News Alert!

I know horrific murders, suicides, beatings & rapes have continuously plagued the world since humans first wandered the earth...Maybe it's because I have gotten in the habit of reading google compiled news stories a few times a day but violence seems so disturbingly elevated right now, kind of like one of the many wake up calls that are sounding. Have you heard them? And even if such crimes aren't actually increasing, have you heard the wake up call that's been sounding since Cain's brother's blood cried out from the ground?

the beautiful 5 year old, Shaniya, killed...her mother arrested for sex trafficing...

a 35 year old man kills his wife, their two teenage boys and himself...

a woman, who just an hour or so after being brought home by police after filing a domestic complaint against her boyfriend, stabbed to death by him while cops were posted outside her apartment building...he was shot and killed as police came in on the stabbing...too late...

an army major & psychatrist murders 14 innocent men & women at Fort Hood...

the 16 year old Richmond High School girl repeatedly raped and viciously beaten by at least 4 young males while up to 20 others looked on...for over 2 hours...there are no words...

and the list goes on and on and on...

What causes people to lash out at someone they love? Or to rape and beat a 4 year old girl, a 16 year old sophomore, a 70 year old grandmother they know nothing about? A husband to shoot his family while they are sleeping?

Hopelessness? Maybe. Many are without hope or they hope in things that are hopeless, evil. Consumed by the wrong things? With stuff of the world, addictions, twisted ideologies, themselves. They are full of stuff and empty at the same time. Tormented by their own hurt? They seek to hurt others as a perverted way to avenge those who have damaged them. And that is the truth. They, themselves, are damaged people. They were not born killers, abusers, rapists...they were once innocent newborns, blank slates, full of the potential to love and be loved. Lies are planted. Then...walls are erected. Many are self-built. Walls to protect, to numb, to confuse, to distract, to blame, to excuse, to hide behind. With those walls in tact, any human being is capable of despicable things, things no one would have thought that newborn, reaching for his first cookie, would ever do.

And how desensitized are 'we' to tragedies that happen minute by minute? Do we look away from truths that hurt us? Is it too hard to read about a little girl being sold into sex trade, being raped, dismembered? A woman raped, fingernails ripped from her hands, then burned to death? If it were a movie: much easier. Sadly so, even entertaining to some degree. But in real life isn't it just easier to turn the other way? And try to convince ourselves that we aren't ignorant, callous, self-absorbed?

Why is there so little rage when violence like this happens? Not outward rage but an inward crying out from those not personally related to the tragedy, a renewed sobering revelation that we live in a lost, sad, sick, hopeless world...And yet it seems that there is more rage, inner and outer, about how long she had to wait at the registry. If he stepped in something while walking the dog. If they hit a pothole and damaged rim and tire. If traffic is heavy on the way to work then later find out there was a car accident that killed 3 people as they were on the their way to school and work...

Are we so damaged, so walled off by our own hurts and fears, that we turn away from others' hurts much like those 20 who allowed the rape and beating of a 16 year old girl to go on and on and on...watching yet walled off, desensitized from what really matters: loving another human being? "I have my own pain, I don't need to deal with others' pain." Or worse yet, is our wall: "I am ok and that's what matters." Someone behind that wall might even say "Thank God this isn't happening to me or my family..." Others behind their wall of denial will say, "The world's always been a mess. Sad but that's just the way it is." And what they don't say (or maybe they do) is "so I will keep at a distance from all that bad news. I need to hear the good news."

Hours before they found Shaniya's little body, the TV news kept replaying a security camera video of a guy holding her, waiting for the elevator in a Comfort Inn...carrying her to her death & she was just resting in his arms, alert yet unaware...seems unreal but true and so completely heartbreaking...

Our hearts need to break. And as crazy as it seems, when that happens, we will truly have hope. And others will see that hope in us.

Don't miss the news...sadly, there's more every day...
Richmond Highschool gang rape

Husband kills sons, wife, himself

Police: Body is that of North Carolina girl, Shaniya

Shaniya's story reveals widespread sex trafficking in black community

Hundreds say goodbye to Bolingbrook soldier killed at Ft. Hood

Google News Top Stories

Passover...a day early

I celebrated the first evening of Passover last night, which technically is a day early since Passover begins tonight, Nisan 14 (Lev 23). So why a day early?

The first Passover night (Nisan 14) preceded the Exodus from Egypt, the Red Sea crossing, the Cloud that led the people by day & the Fire at night...

