Born to Love

Went to hear the Waifs last night , and this great song title of theirs gives real inspiration .
We are all born to love !
But as Tina said --- where is it today ?
When our reason fails us on this ,  we need to go back and find foundations .
Such foundations can take some finding...but this is one is a good start .

You were born to chase the good .
and good  is the mental equipment  YOU have to do that . No one needs to tell you whats right but you need to be reconciled within yourself about whats wrong with you .
You have  failed to live up to whats right.
You have been weak when being strong is your calling .
Your rationale is probably suspect at times -- just as mine is 

We know this truth too about love .
We sometimes have to cruel to be kind " which in itself reminds us that to be deterministically rational may just get us confused ,
Truth is in a tension ; a paradox .
Sometimes truth is blocked by our own reason and sometimes its just beyond anyone's reasoning.

Options --contrasting ways to think about and getting on with loving    
1. Rationalize yourself into it . -many who don't want to introduce unknown forces into this world want us to never make a decision till we have weighed up what we know- they say - to be thoroughly responsible we have to be thoroughly rational and vice versa  .IMO this is a very limiting way to both think and live.
This ideology  is asking us to think and act on  incomplete information ( and maybe using emotion and rationalized emotion ) but then just leaves us at that point  -  a cop out bottom line convenience buy-- I am saying that , what we need , as our emotions and minds are connected  is  a holding position mechanism -  a way of  suspending disbelief ..
What we all do know from human experience is that we don't know . "What's love got to do with anything" 

If ever there there was anything that's subject to rational abuse its love talk. To  accept that its part of the structure of life  is not enough when we want to use it -- rationally... .  Can anyone resolve all problems by being specifically rational about their interpretation of whats  good in a situation? . If

Love is not what we want it to be, who tells us what it is ?  Whats promoted as love as Tina turner says is often anything but .  Isn't any automatic presumption  of love  being love specifically dangerous as its products in politics shows . " You need to die because you are not as fit as I am and there are too many people in the world"  .For good of all - That's natural rational love-- isn't it?


2. Born to love comes from beyond these earthly shores    To have reasons beyond reason ability is not irrational,  but possibly big picture wise . If we accept an answer as beyond reason and beyond your knowledge of our worlds  natural forces you may have a chance of getting beyond reason to then better rationalize your experience .Its a worth a try , because no one really knows how the world really work , except that it invites romance and wonder .   
Taking on assumptions you don't fully understand is not always easy,  but it is how we learn .  Assuming   Karma ,  Justice and Judgement  and fairness may help us learn and learn to love . If there was just only kindness without justice that would make that form of kindness a terrible uncaring ( even irrational )  thing

Take the ABC's question "are humans inherently kind" ?  This question highlights the inadequacy of the  post modern position 1  -
Position No 2 assumes we are more than structure and  we have freedom to choose love . kindness or cruelty.  There is pressure from population and place,  but is crude number control the answer 4 us ?
Love has to do with possibilities and there are, as before, lots of possibilities for people in this world .

What we do know if we ever grow up  is that we sometimes have to cruel to be kind.
So love is a bit  about timing, not being superficial  and being disagreeable like our mothers and our wives can ( not aiming ) to be  .  ( Note These 3 amigo rules that are not always acceptable in a court of moral law )

3. Thinking completely outside the square 
If kindness is  the weak force of Nature ,  maybe its the one that holds it together ( a lesson from recent cosmology ?) If God is not good,  we have all the reason we nred to be bad

Biologically we are not inherently anything,  but a structure in which forces can operate ; Forces of chemistry physiology etc - An amazing creation - that has the freedom to choose  for good or for ill .For self or for the body.    So you are happy in yourself and your own logic then are you ?

The biggest mistake any generation make is to blame the structure and deny the freedom of choice . Is that what the epistemological despair of our own generation all about  -denying ourselves choice when it suits us to deny it  ? The genes made me do it /
Modelling is how the Christian faith grew to be seen to be a workable philosophy. Testing a faith is a good way to build/ destroy a foundation - following Christ's way  has stood the test of time
Our psyches tell us we all have a religion of sorts and quite logically OUR rational for using them , on the above logic must be at times,  quite unreliable .
That means a  belief , or something like Karma,  doesn't always makes complete sense to a pedant ,  a flanuers  or your everyday chatterer on the net.      Don't go figure ...go test!

