed only by shifting sand of hubris. Just name most the obvious.

​In keeping up with all this, one YouTube channel I follow is Rev. Ed Trevers, an Anglican Priest in the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. No, he’s not always right; but, e is a straight-talking guy with true gift of teaching. In one of his videos he asked a good question: What would you do if you were God? Don’t pretend to know what God would do, and certainly doubt my ability to out-think Him. But, in my observation this would be THE Answer:

First, all us folk who are going to heaven anyhow should go-ahead and go off to heaven, anyhow. Surely there would be hundreds of us?

Next, all those folks who aren’t going to heaven anyhow should go-ahead and go to wherever folks who don’t go to heaven go, anyhow.

In a million years or so some of us folk in heaven could visit earth and see how it’s doing without humans to solve problems.

Of course, those of us in heaven will miss favorite son-in-law. I mean what with him being over there in Libertarian heaven.

Overall I think it’s THE Answer, and pretty sure Billy and Ed would agree.

TheHeavenBoundDaddy!

ALTERNATIVE TRUTH

The Prime-Time Drivel of Cable News by David L Lewis

Listen my children for you shall hear

political talk to dread and to fear

As the movies taught us when I was young

beware they who speak with Forked-Tongue

Election season now calls all to the fight

and we must discern our left from our right

Candidates telling tales of only their side

what makes them look bad they certainly hide

Each promising to do what we want them to

knowing they promise what no man can do

They’ll spout Party line if truth in the way

the American People want whatever they say

What-about-that-guy-ism forgives all sin

the Polls only true if say our side must win

They blame others for all they did wrong

and Alternate Truth is name of their song

Being wrong does not mean an evil intention

nor telling painful truth ever transgression

Perhaps in some day to come just for fun

we can find someone worth electing to run

There is Always more to the story . . . ALWAYS

доверяй, но проверяй

doveryai, no proveryai (Google it)

theDubiousDaddy!

 

 

Dr King and I

The what-I-learned experiences of David L Lewis

THIS IS A TEST- Answers at end:
1) You see a random person walking down the street. What is the FIRST judgment your mind makes about that person?
2) You see a random person walking down the street. What is the SECOND judgment your mind makes about that person?

January 15 2024

The greatest recorded oratory of my lifetime was the Martin Luther King Jr. “Dream speech” at Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. That part of his “dream” which became engraved in my soul is the line: “I have a dream that my four children will some day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” This sentence became a touchstone by which I have tried to live in the world in which we actually live.

Five years after that speech Martin Luther King Jr. Day became the federal holiday observed on third Monday of January.  Given how much America has changed for the better since 1968, it is good that our country observes this commemoration. However, Civil Rights Day might be a better designation. As with many such commemorations, the man represents not himself but the contributions of innumerable people who contributed something. As professor Eddie Glaude put it, “You can change the world if you do a little more than nothing”.

This is about my own minuscule contribution to how much America has changed for the better since 1968.

Growing up in St Louis I encountered almost no “Negro” people. There simply were very few around. I started high school three years after Brown vs Board of Education. Thus began my introduction to “Blacks” (the correct word at the time). My general impression these many years later is that they might have thought less of me for being white than I of them for being black.

Looking back over some eighty years, I see many times when my ignorance kept me from seeing how blind I was to what God was showing me:

• There was the nurse who taught me at age 7 to treat all nurses with respect.

• The mixed-race couple passing by when I was 12 who got me in trouble with my friend’s mother because I saw no harm in such a relationship.

• The young custodian who taught me to respect all work, especially work I wouldn’t want to do myself.

• That time I accepted an invitation to attend Deliverance Temple, not knowing I would be the first white man to ever walk in the door. When we left that town it was an ‘integrated’ church and I was sent out as something of an ambassador.

• When I felt led to attend another ‘black’ church. Arrived at time on the sign, 9:00AM, and stayed to end, 3:00PM. One of deacons said I was “first white man to ever stayed for whole thing”. Never occurred to me to offend them by leaving early.

• Of all the people alive today the person whom I’d most like to meet is President Barack Obama. Somehow feel I owe him an apology. Understand that every President is hated by a percentage of people for their policy or actions. It just never occurred to me, though, a President of the United States of America would be hated because of skin color or ancestry; or be judged by what they are, and not by the “content of their character”. As another great man who happened to have black skin, civil rights hero Congressman John Lewis, said of America: “We’re better than that”.

As we honor Dr. King and his accomplishments it seems unreasonable to ask a white person to understand what it like to live in black, or red, or yellow skin. This is not possible because I’ve never ‘walked in their moccasins’. All anyone has a right to ask of another person is to be treated fair and be concerned if I have caused pain.

TheStillLearningDaddy!

Answers: #1) Gender #2) Race

Think about it, you only notice when you can’t automatically, unconsciously make that judgment.

 How Big Is Your God?

Part II - More Unanswered Questions of David L Lewis

Many years ago a professor proposed something like the following:
     Whatsoever you divine truth, purpose, and balance in life;
     Whatsoever you define as peace and security amid turmoil and trouble;
     Whatsoever you devote thereto time, effort, and wealth to support;
     Whatsoever you defend without limit, recourse to evidence or testimony;
     Therein determines how big is your divinity.

How Big Is Your God When It’s Your Country That . . .

• was conceived in the best of times, in the worst of times, in the times of learning history rhymes;

• was born in insurrection and weaned on slavery;

• was raised conquering those in the way, even though here first;

• was brother against brother, leaving dead 600,000 mother’s sons;

• was war to end all war, to make world safe for American democracy;

• was Black Friday with ten years of Depression midst great wealth;

• was 16-million under arms, every home touched, first Atomic Bomb;

• was the greatest generation, if you were white and a man;

• was Cold War, birth of an Atomic Age; the McCarthy Committee and lives it destroyed;

• was 13 days of the greatest crisis in human history;

• was Nixon resigning, with unintended consequences of pardon;

• was being lied into undeclared conflict in various places;

• was yo-yo economy, dark money, judges for sale;

• was the famous, the fortunate, the failures in a White House;

• was forgetting promise and hope of that statue in a New York harbor;

• was opposition for sake of opposing, absolute political power for sake of power, my side or else, not a lie if the liar believed it;

• was threat on Rule of Law, a promise of violence, the violence;

• was he who alone could save, riot and death at the Bastille, indictment and arraignment;

• was cutting lines which had moored Ship of State to faith of founders;

• and has an unknown, factious future which little from past history has prepared?

Hey, it’s 2024, it’s an election year. How big is your God when it’s your Country that...

Just asking for some future unbelieving generation,

TheObservantServant!

Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the

soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell

prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!” (I Kings 18.39, KJV)