Grace, Guilt and Debt Collecting

I have included 3 worksheets for improvement in our lives.  It has to do with past hurts and resentments that build up.  No matter how many times someone has hurt us, paying them back through revenge will not settle the matter.  Forgiveness has to take place.  When you know someone has purposely hurt you and lied to you for their own self gain, one can only pray that they will understand their actions and be restored to God's kingdom.  Here are 3 worksheets for everyone who stalks this page for their own benefit.  Some people try to collect emotional debt from a current partner, family member or peer that was caused by someone previous in their life.  Truth will win out over pain.  Love will overcome fear..  Sorrow will be dissolved.  The eternal kingdom is at our fingertips.

Best episode in a year or so; Jon is burdened by certain tensions

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/tabernaclefaith/2017/08/07/mosque-explosion-in-mpls-protecting-the-minority-faction

Jon and I had recent conflict on our radio show regarding religious perspective and male/female perceptions.  It happened about 3 weeks ago and it still seems to bother him.  I don't know how I can continually rectify the situation beyond explaining my world view until I am blue in the face and yet, someone such as him, cannot fully comprehend my struggle to enlighten him and in reverse, he to me.  The reason I brought up world view is because I see the world from a Christian and neutral intellectual.  What I mean by that, is I understand the Christian prophecy that must take place before the Second Coming of Christ.  There will be a major confrontation of world powers btwn Russia, US and China in the Middle East.  We are beginning to see the edges of this prophecy and the dividing line with the escalation of Kim Jong Un.  As a political scientist, I can crisply define the world from a pragmatic point of view.  There are 34% of the world population who are Christians and 23% who are Islam.  From a purely religious perspective, the sons of Abraham are fighting with a sibling rivalry for the most holy and dedicated sects of God.  From a purely Christian perspective, ultimate divinity only comes through sacrifice and laying down of self for our brother.  Therefore, Christians cannot get involved in war or bully others even on a national platform.  Each person born into a particular faith will honor that faith until they find a fallible proof that the religion cannot support their life view.  Just as many younger people abandon the Catholic church in it's strictness and revelation of dishonorable priests (as an example), a handful to perhaps a persuasive margin will leave due to their worldly passions that don't coincide with the religion-they choose worldiness over prudent living.   When I am trying to discuss just pragmatic facts like how I perceive people are influenced or why certain Musllims prey on others such as Isis on the Peshmerga in Northern Iraq and Tureky , I try to state conflicts like this in geopolitical terms mixed in with current events.  Jon tries to take the immediate Christian view and perceives Islam in itself as a threat.  This is just one watered down example.  Sometimes, two friends cannot come head to head with an issue and meet in the middle.  At some points, I thought it was damaging the radio show because he took a very narrow view regarding an Islamic female leader I had on the air.  I forgive him for it, but he was defensive because our guest was trying to explain her disagreement with the Muslim ban and the impact it has had on visitors/Us residents staying here & future limitations in six major countries.  She is Yemenese descent and it impacted her directly regarding relatives and friends. It offended me that he would infiltrate and confront a guest this way without hearing what she was tyring to project. 

Needless to say, it was a difficult time and a moment of truth for our radio show.  I am trying to analyze and dissect policy, presidential behavior, modern conflict and it seems to me, certain cohosts are only trying to promote their world view without taking a moment to breathe and see someone's other condition in the world.  

In the same way, certain people reject Syrian refugees and treat them as non victims, we can only do our best to help those in need without judging and being fearful of others different than us.  Some of our cohosts have dissed people we have not been exposed to or have stopped to try to understand.  For example, Albert distrusts all rich people and the mainstream media and thinks those in those composite groups have a faulty agenda.  We must welcome the stranger and bridge the gap of communcation deficiencies to brighten our world, even if the communication block is between intimate friends. Last week, we had a harmonious show but Jon was not a participant because he took a few weeks off to regroup.  He may be back but I don't know.

