Straight and Narrow

It is NOT boring but satan's messengers and fellow deceivers paint it that way. Getting off course is an easy thing to do because the traffic seems to flow in that direction. No, there's no exit marked "Exit 666 Astray." One wanders into it. I did a the age of eleven.
Having heard a guest speaker at our tinny little church begin each meeting with HIS idea of humor, I compared what came out of his mouth with what I had read in God's Word, the Bible. It didn't match up. No, the man never used the dreaded "N" word, but he made condescending remarks about my friends of color.
Marsha was a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy. She never approved of my Mom, so in time, I didn't approve of HER. YOu couldn't go barefoot at Marsha's house for the sand spurs there.Marsha would say, "Son, there's no such thing as a Yankee...it's a DAMN Yankee!" Mom nor dad, nor anyone else in my family used language like that. Marsha had slapped my face when I fidgeted as a toddler. I didn't remember it, but Mom told me about it. See, Marsha was my Dad's mom, and I've never called her my Grandmother.
I already was called a "nigger lover" my many, but it didn't bother me, because when someone would call me that, I would say, "I love EVERYBODY. Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"
So by age eleven, when I could make some choices, I skipped those every two week trips to North Carolina, even though I would miss seeing Granny Godley, my sister's Grandmother I also stopped going to the little church but I didn't stop worshipping my Lord. I just did it a new way, by reading my Bible on Sunday mornings and listening to Elvis' Gospel music. God met with me and we truly hung out. I was clinging to a little experience I had at about age six when my Uncle Aaron came and preached a revival. I went forward. In my young mind, if I went forward, invited Jesus in my heart and asked Him to forgive me of my sins, I had become a Christian. I must have been a little devil, because one of the reasons I did this was a dream I had where satan had me in his hand and was physically carrying me to this huge furnace and I was screaming for help, then I woke up.
This new way of doing things was good, at first. I was a pretty innocent kid. I recall once being made fun of when on the the "mean" kids was shooting off firecrackers  and I asked, "aren't they illegal?" They roared with laughter. What a dork, they thought I was.
After a while, my little meetings with Jesus came fewer and less often. Then as I began to be concerned with how "cool" I was, little by little I would do things that were supposed to send me "straight to Hell." I was surprised when no lightning bolt came and knocked me dead. I messed with cigarettes although I never found any worth in them. They made my fingers and breath stink and some people had brown teeth because of them. But God was merciful to me and when I'd get diarrhea when I'd smoke the first one, I figured I didn't need the foul things so, I really quit before I got started, but still, no bolt of lightning.
Mom and dad were on one of their twice monthly trips to North Carolina, which had become even less fun. My cousin Herb had married and I seldom got to see him. My best friend suggested I try "getting drunk." We went to A&P and got a "colored man" to buy us a couple of bottles of wine. I didn't know what was going to happen to me, so the experiment took place in my parent's driveway. Drinking was fun. I enjoyed the "buzz."
I kept trying all these new things to become a "man of the world" and to experience things I didn't wish to miss out on. My INTENTION was to be a virgin when I married. My first girlfriend was not until I had graduated high school. She was virtuous...one more reason why I adored her so, but she broke up with me. The message I took from that was that she wanted us to have sex. So, I then set out to lose this anchor I was carrying around. See, because I sang in a rock and roll band, most people thought I took advantage of the fringe benefits. But my inner circle of friends teased me and called me "The Big V" because I was a virgin. Well, SIr...when I willingly gave THAT up, the Enemy of my soul came and said, "I've GOT you, now!" I felt he did. I thought I had gone beyond God's merciful reach. I felt trapped. I WAS evil. I LOVED doing this latest wrong thing. I was hooked. It was good. It was wrong. Most people disagreed, but it was WRONG.

No, there was no exit sign that said, "Astray, Exit 666." But I stumbled onto it as we ALL have at one time or another. Maybe sometime, I'll share how I got "back on track." Hey, not that I don't run in the ditch every now and again. I haven't had a boring moment since getting on course. I'll say that.

Out 'n' About

Got to the library and a woman in the closest handicapped space calls out, "ROEBUCK!" I looked, not recognizing her at all, and she said, "Are YOU Roebuck?" 

I said, "I AM!" 

She said, "Would you like this parking space?" How very kind of this woman wearing a Control Freak tee shirt! I declined, and then recovered my keys from the Buckmobile I had left in the ignition. 

Don't give up on humanity, expecially AMERICANS! Because you'll run across some awesome ones every day! :)

One's Worth a Thousand, so Two...

Obama's TRUE Agenda Has NOT Failed!

Much was said when a political *commentator proclaimed that he hoped Mr Obama would fail. That statement was twisted to indicate that the commentator did not want to see America flourish under the Democrat. That was NOT, I believe what the commentator meant. He meant that he hoped that Obama's TRUE agenda would fail...but it hasn't. Obama's programs have driven the United States into record debt and closer to a Socialist States of America. That's where we sit now. Do you know that most GM and Chrysler dealerships post 2008 are now owned by Democrats? Do you know that dealerships which were closed were done so on the basis of the owner's party affiliation and the one's which were closed down were those owned by Repuclicans? This is corruption and tyranny of the first order and no, Obama's TRUE agenda has NOT failed!