Who cares  if you are a bit of a romantic .... if it works ?



Martin Luther King wrote the book  "Free to love" . another way to live foundation idea;  to love we need to be free to love
Modern determinists  are all wrong in trying to say we are one thing or the other ; this  leads people to say  groups are either good or bad -- this 'ism"  ism    is not truth but projection . see JB Peterson's rule on housekeeping intelligence.

Martin Luther reminds us we are a duality  . he learned the hard way ( by striving to be good ) that we are need a way forward from a dilemma we face every day. Read his 1600 booklet "On being a Christian" .

Domestic violence is on the increase - and what are men doing about it?

.

Things are clearly getting worse in domestic households and women are pretty desperate for answers , Its frustrating for them that men seem less interested or are quietly critical of their approach. Big subject

What is very understandable is women's feelings for the treatment of their own kind and especially those who look after children.The growing numbers of mothers who are stuck economically and emotionally .

There is a lot of momentum coming from people like ABC's @Bairdjulia. I am not surprised that the "sexually liberated" females have realised, without thinking or speaking about it openly ,that they too are not feeling very liberated. Another huge hornets nest , Many of their mothers tried to warn them about the consequences of their choices. One who speaks through this dilemma is Bettina Arndt Lack of answers and shaming ( some see the above statement as this ) leads to bad answers and blaming and projection. Take 1 Distracting trivia about % of women in high office The women who run ABC The Drum and 7:30 reports are at the top of the tree . The preoccupation with a persons "position on the tree" is, for me a sign of intellectual poverty; Who wants to be playing games at the top- only those who have never been there ?. Have they not watched and been involved in " Line of duty " ( that great series on Netflix) work

Take 2 The mere male and boy amongst us

To blame men in general is wrong ( men have a place in rearing children and many women are denying them that ) and distractionary. Both parties aren't learning about things like dispute resolution (" UR too soft , Ur too hard ") , roles and values ( is it natural for the woman to do the nurturing....... and MI ....what is nurturing ..?) and anger management ( "Be angry don't sin and talk about it before you go to sleep at night ") -- Rather than facing and being reconciled to anger as it is in both parties, many are in denial of it in themselves , hoping to avoid its consequences and the worst to come in DV if its not deal with TODAY.

To not deal with it daily ( as the teaching implies ) is a sure sign of worse things coming up .

Reminds me of politics - so much politics is reactionary not radical ( goes back to the root of the problem or what worked in our parents generation) . For eg "what's different in the modern family and how we think about conflict resolution ? "

Want love -- Start here !

Love her honesty ,  the substance of building good relationships and the hint . the hint of shame . Great book recently about shaming and our need for forgiveness. . 

https://www.ted.com/talks/mandy_len_catron_falling_in_love_is_the_easy_part?utm_campaign=social&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=t.co&utm_content=talk&utm_term=social-science

The search for a good man

Stop looking -you have found him  Nuh Sorry I am as bad as the rest. Marry me and you marry trying to change the immovable and even when I am at my best,  I make decisions for her without consulting her .
As I said below( in the post below)  no woman is ever going to find a happy man if both of you are not allowed to get angry .
My problem with modern reactions to domestic violence is they often fear violence rather than understand  it

Maybe the same is true for the kids
.Children need to sense , not that their parents don't fight ( cause we all know they will) but how they do it ,when they do it and how they work for reconciliation. Modelling .
Sure anger risks violence but we must know and accept where the different types  come from . Life is best with understanding not fear (as much domestic violence  is --as is as a product to not show denying it as an naturally useful thing internally driven thing we must manage)  .
Popular superficial myth making says anger is a sin . This is crap so the result of this PC talk is that things go underground :
 If there is no outwardly angry man or woman,  there will be plenty of repressed anger around (when the PC perverse morality version of anger is enthroned)
TYPES OF ANGER
Does the anger come from self will stamping like a child can show or is it" trespass good and proper", Is it based on "not getting your way "or "seeing others resisting whats good for them or the country"
Despite the simple moral talk , there is such a thing as right anger
 .
MARTIN LUTHER has been crossed off the good books for a long time because he said some truly terrible things about groups of people . While I am not here to defend that,he was a passionate man who "Table talk "and anecdotal notes suggests something close to the closest thing to domestic bliss any of us could hope for .Luther was truly human and taught how to live as a failing human being.
His small catechism for children is exquisitely remembered by many of us for the way it draws us into accepting the need for some rules in life; For drawing us into the love of God .

