A Parable of Faith Activation

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aide, community-service, compassion, faith, fear, government, government-programs, help, people, personal service to others, Self-sacrifice, service, The Little Dutch Boy, unselfishness, volunteers

“What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but YOU {emphasis bjb} do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” James 2: 14- 17

“The dam is breaking! The dam is breaking! Emergency!!!” The screams of the people of Borderville frantically scurrying to get out of harm’s way echoed from the hillsides surrounding the town. Chaos everywhere! People watched in horror from hilltops and housetops as a wall of water rushed down the ravine sweeping over everything in its path. Thousands of homes gone in a moment. Families swept away. Utter and complete devastation in the wake with more tragedy ahead in its path.

Warnings had been given prior, but no one listened. There was a lot of talk, several plans were put forth, money had even been allocated, but nothing was done. Now, it was too late.

Emergency broadcasts flooded the airways urgently notifying people to seek higher ground. There was a cry, too, for volunteers to help tend the wounded and homeless.

It wasn’t long before the government issued a “warning” to local residents, and they began to organize shelters and supplies for the many victims. The Governor sought Federal assistance asking it be declared an “EMERGENCY!” Thousands of homes had already been destroyed. Many lives had been lost, and still the enormity of this tragedy was only beginning.

The water surged downhill wiping out everything in its path. Homes, schools, churches … businesses. It was ruthless.

Within a half hour of the breach, three or four helicopters peppered the sky. Whether journalists reporting the story or government agencies looking at the devastation was unclear. News bulletins resounded across the nation.

The hours began to roll by. The path of tragedy grew. The cry for help continued. Checks began to pour in from the American public. Emergency “#800” phones were organized. Government agencies brought supplies to nearby make shift shelters. Piles of blankets and cases of water grew.

The following weekend, pleas issued from pulpits in churches, tabernacles, mosques, as well as community outreach programs. Tons of building and survival supplies were quickly being gathered at points from coast to coast.

Hollywood celebrities and politicians issued calls for help from their walled-in mansions and executive offices. Photos flashed across TV screens and computer screens of the gorgeous celebs at fundraisers supporting the victims relief effort.

Hours and days passed. The flood continued to demolish town after town, home after home. Politicians chose sides: some pleaded for more money and supplies to tend the victims, and others wanted, first, to repair the dam.

“Oh no, we must let the water go and take care of the people first! That is the compassionate thing. To repair the dam is taking food out of the childrens’ mouths!” they said.

A handful of volunteers gathered at the local Red Cross. The size or their task was immeasurable. Money was plentiful. Supplies from the government were available, but volunteers were scarce. Seems everyone had a reason not to lend a physical hand to help the distraught and displaced survivors.

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

There is a children’s story I recall – The Little Dutch Boy, by Mary Mapes Dodge. Peter Miller writes this synopsis of the tale:

“Dutch legend has it that there was once a small boy who upon passing a dyke (or dam) on his way to school noticed a slight leak as the sea trickled in through a small hole. Knowing that he would be in trouble if he were to be late for school, the boy poked his finger into the hole and so stemmed the flow of water. Some time later a passerby saw him and went to get help. This came in the form of other men who were able to effect repairs on the dyke and seal up the leak.

“This story is told to children to teach them that if they act quickly and in time, even they with their limited strength and resources can avert disasters. The fact that the Little Dutch Boy used his finger to stop the flow of water, is used as an illustration of self-sacrifice. The physical lesson is also taught: a small trickle of water soon becomes a stream and the stream a torrent and the torrent a flood sweeping all before it, Dyke material, roadways and cars, and even railway tracks and bridges and whole trains.”

The Bible teaches God is a personal God. He is interested in our individual growth and character. In America, and in our world today, there are several “dams breaking.” We have agency upon agency duplicating tasks and spending obscene amounts of money, and accomplishing little. President Johnson back in the 60’s declared a “War on Poverty,” establishing “Social Security (creating medicare & medicaid) and “Food Stamp Act.”

As noble as the “War on Poverty” idea is, we have MORE poverty today, not less. We’ve lost the “War on Poverty!” Look around! If these programs actually worked, wouldn’t the percentages decrease and the numbers of thriving Americans increase? Service programs abound, but people willing to volunteer their time and talents are few. Government not equipped to tend the needs of individual families or communities. Government cannot empathize or feel compassion. We can!

