Texas Primary Election 2012

Source:

   http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/index.php

Texas Primary Election - What to do?



There is only one day before the Texas Republican/Democrat primary and I am debating as to vote. Not, mind you, whom to vote for, but simply to vote. Lately, I have supported the Constitution party platform, but with voter access laws being as they are, I have strong doubts that the Constitution Party can even make ballot access in Texas.

 So what are my choices?

 I can vote for local candidates. In this area, the primary IS the general, as candidates only run on the Republican ticket. If I want my vote to count in the sheriff race, or the county commissioner race, then I must vote. It is too late to have any say in the presidential process, as the delegates have already been assigned by each county prior to the primary. No popular vote matters when it comes to this state selecting the delegates for president. I tend to think that may be a good thing.

We have become so brainwashed that we are a democracy that we forget that we are indeed a republic. My concern, however, is that the two-party system has taken over and there is little chance for a successful run by anyone other than a party “favorite”. We have seen on both sides the “favorites” that have been selected as the nominee for republican or democrat president. The biased media tends to brainwash us into believing that if we vote for any other than the party select, that we are un-American. Have I seen anyone “presidential”, coming out of the national convention of either party in the past 20 years? That answer is a resounding, no.

 Frankly, I wouldn’t even want one of these characters as my neighbor, let alone as the president of the United States.  Of the two candidates that the news media would have you believe are the upstanding men of integrity, the money trail seems to say otherwise. The figures at the top of the page are figurese from an independent site, and I am not entirely certain of their complete accuracy, but am certain of the trend to which they allude. As you see this is not necessary a vote to ensure a good economy or to take back jobs, this is a vote to see which special interest group is best represented by their puppet in the White House.

I see only one candidate that has the full support of our fighting men and women. I see only one candidate that isn’t funded exclusively by the bankers or the pharmaceutical companies.  If I am to support an interest, I will support the interest of our military.

* These data primarily represent employees or PACS of the organizations listed, since the organizations themselves cannot contribute.

A Tribute to Mothers

A mother’s love is one of the many proofs that God exists.

From Hannah in 1 Samuel to Dorcas in the book of Acts women, especially godly women are significant in the study of the God’s love throughout the Bible.

in Acts chapter 9, a woman, most likely a widow, Dorcas (Tabitha), had blessed the community with her acts of love and compassion. Peter was moved by the love the community felt for this woman.  In the book of 1 Samuel, Hannah is the personification of the totally and completely selfless mother. Of course, the story we have learned since childhood, but not often to we place ourselves in the shoes of Hannah and how great of a sacrifice she had actually made.

The sacrifice of a mother for her child is not uncommon. In fact, it has been speculated that mothers put themselves in harm’s way more often than men simply because their focus is on their child. Watch a young family in a store. You will often see the mother more focused on the baby than the father. Not to say that fathers are easily distracted, but their focus in the store is usually to get what they need and check out. A mother’s focus is to make certain that the young child is secure the entire time of the visit in the store.

The mother is hard-wired to stay focused on the child. This maternal instinct has been attributed to the reason that more women suffer from shark attacks than men.¹ A number of researchers have speculated that excess shark attacks may be a result of mothers, with a children at the beach, provide a body shield between their child and the ocean. This shield is unprotected from the ocean side.

In Matthew chapter 24, Jesus seems to be referring to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D, when he states, “And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!”.  It becomes quite easy to understand the hardship that may have been on a mother during the fall of Jerusalem. Their focus was not to flee but to protect that child to the point of death.

Motherhood is no small task, and thankfully most of us have been brought up in a home with a loving and caring mother. A mother that protects us in our youth, punishes us when we misbehave, directs us when we need guidance, and loves us unconditionally.

Our mother provides each of us a supernatural link to generations of the past, and at the same time guides us toward a covenant relationship with our future.  Our mother shows us how to properly live, and gives us a roadmap on how to greet death.