Apparently his wife Kattie was an aristocrat and well organised and when  he , the swearing peasant who never had to be careful what he said,  got together--- they made lots of good music.
 Luther finally realized he learnt something from her . Quite something for  a man to admit.
Can a good woman ask for anything more than that?.


Can the world not celebrate a man who ,for his faults,demonstrated in real life that any man however bad , can be subject to the grace and forgiveness of God. Know it ,celebrate it, teach it.
Can the world not celebrate a man who just by showing great political and personal courage showed the world a real man's way forward that has lasted to the present day .More on facebook page Real Men

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3AOKSMl-GXLaVphdm5NNW95NVU/view?usp=sharing

The violence inside

If you are afraid to get married , you may well have reason to be .
But often not good enough reasons . Since anger has been banished from the lexicon of acceptable behaviors in the West westerners are afraid of anger -- and aren't able to deal with it . See previous posts on anger and depression ( the two conditions can be related)
Take smacking a child . Lions and mature cubs do it to young cubs so why are post Christian humans in the West ( Muslims have no problem with teaching restraint )  suddenly afraid to send quick pain messages to their children.smack the limb before it gets burned !Understand that the yell and the growl can be linked to pain .
    
The answer is that post Christian people have an incomplete and blinkered understanding of the place of anger and the idea of other drivers and dangers.,Its almost as though only adrenalin, physiology and DNA matters - they even talk as if everything in the mind is just a construct ( to be ridiculed )
: Evil , according to the recent illusion , is from external sources and therefore the behaviour of others is in focus  ."DNA rules and your mind is irrelevant ". A more complete view of drivers and responses in nature is needed.
The fear seems to stem from the failure of a rational argument on ONE driver to solve the complex problem of many interrelated drivers . For a scientist or a big thinker this is reasonable . The problem is how do any of us do it without getting a headache?
 

Christians reject the common, popular but shallow idea that we are driven by natural drivers ,( eg seeing violence means we will act violent)  ; we say its more complex than that ; there is a violence inside and it's up to us to exercise control over the internal drivers. Christians believe in facing the drivers and dealing with them ; training and teaching your body and mind require strong resistance- the word restraint is not in vogue amongst the modern rebels  even though its always needed to live in the world .

This is not an ideal world , but it is far far better caring parents teach restraint to the will from their parents than from those who don't care when they are teenagers or older. 

This is what we do to teach children about the real world outside .Children are not in charge and they will not always get what they want .The more you restrain unreasonable rebellion early, the less you have to do it later.  Its a parents choice to decide WHEN in love they HAVE to do it - Its not a choice if you and the nannies insist it is not a choice .

Yes there is a risk that we go too far - anger is normal and right is also normal ; Avoiding risk,  like avoiding admission of righteous anger doesn't make it go away . see earlier posts on anger and how to deal with it . 

It's only being realistic to face the restraint of the will early .

As Dr Phyl identifies each day - is the problem due to external factors or internal ones?  

Stalking the Virgin

The idea that all men are bastards is not new .  It wasn't Germaine Greers idea either .

It wasn't even Shakespeare's where in Cymbeline the thought is well captivated in a moment of despair by a good man tutoring and disciplining himself like no other .
The book of Genesis and the Old testament is full of stories about sex mad people.
Such tough truth talk is all means to an end though in the Bible .
 "You are a rotten lot but I still love you"is its terrifying and troubling  testimony, Yet men still choose to stay condemned -its a form of insanity and blind addiction ,
The Bible , unlike our present pornoaccepto age,  shows their actions to be vain destructive and deadly ."Neighbours:" and "Home and Away" TV  are all good friends and somehow week to week the belief is that "it will all work out ". Strung out and strung along,,,,,,,,, but people watch .