See, only we, as individuals and neighbors know the specific needs of one another and have the ability to feel compassion. The thing about helping others … not only does serving one another help them, the victims, but it activates us! There is something reciprocal that happens when we reach out to “care” for another human being. I’ve heard it from missionaries to go with the warm intention of helping others, but they return feeling more a recipient than a giver.

It’s about people, a “People Connection” that opens our hearts and drowns the fears we have of people, of strangers. We are free to serve, yes, but only in doing does the reverse become true – our service frees us! Only in service to our neighbors does our faith become activated. Regardless of whether our religion is Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism … it is our personal service to others that confirms, affirms, and activates our Faith.

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♫ Like a Rock ♫

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Bob Seger, character, community-service, compassion, goodness, Helping others, homeless, integrity, kindness, Like a Rock, mentally ill, music, neighbors, service, stand, take stand, truth

Popular approval of Congress has reached an all time low as Americans reel under the vast scope of myriad scandals and lies perpetrated by this Administration. Yes! We have seen corruption before. Yes, we’ve been lied to before. Yes, we’ve even seen huge character flaws in our leaders before, but never … NEVER to the depth and scope to which we’re seeing today.

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Why? What has changed? What has happened to allow or facilitate such widespread corruption?

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Will a building stand if its foundation is compromised?

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Will a traveler reach his destination without first plotting his course & naming his destination?

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Can a nation long survive which has shredded its moral compass and floats aimlessly on sentimentalism?

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Perhaps innocently, perhaps with vile intent, social mores held firm throughout global civilizations over thousands of years, have suddenly (over the past few decades) come into question. GOD was declared dead April 8, 1966, and since that time, little by little, the once universal boundaries of Right & Wrong, have blurred. What was once, not more than generation ago, accepted behavior, has become “Old-fashioned” and “intolerant.”

Funny thing is, GOD is no place defined in our Founding documents, and the early Framers each held different personal beliefs. They intentionally kept all reference to GOD ambiguous so various individual beliefs might be adapted and accepted.

♫ Like a Rock ♫

• The point is CHARACTER.
• The point is GOALS … self-improvement … serving others.
• The point is standing for something bigger than yourself.
  The point is growing in personal integrity and service to the community… by choice, rather than by mandate.
• The point … is standing firm on some defined principles that are other aware.

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Without a firm foundation to stand on, the tides of political correctness too easily blow us around until we find ourselves … surrounded by Corruption. Like so many of our political leaders, bought and sold to the highest bidder, we, too, succumb to the popular trends and thoughts, victims of popular opinion.

How did we get here? We allowed it by our own compromise.

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Take a stand for GOODNESS
Take a stand for KINDNESS
Take a stand for TRUTH
Take a stand for COMPASSION
Take a stand for your Neighbor, for the Homeless, for the mentally infirmed … to be personally involved!

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Find something bigger than yourself worth STANDING FOR, worth giving your life’s passion to support, worth working toward and Take a Stand.

“We must stop acting like children.
We must not let deceitful people trick us by their false teachings,
which are like winds that toss us around from place to place.”
Eph 4:14 CEV

♫ Like a Rock ♫

Words and music by Bob Seger

Stood there boldly
Sweatin’ in the sun
Felt like a million
Felt like number one
The height of summer
I’d never felt that strong
Like a rock

I was eighteen
Didn’t have a care
Working for peanuts
Not a dime to spare
But I was lean and
Solid everywhere
Like a rock

My hands were steady
My eyes were clear and bright
My walk had purpose
My steps were quick and light
And I held firmly
To what I felt was right
Like a rock

Like a rock, I was strong as I could be
Like a rock, nothin’ ever got to me
Like a rock, I was something to see
Like a rock

And I stood arrow straight
Unencumbered by the weight
Of all these hustlers and their schemes
I stood proud, I stood tall
High above it all
I still believed in my dreams

Twenty years now
Where’d they go?
Twenty years
I don’t know
Sit and I wonder sometimes
Where they’ve gone

And sometimes late at night
When I’m bathed in the firelight
The moon comes callin’ a ghostly white
And I recall
I Recall …

Like a rock. standin’ arrow straight
Like a rock, chargin’ from the gate
Like a rock, carryin’ the weight
Like a rock

Like a rock, the sun upon my skin
Like a rock, hard against the wind
Like a rock, I see myself again
Like a rock

Want to Change Future History?