A day to recognize mothers is not enough. If your mother is alive, feel free to let her know that she has been instrumental in your life, daily.

^1.                  http://www.buzzle.com/articles/facts-about-sharks.html

^2.                Matthew 24:19

Texas Governor’s School or Texas Tuition to Non-Citizens?

Sadly, one of the better enrichment programs for students is gone as it has lost its funding. I am referring to the Texas Governor’s school program.

My oldest daughter had the opportunity of attending two of the Texas Governor’s schools. These 3-week-long summer programs provided opportunities for Texas students to an enrichment curriculum that would have been unfeasible for a regular school district.

In the program that she attended at University of North Texas – Denton, I was amazed at the Claymation movie that she made and impressed with the knowledge she gleaned from this great program.

The following year, she attended the Governor’s school at A&M -Corpus Christi, where she did some oceanography research, got sunburns, and developed a passion to go into the teaching field.

My middle daughter was accepted to the same governor’s school last year, but it conflicted with American Legion Girl’s State, another wonderful program.

The Governor’s school programs for our youth in the state provided a great opportunity, some college credit, and a rewarding experience. …..Or at least they did. The Texas legislature cut funding for this program in the last budget.

“Since the Coordinating Board received no funding for Governor's Schools in the 2012-2013 biennium, there will be no CB-supported programs going forward.” ¹

Interestingly, the funding for tuition to non-citizens has NOT been cut by our legislators. It is called the Good Neighbor Scholarship program. This bit of legislation is still fully funded for Latin American students who -
1. Have never supported the tax system in Texas or the United States,
2. Do NOT plan in staying in the United States, 
3. Are NOT citizens of the United States, 
and
4. Plan on taking their knowledge back to their country after they earn a degree from a Texas college.

Merely, 235 full-tuition scholarships are funded each year through this program that was signed into law by Governor Perry in 2001. ²

Do NOT expect to send your child to one of these countries for a similar scholarship, there is no reciprocity program.

Isn’t it interesting where the Texas Legislators place their priorities?

References:

1.   http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/index.cfm?objectid=862EC8CC-95A2-59A7-599DD3D7604E63B6

2. http://www.everychanceeverytexan.org/funding/aid/txgdnbr.php

If There Is Pinochle In Heaven......

On the 15^th my mother will have been gone from Earth for 5 years, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t get the urge to pick up the phone and give her a call.

I was blessed with a very strong willed and dynamic mother. As I grew up, I knew that her “yes” meant “yes”, and her “no” most definitely meant “no”. She was a strong disciplinarian when all of the kids were home. I was slow to learn to appreciate her gift of providing such a strong moral compass when I was little. I later appreciated her values and rules, and realized they were necessary as she juggled raising four children, helping my father with the farm, and managing the budget.

It wasn’t until the rest of my siblings left the home, that a really learned to appreciate mom. By the time I was 10-years-old, my brother was nearly finished with college, one of my sisters had chosen business school and my other sister had chosen to start a family. I was the baby of the nest, and was I truly blessed. I found out that my mother was one of the funniest, intellectual, and caring people I would ever encounter.

Mom was an artist. She played the accordion and she painted. Her avocation was the music, but her passion was her painting. She would paint for hours mixing oils or acrylics, moving across the canvas and bringing color to the world. She would whistle as she painted.

We had an old sofa in the studio that we called a paint room. I would often lay on it watching her paint as she whistled a hauntingly beautiful melody. I would soon find myself asleep. The sense of safety, the gentleness and the love that exuded from the paint room comforted me more than any other place.

It may have stemmed from her artistic mind, but mom was always in the process of changing the look of our home. She would paint abstract murals in the downstairs bathroom, design the plans to add a room on to the north of the house, and even make certain that dad knew how many electrical outlets she wanted. Mom would have been happy with an electrical outlet every four feet along every wall of the house, and dad would compromise her down to a couple on each wall.