Somewhere inbetween

The curtains drawn
the world still comes in
My Saturn wings are swelling 
My impulse control burgeoned out
by uncommon mistakes
circling in a pool of battered rams
of shepherd less leadership
Time mashes out faraway relatives
but faraway relatives rise in my conscience
some encourage, others devour
reminiscent feelings of yesteryear
I am safe here
far enough away from real pain
the rawest of memories
I can weed people out like a fiery prophet
and bury their image in an unthreshed wheat field
Life and death are part of the same equation
my breath is the passage into both worlds
Those that have meaning are in both places
At night I close my eyes and see the kingdom come
apart from earthly struggles 
It will be over someday
I will change planetary consciousness
plunge into the divine
and erase all life that cannot ascend
the steps of wisdom.

jdh

Pivotal Election year

We are facing a cataclysmic election year in 2016 which will draw forces of pervasion of men who are greedy with a tainted world vision vs. do gooders who look at their local community and spread the love to each corner as far as they can.  There is a dichotomy in the Christian community in social and political life.  One camp wants to impose moral laws on individuals through the government but have not addressed the causes of sexual permissiveness, poverty and survival on a shoestring budget.  Another Christian group such as my church tries to promote inclusiveness, love, spreading of wealth.  Our church supports the Fair Trade agricultural union around the world, they supplement the poor of our neighborhood, give free breakfasts, etc.  The time we have on earth is short.  It is not about building a legacy but creating a community through service.  The Christian life calls for obedience and sacrifice.  Once we turn our will over to God, we as people can find peace.  It doesn't mean you have to give up your identity or exploration as an artist (if you are).  It just means you can unchain yourself from the deception of capitalism and finding happiness through materialism and acquistion..

Author James Bailey who wrote Contrast Community about the power of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

Whether you are a troubled person on the planet or one who can heal the sick, there is something in Christ's sermon on the mount which was recorded in Matthew 5, 6, 7.  These chapters deal with the blessings of the meek and outcasts; how to control one's anger; how to salvage a conflict with a Christian brother; resolution before one calls up the magistrate; impact of adultery; how to treat on & another inside and outside of the church; the subtle path of righteousness of turning the other cheek, walking a mile in one another's shoes; giving the needy your cloak....the powerful words of Christ are examined and interpreted in the above aforementioned paragraph and title.  Listen to our radio podcast and be blessed!!!!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/godissupreme/2015/04/01/author-james-bailey-of-contrast-community-will-be-the-guest

The semi thorn in my side.

 I have a co writer at the Reader who writes a column every week like me.  I am the only religious writer on the staff and about 50% of my columns have religious overtones.  My editor doesn't want me to make the religious connotations overt.   He doesn't want me to sound preachy.  If I cover religious history, that is one thing.  If I say "follow Jesus" it is another.  I am narrowly limited because one time I did write a preachy article and he did not like it.  Here is my response to an athiest below who wrote an article about all the religious killers in the world since the dawn of time.  He has full liberties in all his writings.  I wrote a response to him this week:



A lot of evil exists in the world and it cannot be attached to religion alone. Being void of a subscription to a higher power beyond your own intellect is dangerous, too. Being a marine and and educator, I wonder how your stream of thought is so entirely narrow minded. You live in a small town. Do you know 1 Christian, 1 Jew, 1 Bahai Faith, 1 Muslim, 1 Sic, 1 Buddhist or 1 of any religion that practices hospitality, laying their life down for their brother, doing what Jesus and other prophets have asked? The church is still picking up the slack of the government. I know a friend in Santa Monica who is 55 and rides his bike because his head gasket blew. He has been in a bind for six months and then turned around and loaned my friend $2,000 to publish his book. Why? Because he purposely lives a life of inconvenience to serve others. I am a political scientist and it is necessary to focus on 2 sides of every problem. When the Ukranian army recently marched to the Russian command in order to speak, the Russians were poised to kill. But they lowered their guns to speak because the Ukranians sang an old Russian battle song. Dietrich Bonhoeffer sacrificed his life in WWII so others could live. You can't be an outsider ranting about religion. You must walk a day in a religious man's shoes. Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Father Larry Rosebaugh, Phil Berrigan, Dan Berrigan, Bob Graf, Jimmy Carter. You can start with peeking into the lives of those men and women and see where you end up. Violence is an act of anger and hatred. Maybe the Islamic state expects moral perfection of their brothers. Religious or not, they won't get it. They can only do it by taking the log out of their own eye.