The Bible and Shakespeare call such a hope , nonsense in the extreme -they beg to differ .There is no hope there if you really are there in the midst of that mess .It was true thenand its true TODAY ,
U
The B&S team say it  will only work out if you / we change our mind about whats right here . And work its magic - yes it can!   Cymbeline ends with this

"never was a war did cease. 

Ere bloody hands were wash'd

With such a peace " 

Unlike the friendly sensible gods who watch Imogen and co  , the gods of our age just smile and say nothing while the families disintegrate and are never put back together again
.Stone cold stunned and silent Buddhas in the garden and back at the studio.

Noone watching the jealous and pathetic IACHIMO  could not see the schoolyard antics of the current school yard stud seeking out the isolated virgin to devour . He will do just as the Italian does and worse - with the tacit approval of the crowd...  God will and must judge .

The deperate sexmad are not satified and they are not satisfied still
This is not how nature intended us to rest and enjoy the company of others .
What decent man can keep his mouth shut while ALL our daughters are at such high risk ; while the prowlers are given no censure or condemnation and the victims no way forward.   

Strength to Love

Martin luther King wrote a book about it . This is a modern excerpt https://www.facebook.com/morgan.rod?fref=ts#

Beyond the shallow fanaticism of feminism

In a strange paradox , most thinking men can see the problem of misprojection, but many women can't , Both GB Shaw ( A hero of many feminists) and GK Chesterton had to duck and weave to avoid the careless lobs of unhappy women who,  seeing well the fractured frustrations of their parents, blame only the other party ---half the story.

Thankfully our forebears have fought this fight before us and won through. How,  you may well ask, when all in so many families can seem hopeless.
Our fortebears won  on the wonders of the deeper  case-- being more thorough and more scientific for a start   . Not by seeing and directing , monitoring and wrecking   but by resurrecting the old subject and stories of grace and forgiveness for all.

I pray you all revisit the strong men and women of Shakespeare. Let noone say no more that the Victorian age was full of fainting and fawning maids .The Queen( Merchant of Venice ) ,who in her own right, , has supreme power , calls for only an equal share in the life of a weak man and proves herself in that role to be much more than worthy of the partnership in the defence of both right ,love and mercy. The deep paradox of the servant heart is demonstrated there .
How can I deny the wonder of this night , that I should choose to watch ,for the first time ever , dear Portia follow her father' s wishes and trust her fate to faith-to not just any man, but a man with a passion to work hard at love . Its not by chance that I watched "The Merchant of Venice "tonight . He might be dumb BUT he managed to chose lead--- not gold and all that glitters ( and distracts) .
This punchy romance ends with the weak men being twisted around the fingers of the women - these are strong wise women and their partners in men and women are made stronger by the fight and the long wait for grace to appear .

Like · Reply · 55 mins · Edited

Warren Mitchell is brilliant shining darkly bright as the justice focused Jew,.Susan Jameson ( Known to us as Polkinghorne 's long suffering wife in New Tricks ) is full of beautiful exquisite eye contact as the Queen's best friend.( Blue BBC series 1980 - a must have )

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 I TRUST  That Many of you women will know/ do know  the blessing of having a true friend of the same sex to help you through the ravages of war , loneliness and neglect
.Nerissa(Susan Jameson) is that person in the play and don't those two girls have fun, finally ending the play on a woman's only high note -of having put one huge one over the boys . Get this --even the beautiful queen doesn't get much of a choice out of all the suitors in the world - eh girls ! Between a rock and a hard place there is a mere man and.. much grace, should you go looking 4 it.

Friends on the journey -- Portia and Nerissa

If you ever doubt that God is with you on the journey, stop and look around you . Do you have at least one friend - is that not enough ?
And if not enough for this moment,  look at those in the gallery before you . The moving pictures of people long dead or only really alive on film . Men and women who gave their lives and words to make the fantasy real for this present moment , Such are the gospels , the men and women of Israel, (Women of Israel- a great book of that name)
Such is the work of Shakespeare and Chesterton and Dickens and .......study Portia and Nerissa in the Merchant of V  Susan jameson plays the powerful friend beautifully

enice

Waiting for Love

We are given drivers like testosterone and adrenalin  to make us come alive , Our job is not as the simpletons suggest , to give into them but to deal wit them . To do as many do in our age and say" do what your feel like ' is not only to condemn young people to a life of no tension but much trouble as they get tossed and drowned in  sea of determinism .