One time, I was coming in from irrigating and saw mom carrying an axe into the house. I had some chores to do, so I completed them before I went into the house. There were smashing noises, noises of falling plaster, and sure enough, the house was under construction. Mom was wailing away at a wall in the kitchen, taking big chunks out of the wall between the kitchen and the hallway leading to the laundry room.

“Mom, what are you doing?”

She looked at me, with a guilty look, sat down and leaned on the axe. Her hands wrapped over the blade, and her face resting on her hands. She had sweat running down her temple.

“I’ve always hated this wall here.”

The response was so calmly stated and so factual, that I started laughing. I laughed and I laughed. Soon she was smiling and I told her that I would go get dad so we could remodel the wall. Heck, we had to as she had 5 square feet of it spread across the floor.

Mom loved Pinochle. She was a wiz at cards and I felt cheated if I could not be her partner. She would put those reading glasses on, and I almost swore they were  x-ray glasses because she knew where those cards were. When I had mom as my partner, I don’t think I ever lost.

Mom would laugh. Oh, my how she would laugh. It would rock the whole house. Sometimes, when a humorous remark was met with laughter, we would feed off each other’s laughter, and the longer we laughed the funnier the memory of the remark became. Mom would be laughing while holding her side crying, and laughing all the louder.  It was an epidemic, no one could walk into the room with bursting into tears laughing, and at times one needed to run outside just to get their wits about them. It would abate into a false sense of control, then mom would chuckle and it all would start again.

My mother’s favorite book in the Bible was the book of James, and her preacher thought that was likely because she and James were so very much alike. With mom, things were always black and white. There was right and there was wrong. There was no place for situation ethics.

Mom was baptized into Christ in the 1970s. She had, like my father, been raised a Catholic. In fact, she would tell us stories, how, as a child, she would be crawling under the bed as the KKK came by with guns firing into her parents’ house. Her family had a double strike against them, they were immigrants and they were not Protestants. It was hard for my mother to put aside the Catholic faith as she started studying the Bible, after all, her parents were persecuted as Catholics. After uncovering every stone, researching scripture after scripture, she ultimately made the decision that the Bible was indeed the Word of God, and she had to either put her faith in the Bible or put her faith in the priest. At nearly the same time, our entire family became Christians. I think back to those days, and think how hard it must have been for both mom and dad, to forsake family traditions, mom was in her late 40s and dad was in his early 50s.

Once she made that decision, there was no looking back, she was a devoted Christian, reading the Bible daily, working to convert friends, and providing a new and improved moral compass for the family. This compass indeed had similar values of right and wrong that we grew up with, but with meaning, understanding, and most of all compassion.  My mom and my dad, with a couple of Christian friends, purchased an old mortuary in Basin (our home town), remodeled it, hired a preacher, and established a presence of a New Testament Church in the community. I am proud to say that they had done more for spreading the word of God than most couples.

In her last days, she was looking forward to shedding the corruptible body and to take on the incorruptible. She provided the best lesson and the hardest lesson for me to learn. It was a lesson of how to look forward to death. Mom was ready for the next remodeling job. She broke through that wall from the here to the hereafter on February 15, 2007, waiting until after my sisters’ birthdays on February 14^th, to take her last breath.  

So, my question to my mom is as follows – “Mom, is there Pinochle in Heaven? , If so, and when the time comes, can I be your Pinochle partner?”

What about Methuselah?

“And now, my son Methuselah, call to me all your brothers and gather together to me all the sons of your mother; for the word calls me, and the spirit is poured out on me, that I may show you everything that shall befall you for ever. And thereon Methuselah sent and summoned to him all his brothers and assembled his relatives. And he spoke to all the children of righteousness and said, “Hear you sons of Enoch, all the words of your father, and hearken, as you should, to the voice of my mouth; for I exhort you and say to you, beloved:”

What’s that you say?

The paragraph is NOT in the Bible!

Of course, you are correct.