Surprise, I dont care....there are other holy pursuits.....

No one cares about your blabbering ramblings with BBW.  I wouldn't listen to your shows if you paid me.  Jon just invested 2,000 in Bob's Aramaic Bible scholar enterprise.  I have real friends with real values.  The quality of my shows are intelligent.   I am not a low life fishing for bait.  Listen to this show and you will understand the difference.  No name calling, no ridiculing.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ernestradionetwork/2014/03/27/beaten-path-dispensationalism

Jon: "There is no one righteous, no not one."  Romans 3:10

No one was worthy to read the book.  The lamb appears who was eligible to read the book. Suddenly, everyone was happy.  Our righteousness is like filthy rags.

Jon loosely quotes Isaiah 53:5,6  5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishmentthat brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Doonby, the Movie --Movie Review in Reader Weekly, Inc.

Doonby, released 2013.   Movie with Christian undertones about going through with unwanted pregnancy.


http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/06/26/3645_doonby 

Confirmation and Explanation of what went wrong with Darrell and me

New International Version (©2011) But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven. New Living Translation (©2007) But everyone who denies me here on earth, I will also deny before my Father in heaven. Matthew 10:33

A lot of people have been checking my Facebook post of my conversation with Darrell Redleaf which is not actually his true name but stage name.  I made it public because we were once friends under a common cause that was entertainment and promoting Native American material in the industry.  When I first got to Hollywood, I became successful due to the material I was choosing, I had no idea "Dances with Wolves" would be a hit that year.  I entered a one act play contest and chose to write about Ojibwe or Chippewa Indians in Northern Minnesota because I had an affinity to Native Americans due to my compassion for the Europeans decimating their life.  My dad used to tell me they had a certain kind of grace about them the way the moved and were kinetic with the earth.  I met a novice actor named Darrell who was just getting into the business.  He did a bit part in one movie.  I had 2 other professional actors in my play, and Darrell joined late because Joseph Runningfox dropped out.  Darrell was very gifted and added a lot to the play.  We produced the play three time in 1990.  One time Continental Cablevision produced it under "Playhouse 1990s." Darrell met one of the producers in his apartment complex and due to Darrell's efforts, we got on the public access cable channel with our play.  I never had one bad experience with Darrell in all the time I knew him.  Years later, maybe 19 years later in 2009 or 2010, I was leaving for Riverside County on Good Friday Holy weekend and Darrell started  IMing me about a movie called Zeitgeist.  I guess its some movie discounting the validity of Christ's savior image or true God.  Mary from Canada, a childhood friend I hadn't spoken to in 20 plus years was also IMing me.  I was short on time.  I told Darrell I would get back to him, I was leaving for out of town.  Darrell abruptly dropped me on Facebook and I don't think he blocked me but was rude.  I didn't tell him, I never plan to watch the movie or your are infringing on my beliefs.  I just told him it was Good Friday and I was headed out to visit someone.  I felt all the hatred he had for organized religion was directed to me just because I happened to be a lifelong Christian.   My experience in the last ten years with some highly successful people in which he is (a hairdresser for Hollywood stars), is that he doesn't have the patience or humility to deal with ordinary people.  I am not high up on the food chain in Hollywood, I had a one hit wonder with my play.  I didn't purse entertainment after my daughter died.  I am not calling Darrell to forgive me and make amends.  I hope he checks this page.  I want to tell him, I respect him for his beliefs but don't be so close minded that you don't think the church have never done any good in the world or Christian believers as individuals.  You haven't looked into the true faith or nature of the religion fully to understand the complexity of the savior-forgivness, eternal love vs. condemnation.  Often times. Christianity is rule driven, but the wisdom, growth and faith of following Christ is what drives life to fullness and glory.