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"other" awareness, change history, community, GET INVOLVED, Helping others, kindness, service

SERVICE

One look at our recent American culture and one concept is abundantly clear. We have become a fearful, myopic society. We’re self-centered, self-consumed, and self-absorbed. We are encouraged by all that surrounds us to JUDGE one another, to separate the population into groups or “collectives” and turn against one another because of our differences. And the up side of this is … ? Exactly what is the benefit of all this hatred and division?

As a woman of faith, it is my goal to imitate my God, to live as He lives, to love as He loves. This lead me to think about the gulf between the urge to be “of service” and that of myopic America. The difference is so simple! OTHERS!

Children are naturally myopic, selfish, but as we mature, we should become increasingly aware of the needs of others. It’s called “Other-awareness” in the education or psychology fields, but in life, it’s just growing up. If society doesn’t encourage us to mature in this way, however, it is unlikely to occur. What we are seeing now is a nation of people whose psychological development has been stunted by a shift in morality from others to ourselves.

There are as many different ways to “serve” one another as there are individuals. We are each unique, and uniquely gifted. Some enjoy cooking and making a little extra to share with a neighbor is a joy. Some have organizational abilities and can help other start businesses or clean homes. Some are good with small children while others are better with Seniors who need assistance. Like a pond without an outlet, we grow smelly if we do not give of what we have received. Our “richness” grows stagnant and moldy unless we find an outlet, a way to serve.

If each person who reads this article decides to become a giver, a public servant or a neighbor, we can change the current drift of our nation toward oblivion. If we commit to this change and seek opportunities to help one another, kindness will spread and multiply because that is its nature! If we can do this, the government won’t have to!

Service might be a position of employment or a volunteer position. It can be a regularly scheduled event or a random occasion. Service might be scrubbing toilets or teaching children. It can be at a Senior Citizens high rise or a Veterans center, making meals for a disadvantaged mother or picking up groceries for a “shut-in.” The cool thing is, each of us “see” a need in our community. It’s like a burr under a horse’s saddle that rubs and rubs until it’s dealt with. Whatever that “burr” is to you is most likely the way you are designed to help your neighbors and your nation. Get involved. Find a way to give. Find someone who needs your help, and then do it with a joyful heart and watch history change!

Train My Hands for Battle

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DO, giving nature, Helping others, selfish nature, selfishness, service, train my hands, Two Wolves

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” John 15: 13

Praise be to the Lord my Rock, 
who trains my hands for war, 
my fingers for battle.
Ps 144: 1

What do you suppose this “battle” is about? I’m sure there are dozens of possible ideas. Allow me to present an option to ponder.

I suggest the battle can be understood in the lifelong struggle we all face against selfishness. Each of us will naturally opt for the larger pile of gold or the bigger cookie. Still, someplace within us, we also possess a desire to help others. These two sides argue or compete with each other continuously, like the old Cherokee tale of the Two Wolves. The side of our nature that is strongest is the one we exercise the most. Our choice.

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the
least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Matthew 25:40

Most Americans have heard this sentiment at one time or another. We are aware of those among us less fortunate than ourselves, and we are inclined to help any way we are able. For some of us, that means writing a check. For others, it means bagging some canned goods for the Boy Scout Food Drive. For still others, it means serving at a Soup Kitchen once a month or so.

All of these opportunities are performed with our HANDS! They are all actions done in response to a compassionate impulse to help those among us who struggle. Service starts in our hearts but must be acted upon through our hands.

I suggest, “it is God who trains our hands to…” do what our hearts urge us to do. He enables us to give and rewards us when we do. He brings opportunities to our attention and draws us toward activities that will use our individual talents and strengths. “He trains our hands for battle … ” to wage war against our selfish nature. He provides a lifetime of opportunities to use our hands to help our neighbors and ourselves in the process.

Which nature will we feed?

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
James 1: 22

Know Thyself because it’s up to US to Turn this Nation around!!!

Tags

goals, motivations, service

Know Thyself
because it’s up to You & Me
to Turn this Nation Around!!!