Anyone that has read the Bible would be surprised to have seen this quote attributed to Old Testament scripture. We all know the Bible is rather silent concerning Methuselah.

This quote is from a book, rediscovered with the Dead Sea Scrolls, interpreted, analyzed, translated and transliterated.  The book of Enoch, was quoted in first century writings, and is considered to be a book of historical value. Many do not believe it is inspired, but has historical significance much like the book of Josephus, or like many of the other first century and prior writings.

Interestingly, the book of Enoch provides us with a glimpse of some of the Old Testament individuals. One of these individuals is Methuselah.

We all know that Methuselah was historically the oldest living human, living for 969 years¹. We also know that Methuselah died the year of the flood.

What we don’t seem to know, and unfortunately, often take for granted, is if he died in the flood. I recall hearing that Methuselah drowned along with the rest of those that did not find favor in the eyes of God. This was taught as apparent fact as if it were gospel.

I beg to differ.

My thoughts are totally my speculation, as I do not want to be responsible for reading into the Bible anything that is not scriptural.²

In the Bible, Methuselah, the grandson of Enoch and the grandfather to Noah, was mentioned very little. Other than the fact that he fathered Lamech and other children, we know little of this man.

The book of Enoch is a great historical document, and the paragraph from Chapter 91, at the beginning of this blog,  provides some great insight as to the character of the patriarch, Methuselah.

If we were to look through the Old Testament and reflect on the history of individuals, we can see quite easily that many were rebuked for their actions.  We can see examples of this in the following two verses:

 Jeremiah 52: 1-2 or 2 Chronicles 21:5³.

Some were recognized by their fellowship with God, or by their love of God. Examples are found in the following verses:

1 Kings 15:5, 1 Kings 15:11, and Genesis 5:24⁴.

Of Methuselah, we see little of him, but do indeed see his name recorded as part of the lineage of Christ, in 1 Chronicles 1:

 “Adam, Sheth, Enosh,
 Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered,
 Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech,
 Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth…”

He was neither portrayed among the individuals that were rebuked or among the individuals that were set apart as individuals that found special favor with God. This is not to say the he was simply dismissed. I think the book of Enoch proves otherwise.

Of course, not all of the great patriarchs of the Old Testament were identified as having done “right in the eyes of the Lord”, but it would have helped to get a better sense of the character of this man that can boast of being the oldest living human.

At 969 years, Methuselah was an old man, even by the standards and atmospheric conditions of those days. Methuselah most likely was influenced by his grandfather and most likely had influence on his grandson throughout his very long life. Otherwise, he would not have been asked to gather his brethren to hear the words of prophesy as indicated in Chapter 91 of the book of Enoch.

From the Bible, we know that Methuselah’s son died 5 years prior to the flood. We also know that Methuselah died the year of the flood, and that is where it stands.

Methuselah, an old man, died in the same year that the largest tragedy happened to mankind. There is no indication that he died for his transgressions during the flood. We, as Christians, need to be certain that we do not read into the Bible when the Bible is silent.  

I would like to think that Methuselah was allowed to die peaceably before the judgment of the flood was fulfilled. It is not necessary for me to know. However, it is necessary for me to abstain from adding to the Word of God or taking away from the Word of God as I try to fit pieces together. When we extrapolate by making statements like, Methuselah died in the flood”, we have sinned.

References:

The Lost Book of Enoch, by Joseph Lumpkin ISBN# 0-9746336-6-6

¹Genesis  5:27, “And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.”

² Chapter 1:6-9, “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed..As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”

³Jeremiah 52: 1-2 “Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.”

2Chronicles 21:5 “Jehoram was thirty and two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.  And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, like as did the house of Ahab: for he had the daughter of Ahab to wife: and he wrought that which was evil in the eyes of the LORD.”

⁴ 1 Kings 15:5 “….David did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD”

1 Kings 15:11 “….Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD”

Genesis 5:24”… Enoch walked with God”.