My Introductory Bio/Purpose for Joining Americorps

I got here through word of mouth and being passed over for a job as Youth Pastor of a local Duluth Church.  A contact from the church, Holly, who works as an AmeriCorps Supervisor at Ordean Middle School, told me about the AmeriCorps opportunity as we walked along the shore of Lake Superior on June 12, 2012.  It was a week before the monumentous flood that would overtake the city in biblical proportions.  It was a serene day and I felt privileged to have the chance to ponder working in a unique educational setting and have a job drift into my life so easily after surviving 13 years in the 2nd largest city in America.  I had already served 5 years in Los Angeles Unified School District as an English and Math Tutor and a student teacher.  I knew the ins and outs of LAUSD and the increased pressure on teachers to get satisfactory results for students.  My indoctrination into the school system started out gently as a bystander type tutor but it intensified as I signed up for a Math Summer Institute and I helped 1st generation Latinos into higher level Math and striving for achievement.  I worked with Project Grad, who gave $4,000 scholarships to would-be college bound, granted they passed all the class requirements for the program.   Although I endured the 90 to 100 degree heat of the Math Summer Institute and year round experience at L.A. high schools, once feeling a 6.5 earthquake in summer school on the second floor of the English building with a teacher from France, I longed for the pristine Minnesota lakes, fresh air and the nativity of my home state pilgrimage.  L.A. was a wayside rest, not a permanent destination.  I spent 2009-11 getting my teachier credential because I had a great housing deal, but once the housing gig was up I knew I had to leave no matter which state my credential came from.  Holly's subtle referral back to Cold Country was my ticket out of L.A.  It seemed like a blessing and spiritual intevention that a federal opportunity would arise in the midst of a middle age search for belonginess.
     I serve in the AmeriCorps because it seemed like the perfect transitional job from grad school to the full time world of education, coupled with America's dying vision that needs to be restored.  The media keeps hammering how the youth are lost, how the politicians are lost, how the world is slipping deeper into meaningless, ineffective wars.  This was a direct opportunity to shape the youth into a brighter day.  It seemed like a job where I could inspire, not just master test results or turn students into robots of high acheivement.  Many people from my generation come from the baby boomer post Vietnam revivalist era where our dreams didn't die, America just co-opted into a corporate, corpulent culture that left spiritual purpose behind and status quo intercepted "We are the World" mantra.  I became a Christian at age 4 and started reciting Bible verses in Sunday school and wanted to follow Jesus.  Jesus advocates we lay down our life for our brother.  My desire not to become a slave to capitalism and material wealth drove me into jobs and vocations that helped the poor, needy and gave a better path for the "people" of America.  I have served as public housing manager in Virgina, a social service agency in Illinois, with disabled adults in groups homes, child care for primary age kids and AmeriCorps was just another stepping stone of do-goodness I embraced throughout my life.  The idea of coming to Duluth East, a brand new school, on the top of educational food chain, and to give my 9th grade son an opportunity to go to high school in a state that was in the top 5 rated in America was a dream.  It was a double bonus.  I knew my job would consist of enabling students to a brighter, educational path and I was eager to serve and utilize my one year of teacher training.  I also did have a distinct connection to Duluth, my father and his 8 brothers and sisters grew up here and I would come up every summer until age 16.  My Aunt Fanny would fry us big hamburgers in her two story house and my Uncle Sylvio had telescopic lens where I could watch the boats coming in and out of the harbor on the high second floor bedroom that already stood on a hill.  It was a nostalgic rebirth into my past.  Duluth, a city of its own unique quality of granite rock, hills and the largest freshwater lake in America, was a geological paradise for anyone like me who was interested in landforms and the history of the earth's crust.  I feel home here despite Old Man Cold that will penetrate my Los Angeles sublime tan-lined skin in about November. 
At first, my co-worker, Alex Breilein and I thought our room would become an art museum with no human bodies to populate the room.  We spent three weeks turning our room into a pop cultural icon of pictures like Aretha Franklin, Leonard Cohen and Martin Luther King where the visual stimulation is more crazy than Kandinsky or Andy Warhol on a weekend binge.  But finally....about six days after we opened the room, UMD tutors started appearing on a regular basis.  A few teacher's dipped their noses in to see if we had what it took to run a tutor room.  Eventually, the teachers we got to know started sending their students, not just before and after school but DURING class time.  We were eager to help in any way.  Our job is to coordinate UMD tutor time with one on one tutoring and also make sure the time slots match up.  We also have National Honor Society Students who come in who attend East High School and they are equipped to help students in any subject.  I feel my purpose has evolved because beyond the logistics of matching tutors in subject to students in need, I also pitch in with tutoring.  I helped a struggling 12th grader yesterday who could not spell too well.  Its imporant to me as a teacher to not only assess a studen't educational process and possibility for improvement, I want to create strategies, worksheets and reinforcements to help this student.  This small capsule of one student and the plans I have to intercede and develop their academic goals is a microism of a bigger picture in which I will be focusing on 30 students and track their educational progress.   I have been working three days in a row in an English teacher's room, Ms. Hannula, and the interaction with over 40 students is a way to get my feet wet and see how the students respond to liason staff.  I feel I have a large capacity with my background to impact student academic growth because I am knowledgable in Algebra, Geometry, English, U.S. and World History, Geography and cuture.  I want to work with the theater advisor and write a pop culture play the students can produce with me.  I want to bring a hint of Los Angeles flavor to Duluth but more importantly I have seen that their kindness, generosity and proper upbringing has already tremendously impacted me and I hope to gain respect for the way Northern Minensota education is implemented.  I wrote an article for the Duluth News Tribune that will be published next week on the poster culture of Duluth East because I was so impressed with the student welcome committee who made posters for indivdidual athletes, student events and words of encouragement.  I hope to be the refelction of the inspriation I see around me where I don't have to ask students to be polite; here in Minnesota they respect adults, they treasure their educational and personal growth and they come willingly into our tutor room to improve themsleves.  If I can be instrumental in who they are and where they want to go, I will jump on the band wagon and offer them a whole slate of the knowledge I have gained over the years and what I can share to make them create their vision.  I have back up assignments in every subject - critical thinking writing exercises, finding the main idea, historical pieces to be examined, math reinforcements - if they walk in the door of our tutor room, they won'd regret it.