Ours is a stupid age - when we we have everything we want but know not what we want . Tis not for having no eyes to see or ears to hear but a failure to hear the cry of wonder and grace from the gospels .

Men and women have to often wait long for grace but as its God's gift it will come  . Love is foremost patient . Study patient love even in Shakespeare and in Queen Portia and her waiting Maid Nerissa.

Takes one to know one - when the fight gets personal

Don't you hate it when a discussion turns personal . It happens even in the best regulated families, including my own... where I sometimes start  it . 
Confession time. 
What do you do when it happens to you? - well IMO there is not much you can do when it happens to you because there is often too much anger in the room. Adrenalin takes over and real sins get confused with real risks. ( such as physical violence ) Anger itself is not necessarily a sin and can be the adrenalin means to force resolution - if we let it.
The wonderful thing is we can and should learn to deal with it - and the dealing with it is best done later,, though not as long as in the play mentioned below . The good book says "do it "and "do it" before the day ends . Its that simple and it works ! "Do what ?"you might be sayin -- watch the play!

The really wonderful thing is that we can learn to deal with terribly scary things like anger and learn to love again; to find a way forward and not be overcome by fear in family and political life .

The positive side of focusing on what is sin is and why its serious and subtle stuff
 It used to be taught ( 8th commandment ) that attacking the person rather than the argument was wrong . Our defamation laws and many principals build on that one principle were held in clear focus until recently .
Like so many important distinctions in accusation law - its somewhat lost to the poorly educated in our community .i have to bite my tongue too cause I break the law too . so iIts easy to get confused / self defensive - esp when you are angry . You may not even admit to yourself you are angry .Esp if you think its always a sin , To see anger as always a sin is to be superficial .  To see anger as always a sin is to sit on To see anger as always a sin is to be superficial .  something you probably need to deal with openly . To see anger as always a sin is  to join the bubbling under the surface  majority in maintaining a superficial goodness when a bomb is about to explode  .  

Its acceptable then under OUR law to attack the sin but NOT the sinner . It is equally WRONG under OUR LAW to give the permanent status of sinner to anyone, as many of us still believe strongly in hoping for a change of attitude.

This positive attitude to problem solving should be a point of celebration for us as it has been for our forefathers for thousands of years. .Many lazy thinking moderns are too keen to lock people up forever -- we would all be in there if they had their way 



Even  you yourself are not real mad at this moment ( which is likely) let  suggest you get into practice for dealing with the next moment you are by watching Shakespeare's brilliant testimony  in "A Winters Tale " ( currently a big hit in London ) Just what the good Doctor ordered.

One of Shakespeare's last plays
 -A Winters Tale (a hit in London right now) makes this point extremely well.

Note that the trigger for the Kings sin is fear and not only that - unfounded fear --The real problem is his problem, not the person he accuses !
There is a lot of fear, projection and unworkable reconciliation effort around -
If we are going to target someone, we are often best to consider the old aussie accusation /question " takes one to know one": and really move on.  

Why do young people get so easily tricked ? , The TV sells them rubbish and they buy it

Success in Marriage .
Lots of marriages fail
Is the answer to live with someone before you buy in ?" Rules of Engagement" TV series  seems to test the water on this .My generation thought you didn't need rules -- you just got 'married " Strangely the program is good in name only like so much TV - talks but does not deliver . No rules , no engagements but lots of testing and little discussion of consequences ( like "walk of shame" )You get to see what happens but ad infintum and with no real understanding to lift the situation

I feel for young people because their parents don't even know why their faith in marriage and happiness didn't work . The sixth commandment says how it works and so does experience .  Is marriage the problem or their understanding of it the problem ?Infidelity breaks it for one .
Does shacking up with someone help you decide? Not if baby boomers experience is evidence - many tried -few succeeded in that . If you are going to share house share it with lots of people and not your bed .  Extra people in marriage will threaten  the sense of security in both parties whether its before  the event or after.
To make a good decision in marriage you need to practice observation NOT participation cause the person  you choose will be for life .You are  studying to make the BEST decision of your life ---takes time wisdom and self control.You don't learn that in the pressure cooker .