*Rush Limbaugh

Brainwashed?

If the liberal brain was  "washed" it would  be clean, but their brains have been polluted with lies they believe are true. The left looks at programs that have failed 100% of the time and thinks, "Yeah, but that's because the wrong people tried them. WE can do this." The conservative, knows human tendencies and programs that always work unless someone like Senator Dodd or Barney Frank comes along and sabotages them as was the case in '08

Straight-forward Moral People

When I was in the band Scarlet Onyx in high school, so far as I knew, I was the only non-Roman Catholic in the bunch. I had kind of gotten used to that as I had lived in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood. Different denominations occur because of differences in doctrinal concerns and theology within the church universal (all the denominations) One misconception my mom had about Catholics came to the fore when I asked quite innocently, "Why can't we be Catholic?"
I had seen that the Catholic kids went to early mass (some skipped it) and were back home and playing way before I could come home, get out of my suit, eat Sunday Dinner and begin my play. Mom's response was, "Oh Honey, we could NEVER do THAT! The worship statues!" Mom only knew what she'd heard. Later I found some Catholics to love the Lord just as much and some more deeply than the biggest charismatics, Baptists, and other so called "protestants."

We had a drummer leave the band and inherited the drummer for a group called the Rokz named Rusty Fuerst. Rusty was immediately made fun of by the others mainly because he didn't drink booze, didn't smoke and stayed away from cafeine, in obersvance of his Mormon faith. Rusty impressed me with how he tried to behave himself in the moral arena. He had what was a clear opportunity to be sexually active and told me he did not give in to temptation and that, "the Lord was with me!" That impressed me, because my goal, like a salmon swimming upstream, was to be a virgin until marriage. The Catholic members of the band thought Rusty was screwy, but I admired him.

So, I went to my Dad and asked him, "What is it that's off (theologically) about the Mormons. Dad wasn't clear at that time and later, I did my own study on it. Meanwhile, what Rusty told me was that this guy Joseph Smith had an angel (of the Lord) tell him that all the Christian denominations were WRONG and set him straight about it and in short, that's how the Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) came into being.

The basic difference between Mormonism and faith in Jesus of Nazareth is that Evangelical Bible-based Christians believe in God's grace alone to be saved (from Hell), that Heaven is a free gift, bought by Jesus when He died on the Cross. There's nothing one can do to be saved except receive the free gift God gives through Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, also described as the LAMB of God, slain from the foundation of the world. Grace plus NOTHING. Some denominations stray from that and try to add good works, but Christians believe good works (doing good things) is just what happens when someone comes to know Jesus personally as Savior and Lord.

If someone were to make it to Heaven by being good---doing good deeds (works) it would surely be the Mormons, because they do a lot of good deeds. As humans with a do-it-yourself mentality, we tend to think we have to do something and find it difficult to think Heaven is just free.The Mormon understanding of Jesus is different also. In fact, the "Jesus" of Mormon belief is quite different from the Biblical Jesus. Christians do not believe that God was once a man and grew to "god" status as Mormons do, and do not believe Jesus was created, but is the Creator of all that is and ever will be. Mormons believe that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers---good brother and bad brother (Good cop, bad cop) Those are the distinctions I've come to know.

That being said, Howard Hughes trusted Mormons to run his estate because of their moral standards and the FBI recruits Mormons routinely for their ranks because of their good behavior. I mean, who's more wholesome than Donnie and Marie, after all, as much as people make fun of them?

So to see a man like Mitt Romney, whom I disagree with theologically, but trust as a very moral, upstanding gentleman accused of some of the stuff he's been accused of, only makes the accusers look small by comparison, especially when they tell outright LIES about him.

So, when I voted yesterday, I did so believing a good, moral man was running for office. Yeah, in MY view, his theology is off, but that's about it. Forget the false accusations. Would I rather have someone who more agrees with my theology at the helm? Absolutely. I voted for Alan Keyes every time he ran, who is a good, Catholic believer and truly a man of God.

The man occupying the White House currently has been proven to me to be not only a Socialist, but a Marxist as well. SOME believe him to be a Muslim which is difficult to prove or DISprove as lying to us (the "infidels") is part of their game plan. Lying. We've heard a lot of that from DC lately. So, it came down to Mormon or Marxist. I'll take Mormon every time!

Was it the Condoms?

A widower friend of mine has been putting his feet in the water of dating for the first time in decades and has been on a few dates with a young lady he's interested in (well, maybe not so young--closer to HIS age) and his son, asked him to purchase some prophylactic contraceptive devices for the purpose of constructing a "rubber tree" as it were. My friend went to a store on the other side of town and made his purchase as discreetly as possible. He's noticed at the same time that the woman he's been "courting" has grown silent, not returning his calls or texts. It was funny to me, that he thinks that she somehow found out about the condom purchase and has become silent in some sort of response to it.