James and my text exchange

I wrote to Jayhun tonight: I love u and I hope u believe me.  Yours in Christ...Jane...someday God will reveal to you the reason we met.


Jayhun wrote back: May God be with you.  The and Only God the creator of all existing and non existing...be with you and may he bring light in your life and unto your heart!!! And God will reveal to you the reason why we met!!


I am Christian and he is Muslim.  We had a big discussion in the car before this texting transpired.  He has a fixated set of beliefs.  He doesn't understand the Holy Trinity.  He only understands the monotheistic type of God.  Its hard to share my faith with an unbeliever in the Christian sense.  I told him the Holy Spirit was left on earth as a Comforter to the disciples after Jesus rose.  He has been exposed to secular lies about the Apostle Paul and doesn't understand conversion or the Role of the Holy Spirit.  He attributes it to a Roman tri God that was associated with another deity during Jesus day.  Satan works to deceive people.  I believe James is pure in his upbringing and Muslim beliefs.  I just think that they (Muslims) have this idea of Christianity they believe that strays off the path of conventional mindset in accordance with their beliefs.  The Muslims believe in the continuation of the prophets. They also believe everyone is a Muslim in progress, that the enlightenment will come.  as Judeo-Christians believe in succession of prophets and lineage of Abraham to David to Solomon to Jesus..they also believe the name above all names is Jesus because he is the mediator of our sins and salvation through death on a cross.  I don't think James believes in the Resurrection.  My love for James is strong and enduring.  I will love him to my grave.  I hope I can be a source of enlightenment to reveal God's eternal truths to him in a way he will understand.