Freedom’s Trumpet

More often than not I find that this is of little use. What point is there in unloading another opinion in an ocean of opinions? Somebody has already said what you want to say.

I have eliminated the television completely. I canceled the service once before, but eventually had it turned back on. Whether this will happen now is a mystery, because I really and truly don’t have a desire to watch it and stopped watching it when the service was still connected. The DirecTV rep could not understand life without television.

I don’t know if this will be the beginning of a new blogging career. These blog things are easy to drop and pick back up again. Maybe it’s enough to just comment whenever the mood strikes. I have other blogs now that are for the purpose of presenting historical religious information, without worrying about public policy, the news, or anything else that seems important in worldly affairs.

What I think about anything matters little.

Of course, this is legitimate. (Cough) Mugabe is still terrorizing his country. He did offer, in times past, to let the former farm owners to return to teach the people who stole their farms, and raped their wives and killed their children, how to grow food. This didn’t go over so well with the former landowners, but nobody is really sure why. It could be bad memories, or it could simply be that the former landowners are wary of Mugabe’s intentions. He’s wrecked his economy, but at least they’re inflating their way out of trouble. They now have $10 million bills. That’s probably due to the 3000% daily inflation rate.
More here

Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe’s Future

Payday Loan cash advance loansharks are being scrutinized by people who think evil is ok as long as it’s not blatant. 300% annual percent is blatant evil and people are responding to the evils they see in Payday loan places.
Why? Because these places screw poor people. That’s why. It’s not enough that they’re poor, but these places sit there like snakes in the grass waiting for the poor man to need a quick $800 loan. They tell Mr. Broke that he can pay them x-hunred dollars in appreciation fees for being allowed to spend a paycheck or 17 on a new television. Mr. Broke agrees. He also agrees to pay the loan off in 2 weeks, but what he doesn’t know is that the rest of his life keeps gnawing away at the little bit he does earn. Loanshark agrees to let Mr Broke continue owing Mr Loanshark money if Mr Broke pays $150 in fees. 2 weeks later Mr. Broke is faced with owing Mr. Loanshark $800 that he doesn’t have. Mr Loanshark is sympathetic and offers Mr. Broke another opportunity to get off with a mere $150 in fees to postpone the due date. Mr Broke thanks Mr Loanshark for being so understanding and coughs up $150. Two weeks later, Mr Broke still doesn’t have $800, because he gave Mr Loanshark $300 already. Mr. Loanshark is again sympathetic. This scenario lasts for 2 years until Mr. Broke breaks into Mr Loansharks establishment, shoots Mr Loanshark, and defaults on the loan. He will have paid about $7000 in fees by this time, but will not have paid off his loan.

President Bush called this ‘fuzzy math’, but I think that was just because math is fuzzy to him.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=5245699&page=1

note. I am not suggesting that you shoot the payday cash advance guy. He’s probably just an underpaid clerk who takes abuse just like you.

If you find yourself in this trap you may be helped by your local church. If they won’t help keep trying churches. Eventually you’ll get somewhere.

It’s late but I’m posting anyway, along with the 30 or so other million blogs. Merry Christmas to all.

I feel conflict in my home library. Two books arrived yesterday. One is Roman Catholicism, the antiCatholic bible by Lorraine Boettner and the other is the Adoremus Hymnal.

There’s no conflict. In one I wanted music and I wanted to destroy the other, in a sense. From what I can tell it will be harder to learn the hymns. The other book seems worthless, except for the influence it and a couple of other books have in some circles of Christian hate groups.

We’ll see how well that works out. The Christmas season has begun. I hope yours is beginning and not ending today. God bless you and your families.

The wait is almost over, but not quite yet. We still have more gifts to buy!

It’s Advent. The manger is empty. Mary is looking into the empty manger, waiting obediently for the coming of her Saviour, who saved her from before her birth. She is too humble to bother with why. She just waits, like any expectant mother, for the time when the crib will comfort her glorious Son. When she can hold him close, supporting his small head and neck because His neck is still too weak to hold His head up. He’s Christ, Emmanuel, but He’s coming to us as a child, weak, human, needing the support of His loving mother and the care of Joseph, who has agreed to care for this special Child who is coming to the world.

While chatting with some YouTubers one atheist brought up Mother Teresa and said that she was an atheist when she went to meet God.

I’m not going to expound on this for very long, because I’m going to encourage you instead to get the book with her letters and find out for yourself. In the book you will find, many times, when she said that she felt cut off from God. She felt a spiritual darkness.

Mother Teresa led a life that most of us couldn’t possibly identify with. We have small moments of pain in our lives, occasionally someone dies, or we see strife, or abuse of some person, but Mother Teresa worked intimately with countless thousands of some of the poorest, most abused people on the planet. They are stuck in a caste system that discriminates against them because of the family they were born into. Most of us can’t even begin to compare our sufferings to theirs. She worked in the very bowels of society. How can you not experience spiritual darkness when you are immersed in human tragedy every day of your life?

Yet, through it all, she did keep her faith. Time and time again in the writings you’ll see that she embraced the darkness. I will quote one small excerpt regarding an account from 1996, during the last year of her life here on earth.

“That year, what suffering she had! I never saw in my life the physical suffering that Mother put up with. She could not talk, she could not move with the respirator and bronchial tube fixed with cello tape …

Ultimately, one morning Mother wrote, “I want Jesus.” We asked Father Gary to come that morning, early, at 5:00 a.m. After the Mass he was just able to give her a drop of the Precious Blood. She began to improve.”

I apologize if I quoted too much and will remove that upon request, but that is a powerful statement of faith. They understood immediately what she was asking for, and it shows the profound effect that even a single drop of the Blood of Christ had on this saint that the media, and Christopher Hitchens, tried to portray as an atheist, when she was and is nothing of the sort. An atheist would not have asked for the Blessed Sacrament and they would have received little or no benefit, unless the Lord wished to create a special witness by healing and converting the hard of heart.

I don’t expect an atheist or most people to take that little bit as full evidence that Mother Teresa kept her faith throughout her life. I just put it there for those of you who might already understand what it was that she was asking to receive and to understand the profound faith that led her to make such a request.

If you wish to buy the book with her letters you can do so from most bookstores, or by clicking on the following link –

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light

I would personally prefer it if you could check with your local Pauline or other local Catholic bookstore for that book. They’re usually run as part of a shrine or at least by a Religious Order and contact with Sisters and Brothers is good for your soul That and they need your support more than I do. I have a job that I get paid for already.

But if you must buy it from the internet that link takes you to Amazon.com, and I do get a little bit of the proceeds, albeit not much.