In Exodus 12, G-d instructs the people to select a lamb on Nisan 10, tend to that lamb til Nisan 14 when they were to: slaughter it & place its blood on their doorposts so that the L-rd would pass over their homes; then roast the lambs and eat the meat with unleavened bread, sharing within families and within the community. The very next morning they were led out of Egypt.

So in the Hebrew mindset Passover is celebrated to commemorate the going out of Egypt and the great miracles which the L-rd used to free the people. All of this beautiful and beyond understanding.

But there is so much more: G-d instructed His people to offer daily sacrifices of various kinds and for various purposes and much of those sacrifices were animals and that is because according to Leviticus 17:11 - "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul."

Yeshua is THE sacrificial Lamb, only His Blood is pure, holy, able to make atonement for ALL. And so He had to be crucified on Passover. But He also wanted to gather with His friends to celebrate Passover, commonly known as the Lord's Supper or the Last Supper. And during that Passover seder, it was after He washed their feet, told them to eat His Flesh & drink His Blood, and the prayers in the garden, that He was arrested and then beaten & crucified on the same day that the Passover lambs were to be slaughtered for Passover. Not incidentally, G-d instructed the people that they had to eat the entire lamb, NONE of it could be left over. All of this preparing the people, looking forward to when Yeshua would say:

John 6:53-58 "Then Jesus said to them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.'"

So that is why it's a beautiful thing to have a seder an evening earlier.

And that mark which those who celebrate Passover are marked with...is the Blood of the Messiah, Yeshua, which literally means God Saves.

a mark on hand & forehead

I was always familiar with the mark of the beast, aka 666. There are a number of movies that make allusion to this--probably most famously the Omen. And the idea of this mark comes from...

Rev 13:16-17 "He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."

And of course the mark of the beast refers to anti-christ, an anti-messiah. Christ & Messiah simply mean anointed of G-d as if dedicated to G-d, a servant. So anti-christ is anything that is anti-G-d, unanointed.

Now what's interesting about this is the mark of the beast is a sign on a right hand or forehead...and Passover (which begins April 8, 2009) is referred to the same way, as a mark...on your hand and forehead:

Exodus 13:7-10 "Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days. And no leavened bread shall be seen among you, nor shall leaven be seen among you in all your quarters. And you shall tell your son in that day, saying, ‘This is done because of what the LORD did for me when I came up from Egypt.’ It shall be as a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the LORD’s law may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand the LORD has brought you out of Egypt. You shall therefore keep this ordinance in its season from year to year."

Since in the past, I only read Exodus like a history book and history was my worst subject in high school, I never saw this before: Passover is the true mark of G-d. Why? Because Yeshua who IS the anointed became the Passover Lamb. Each year that the Israelites celebrated Passover before His death, was simply a foreshadow of His ultimate sacrifice. They sacrificed lambs, He was the Lamb.

And then I was reminded of Deuternomy 6:8...where it says of G-d's Word: "You shall bind them (His commandments) as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes."

This speaks of the same concept: He is telling His people to so love the Word and live the Word, that it shall be like a mark on their hand and forehead, always present with and within them.

And so I just thought it was pretty neat how all these "marks" point to Yeshua and each reference is just a different way of saying the same thing: He is the Word that became flesh...and as believers we are marked by Him and so Passover, being that He became THE sacrifice, is THE MARK of the L-rd.

Chag Sameach!

stimulus for porn...pernicious pun

Bad puns abound over Joe Francis and Larry Flynt's request for a $5 billion bailout for the "Adult Entertainment" industry. I probably shouldn't even waste my words on this topic but couldn't resist.

The have a plan: With the $5 billion, they would "invest in building new means of distribution, and shoring up our distribution right now to prevent further erosion from factors like Youporn and other Internet content that has seriously affected our business over the past few years," Francis said in an interview with FOX Business. "We will use the money wisely, and we will create more jobs." (from the article below)

So to the many that are currently laid off, fear not, plenty of jobs on the way...I am glad they will use the money wisely and with others' interests & well-being in mind because as they say, "People are too depressed to be sexually active," Flynt said in the press release. "This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex." (from the above article)

Interesting that Mr. Flynt suggests that to not participate in adult entertainment, porn, whatever you want to call it, is unhealthy. Maybe this is all a publicity stunt to stimulate their business. But even if it is a stunt, just the fact that these guys decided to give this a try makes an interesting commentary on our culture. I will leave it at that.

So let's see if they drive in their hybrid to DC as they promise...to show how much more upstanding they are than those raunchy car makers.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/economy/adult-entertainment-industry-wants-bailout/