Its also not a new idea . It happened to Boomers  . Many got married because they thought happiness was automatically connected to the institution .Clearly it is NOT.
With so many marriage failures around them young people are still not so sure how to proceed  - fair enough. but
Is the answer to live with someone before you buy in ? How can anyone be clear when marriage is still the objective for most but known infidelity is the way to kill it . The baby is in their somewhere,and commitment to one person and self restraint are absolutely necessary. You don't learn restraint shacking up with someone.
While it is nothing new , shacking up together is still seen as the new and better way ---as they say ?
 That too has been well tried by baby boomers and the rate of failure and damage there is very high .Don't just watch the TV,  watch real people.
Anyway here it comes again from one young person . you be the judge.


Me

Thanks for sharing young ones but I would not recommend the practice esp if the ten good reasons you give are the best you can find - IMO you shouldn't even live with someone alone if you can't work that out from observing ( participants cannot be objective). Groups ( shared house ) are better than one to one . 

No one in favor of the idea seems to want to talk about "the walk of shame" that many women feel when they don't wait for commitment. The TV talks about it all the time but NEVER resolves it . It entertains ,but never really explains.
These are small things too because, if God is real, he either meant for you to show restraint or not - far more imp than your 10 ?
Stats are the terribly dumb toys of reactionaries and many of my now old school mates live in expectation of an insight when they have missed most,; because of their growing cynicism about how things work ( stats prove nothing much)-- you can spend you life just "testing the water "and they have ,
MI Stats give little insight to you personally , Don't try to evolve your life -, Take the true biblical frame as a given and prove it is the road to a confident well tested proactive lifestyle choice that your parents, gp ggp etc etc took .

Like · Reply · 10 hrs · Edited

Young Lady 1  Ummm but you're not a woman... So you have no idea what you're talking about re 'walk of shame'. It's actually none of your business what other people do, especially in their private space. Next you'll be telling us what we can and can't do with our bodies... This all fits within the misogynistic male frame of mind.

Like · Reply · 1 hr

Young person 2 These ongoing comments are a legitimate "opinion", but none of them address the original post, which is erroneous. It states that living together does not lead to marriage. We all know ppl who ARE married, who have once lived with each other. Therefore the premise is wrong. Nothing else about morals or opinions should therefore be discussed in relation to this post. People with opinions or ideas about telling other people what to do or not to do could open their own post on a different theme. The original article contains errors of FACT, it is therefore not relevant to continue about morality themes.

Like · Reply · 1 · 1 hr

yp2 . and it is of no bearing to "this" argument proposed originally by Mark if some relationships don't work. Some marriages don't work either (up to 30% of them) .... the ONLY argument proposed here is that living together won't lead to marriage, and t...See More

Like · Reply · Just now

You don't want to talk about it Diedre Emilia .Well that is your choice, but please always be open to the possibility that you can learn and should be open to others about CONSEQUENCES rather than SPECULATION , IMO how you enjoy your life is dependant on moral choices not statistical ones , 

Study the programs on TV and tell me that "Rules of engagement" provides you with some answers . Is it not like so many other programs just an endless stream of entertaining encounters where people just keep falling of the edge? - if they live like that .

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A worthy Womans hero

As  a long time single bloke, I used to love listening to the "Coming out" show on the ABC . Most men do like a feisty woman . I waited a long time to find one . Better to know she 's one before you marry her than find out about it later .We all have wills - best we know them clearly at the start!

Dickens ,like many of us when we are young,  chose the beautiful one and came to realize his mistake quite soon .  We best marry the tough one,  so we can make our war on ourselves and the world work ,
Dickens  realization that he had made a mistake didn't stop him loving her and learning to grow his love . This is the wonder of reading Dickens. There is hope if you go looking and loving and you are willing to change your mind about what you see. ( I am reading Chesterton on Dickens at the moment - exquisite )

Dickens Aunt is a classic . The ultimate man hater she would beat any of the modern feminists to the table of ritual dissection of a mans faults. Most amazing of all,  this obnoxious woman ends up being the real hero of the life story of Dickens- endearing us to his generation and in a  concrete way to all generations . We can love again if we take our eyes off our hurt and disappointment .God gives us what he gives us -make the most of it and prove its all grace in the end my friend !  ( a word from my father)

Like so many of our precious daughters Aunt Copperfield was deeply hurt by a man , perhaps many men including perhaps her father or uncles or teachers . Only takes one ? On the surface it could seem like there was no end to this cruelty .As a man its true ,  testosterone speaks to you all the time - potentially  leading us to crime . But nature is our sister not our master ,or indeed our mother .
The new generation must learn to resist temptation - not call it, as the devil would -heaven on hold .