What do you seek? I mean, what are you driving toward?
What is your goal?

Do you seek a meaningful career? What makes a career meaningful for you?

Whatever I do to earn income, to be meaningful, must somehow help or improve life for someone else. That’s what makes me “tick!”

What motivates you?

Relationships are everything to me. Relationship with God, with my kids, friends … even those of you here who respond to my posts. Building relationships keeps me moving forward, upward, onward toward … ?

What is your ultimate goal? Money? Leisure? Retirement? Marriage? Education? Mansion? Mercedes?

What occupies your time? Work? Family? Pleasures?

Where does your money go? People? Pleasures? Necessities? Helping the needy?

The answers to these and similar questions help to define who we are. Knowing who we are is important! Knowing our priorities helps to define the kind of government we require. Then we can know where we are going based on where we have been!

It is impossible to rightly govern a nation
without God and the Bible.

George Washington

A Time in My History

Tags

experience, help, military service, nonprofit, service, service platoons, veterans

I practiced and practiced with the platoon until each of us had a chance to dress a chest wound and a head wound just like the book said.

First aid maneuvers

There was a lot to learn in the 10 weeks of basic training, most I was completely unfamiliar with. I had never fired a weapon before, any kind of weapon, and the Army trusted me with an M-16! I was thrilled when I qualified as an Expert with it.

I only got close to two or three girls in basic, and I kept in touch for a few months, but we each landed on our feet far away from one another, so it seemed rather pointless to write. (Yes, this was before email was a twinkle in anyone’s eye!)

After a tour in Maryland, I deployed to Delta Junction, Alaska, to Ft Greely, the home of the Cold Region Test Center. This would be my home for the next several years.

It wasn’t long before I began to build a very special relationship with a soldier there with a history in Vietnam. Together, we marveled at the dancing Northern lights, the enormous star blanket & and the largely virgin landscape. We used to lie down on the hood of his truck and watch the Northern Lights by the hour, even in bitter cold temperatures, the heat from the engine warmed us.

Generally speaking, he was not a “talker,” but once in a while, he would talk about his experience in Vietnam. He would finger his “dog tags” as he spoke, recalling the dreariness and the beauty of the Vietnamese landscape. He reminded me that among the other information on the dog tags, is the blood type of the soldier. He talked about the booby traps he encountered and the explosives he had to neutralize or defuse – and those he never had the chance to. Repeatedly, in these times, he would say that the only thing he ever wanted was to come home.

"Hanoi Jane" Fonda openly conspired with the North Vietnamese against our US Troops!

I asked him, too, about that day, the day he returned to US soil. 1968 it was. Like many of our service members, he was spat upon and was the object of tomatoes and bottles. “Kill the heroes,” the grungy youth shouted. “Kill the killers!” Tears silently filled his eyes. I just squeezed his hand.

To this day I cannot fathom how that must have felt. What a horrendous, shameful thing to have done to our national Heroes. Certainly a shameful time in America’s history. But what about now?

How do our heroes feel today? News of the wars is largely ignored. Millions and millions of soldiers have returned home and now stand in the unemployment lines. The same outrageous numbers of PEOPLE are victims of government backlog that leaves the medically untreated, psychologically placebo’ed, and generally, unappreciated and left to flounder. They ask for nothing more than what their contracts promised, what they earned in danger’s way!

VA Will Cut Off Disability Payments If Shutdown Lasts a Month

“If a government shutdown continues through the end of October, the Veterans Affairs Department said it will have to cut off disability and education benefits payments, which could cause financial devastation to veterans, according to the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

“Veterans Benefits Administration claims processors will continue to handle disability and education claims during a shutdown, VA said. The department employs roughly 19,000 claims processors.

“VA has excepted VBA claims processors so that it can continue to process claims and beneficiaries will continue to receive their payments,” VA spokeswoman Victoria Dillon said. “However, those benefits are provided through appropriated mandatory funding, and that funding will run out by late October. At that point, VA will be unable to make any payments.”

“VA will only update its main Web page and hospital Facebook and Twitter feeds intermittently during a shutdown, the department said in a fact sheet. VA also said it will furlough its entire public affairs staff during a shutdown.

“Call centers for disability claims will operate during the shutdown, but VA said it will close the education benefits hotline. VA will also not operate provide matriculated vets with on-campus counselors.

