gkuhns

Category: Commentary

  • The Battle of Humanity

    1. Memories of his father with his face hidden behind a camera. The present and the real are distorted by the preparation for the future. Time is distorted by time. Memories of memories. The reality of the future constantly and starkly stares one in the face. Choices, paths, diversions, and surprises are normal and required. The effects of numbing oneself from reality result in weakness, apathy, and frustration of fulfillment. Hollow emptiness. Cavernous souls are in constant need of amusement.

    2. Constant persuasion by desire, lust, wishes, drive, greed, and need, numb the touches of eternity and blind us to the reality of the unseen and the unknown.

    Exhaustion of both mind and body has hidden visions and dreams and detached us from the winds of heaven, driven us into retreat, and weakened our souls to the point of devastation. It is no wonder that the rallying cry of our leaders is fear and dread. “Death, death reigns” they cry and we die for lack of food. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Doom brought by the pronouncement of it.

    3. Live! Love! cries the Almighty. I won. The battle is over! There is no need for defeat or fear! Triumph is in your hand to claim. Power is mine to give! Arise I say and walk. Open your eyes and see! Listen for my song, my call to your soul to happiness and joy. My heart is full of goodness toward you and my desire is your best. I have created you – I can heal you. Come, come to me all who labor. I will fill and restore you. My kiss of love is the seal of your soul and the breath of your life. I am full and have no need. Turn. Turn to me and be with me.

  • The Rules

    “The game is played, not to protect the rules; rather, the rules are made to protect the game.” – Ravi Zacharias in Recapture the Wonder

    Often when people are confronted with rules, especially rules that do not make sense, they rebel against them in some fashion or another. It is also a nearly universal problem that if one does not understand something, it must be stupid or useless. Because of this, when we disobey a rule that doesn’t make sense it doesn’t really feel like we are rebelling when in fact we are.

    How a person relates to rules tells a lot about them and is most likely an indicator of a lot of things that he would never tell you to your face.

    The longest game in history is life and everyone is playing.

    The sheer stupidity of mankind shaking its collective fist at its creator can only be explained by the nefarious evil known as the “great lie” that was told to Eve. She was told that knowledge would make her a god. Mankind still believes this today and is in the process of testing all of the rules that were handed to them by preceding generations. We believe that if we “figure it out” we can make our own rules and thus be gods. This makes sense if you are believing a lie.

    A false rule.

    The only absolute is that there are no absolutes. Thought experiments filter down to actions that result in mass destruction, chaos, pain, and misery and are blamed on the personal evil of one person or another. The confusion stems from the results of the experiment because the facts are looked at through the filter of “the great lie.” We hate the truth. We think it limits us so we bash at it, bloodying our hands and hurting ourselves but never budging the wall.

    There is a God.

    And we are not Him. He gave us enough rope to hang ourselves or help ourselves. If you believe that Christ is the Son of God and that He can forgive you of your sin you are suddenly winning the game. There is nothing you can do to win, except to believe. And when you do this, the rules no longer apply because the only reason the rules exist is to make everyone who believes “the great lie” lose. When you enter the Kingdom of Heaven you Honor the King and by doing so you renounce the “great lie” and you are justified – pardoned from the guilt that is heaped on you by the rules. The crazy thing about Honoring the King is that you end up obeying the rules because that is who He is and that is how you honor Him because the rules are a revelation of truth. It is the nature of the beast. If you are not Honoring the King and you are trying to win the game by yourself, you are still believing “the great lie.”

    “Love the Lord thy God” is the greatest rule or the rule that all the other rules are bullet points of. “The most irresistible force in the world is love and the most vulnerable.” – Ravi Zacharias in Cries of the Heart

    So the rules protect you from the “great lie” and allow you to play the game of life for real

  • Rewards Cards are thieves

    There is a nearly criminal racket that is very active and pervasive. Chances are, even you have taken part in it. The racket is called Rewards Cards. Have you ever wondered where the “rewards” that you get from your Rewards Card come from?  Straight from the vendor where you bought your stuff. To pay for your rewards, the credit card companies take an extra percentage right off the top of the transaction. So by using the rewards card, you steal from the store you bought from and by extension if you steal, you are a thief. Sure, you get part of your money back which is cool, but the major beneficiary of this vile scheme is the credit card industry. You see, they don’t pass all of the “rewards” on to you, they keep a chunk of them for themselves.

    In the last few months, the rewards cards have been skimming an extra 2.5% right off the top of the transactions that I submitted here at work and there is absolutely no way to recover the money or to keep it from happening again. It is illegal for us to refuse credit card payment, to refuse rewards cards or even put a cap on how much people can pay with cards. So, if you want to steal from us, we are open for business. The only way we can avoid the racket is to stop offering credit card payment options or by charging an extra processing fee.

    Do your merchant a favor and stop using your rewards cards. I’m sure places like Wal-Mart and Target have it figured out so they don’t have to pay it but for the small businesses, it just hurts.

  • Arbor Day Foundation

    I just joined the National Arbor Day Foundation. The registration costs $10 for a year and with that I get 10 trees. I wanted a Weeping Willow tree too, so I bought one for $8 and got a free Red Maple with that. All said and done I got 12 trees for $23. You need to order soon to get your trees in time for spring planting. Go join up already, unless of course you are deprived of the blessing of land.

    I think trees are awesome. What better way is there to dress up God’s green earth?

  • Lectio Divina

    Lectio Divina
    The Four Moments from Wikipedia

    Lectio Divina has been likened to “Feasting on the Word.” The four parts are first taking a bite (Lectio), then chewing on it (Meditatio). Next is the opportunity to savor the essence of it (Oratio). Finally, the Word is digested and made a part of the body (Contemplatio).

    Lectio

    This first moment consists in reading the scriptural passage slowly, attentively several times. Many write down words in the scripture that stick out to them or grasp their attention during this moment.

    Meditatio

    The Christian, gravitating around the passage or one of its words, takes it and ruminates on it, thinking in God’s presence about the text. He or she benefits from the Holy Spirit’s ministry of illumination, i.e. the work of the Holy Spirit that imparts spiritual understanding of the sacred text. It is not a special revelation from God, but the inward working of the Holy Spirit, which enables the Christian to grasp the revelation contained in the Scripture.

    Oratio

    This is prayer: prayer understood both as dialogue with God, that is, as loving conversation with the One who has invited us into His embrace; and as consecration, prayer as the priestly offering to God of parts of ourselves that we have not previously believed God wants. In this consecration-prayer we allow the word that we have taken in and on which we are pondering to touch and change our deepest selves. …God invites us in lectio divina to hold up our most difficult and pain-filled experiences to Him, and to gently recite over them the healing word or phrase He has given us in our lectio and meditatio. In this oratio, this consecration-prayer, we allow our real selves to be touched and changed by the word of God.

    Contemplatio

    This moment is characterized by a simple, loving focus on God. In other words, it is a beautiful, wordless contemplation of God, a joyful rest in His presence.