“The 152 hospitals, 800-plus clinics and 300 vet centers operated by the Veterans Health Admninistration, funded by multi-year appropriations, will continue to operate, VA said. VHA employs roughly 250,000 people who would continue to work and draw pay during a shutdown.

Navy veteran Tristan Williamson speaks to homeless veterans during a service project in San Diego earlier this year. Williamson, a former Mission Continues fellow, is heading up one of the group’s new service platoons.
Courtesy of Mission Continues

One innovative Veteran took unemployment as a mission. “Tristan Williamson has been out of the military for five years, but he’s back in a platoon.

“This time, the Navy veteran is fighting hunger, not the enemy.

“Williamson’s platoon — 20-plus veterans, already at work on community gardens in San Diego — is among the first of what Mission Continues officials hope will be dozens of neighborhood outreach groups led by veterans.

“The nonprofit group launched its new service platoons initiative this week. Officials have dubbed it a veterans’ report-for-duty call, with veterans trained in charitable work leading chapters in 30 cities.

“It’s an extension of the group’s existing goal of engaging veterans through community service, often in areas with limited military presence and even less knowledge of the challenges troops face returning to civilian life.

“The idea of second service for veterans has emerged as a theme in recent years, with the first combat generation of the all-volunteer force slowly leaving the military but retaining ideals of civic duty.” More HERE

Not all of our war heroes are in the military (via Bare Naked Islam)

Tags

America, American morality, character, help, helping others, military appreciation, military-stories, service

Serving those who serve America. Take a ride with Bill Whittle and volunteers from the Veterans Airlift Command. The VAC provides free air transportation to wounded warriors, veterans and their families for medical and other compassionate purposes through a national network of volunteer aircraft owners and pilots. H/T PJTV … Read More

via Bare Naked Islam

A Stranger’s “Thank You”

Tags

"life lessons", Afghanistan, America, character training, Ft Jackson SC, Ft Stewart GA, grateful nation, Iraq, Kuwait, Military appreciation, sacrifice, service, spiritual, unemployment, US Air Force, US Army, US Coast Guards, US Marines, US Navy, Warriors Walk

Warrior's Walk, Ft Stewart, GA

On September 12, 2007, my youngest daughter enlisted in the U.S. Army. I allowed her to quit an unsuccessful high school career, obtain her GED, and ship out to her destiny at age 17.

She left the house amidst extreme emotion, but I knew I had to let her go and she knew she was ‘called.’ Staying would have killed her spirit. She completed her basic training at Ft Jackson, SC – same place I did mine in 1976! Ft Stewart became her home for 9 months. Her orders changed frequently, but she eventually deployed to Kuwait in March of ’08. Many of her friends went on to Iraq or Afghanistan, but she was assigned to the base camp in Kuwait. She was gone for a year. I heard from her about once a week, either by email or occasionally by phone. It was a VERY long year for all of us!

She returned after a year in the desert, and her brother and I went down to welcome her HOME, to the USA. The two of us, along with a good friend, drove from Charleston, SC to Ft Stewart, GA and awaited the bus returning from the Atlanta airport. It took an eternity, but finally the warriors rolled down the main street in the bus, to a cheering, yelling, crying crowd of family and friends. It was a wonderful day for our family.

The following day, we visited the Warriors’ Walk, a memorial garden for those who paid the highest price in Iraq or Afghanistan – the latest conflicts. As I started out, I decided to read aloud each and every remembrance plaque which contained the soldier’s name, rank, hometown, unit and theater in which they served. On most of these memorials, however, there were also handwritten notes from friends or family, mementos that held some special meaning, a flag, a snapshot, a can of beer, or a helmet. It didn’t take long before my heart was broken for the families and friends of these brave heroes. I was so deeply grateful that my daughter was not among them, yet I grieved for their loss, for the nation’s loss.

VISIT the WARRIORS WALK, FT STEWART, GA

A stranger to each of these honored lost soldiers, my daughter and I expressed our profound gratitude in silent tears. A stranger’s “Thank You” in behalf of … a grateful nation? … In behalf of my family.

A Stranger's Thank You - We are Grateful!

INSPIRATION MONDAY XIX – THANKS, BEKINDREWRITE

~ B