Dickens ,would of course not be able to drag us back to love and loving if it wasn't for his own experience of deep deprivation . He would not be silly or shallow enough to fall for the gushing talk of our failed motherhoods in Parliament - who only see disadvantage and a supply of cushions from our vast store of stupid but toxic sentiment ( a dangerous post Christian heresy and legacy of simpleminded secularism )
The damned list of bad doers goes on forever,  just like the hole you can dig for yourself into if you want to go the blame game route.  It's never been easier to blame nature because it absolves everyone in the audience but noone in particular. Nature as a object of worship is not without its own teeth and tearing claws  O hole is a hole and  there is only one way out .


Yes , Aunt Copperfield is my hero for the moment:  Deeply hurt ,  flawed with a careless tongue ( like all of us) Aware finally of her mistake in blaming she' s helped out of the hole by Grace and her own honesty , humility and desire to do right ,  She is then , instead of chasing donkeys , able to love  and feel forgiveness and becomes  a  renewed source of the deepest  love  for so many of us .   

A reformed feminist has recently put this victimization "poor me " trap and disease into context.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jUnAF1InVR4  The factual feminist Prof Christina Hoff Sommers


A word from my mother --"Women of Israel"

Women in the west need something better

Smart TV commentators make the people pay a high price for pretending they know things they don't - babbling on for years with plain prejudice and complete ignorance of the deeper things which influence individuals - paid speculators instead of true reporters .
An important area of ignorance is indicated by Steve Canaine's question on ABC thedrum " Why do so many women prefer to take their faith seriously ( in this case Islam) when the risk of domination by males is higher '?"  Young women are joining ISIS forces in the Middle East .

 A reasonable question for sure, but the answer is obvious to anyone who has a faith that encompasses evil and doesn't ignore it - like they do . The answer is because" our" cultural answer for them " everyone does what they feel like" is a death trap to families; smart women reject this aspect of this faithless cultural position. 

Muslims share the hospitality and family protection rules of Judeo-Christian faiths which can make them very very attractive to people who come close to them .-esp those who realize that the dominant faith in "doing what you like " ruins families in the West . Explains why women are happy to join up despite risk of more domination by males . Time we all ditched the unsatisfying and unsustainable "freedom is everything " rubbish talked about by Germaine Greer. Young women are more comfortable growing up with rules than" fending for themselves " in the street " as far too many of ours do . Love and hate are powerful drivers from the same tree but you wont get anything but confusion from the TV. Infact religoius people are supposed to be nutty according to TV - strange definitely, but not mostly mad , if you know any. And the ABC in particular ( with the exception of their recent BBCseries like Father Brown and the Midwives )keep up their non reporting of this big cultural world outside their own . The Age too want us to believe they too know something about evil . Too little too late for real progressives

When Hate creeps up on you

I thought I was OK - I never hated anyone in my life.  And then one day I found out it was really there . Something right inside me and it was directed at one person ......in my life .Unbelievable,  unwelcome
Not that I wanted to admit it for a while , I was a nice bloke ; One of the nicest , I thought .
Infact I thought I loved everyone, and was even good at doing that.
Came as a big shock that lurking inside me was this thing... this nasty thing
I eventually realised  it was Hate ;  hate for another person

It helped that I had seen it in others .
It helped me come to terms with it that I had seen it in others.
It helped me come to terms with it that I had seen it in others and that their journey was through caring too

Which is all quite strange, because we tend to think in distinct categories and opposites ( good and evil ) ; That care and hate can't coexist . That progress and degradation can't both be political and personal realities

Was this hate really then me or him or something we were sharing ----no wonder it grows into a bushfire when its a "takes one to know one kind of fire" ; an unacknowledged evil in our midst 


It helped SLIGHTLY that I had NOW seen hate and love in a bigger  context than I had ever seen before
It helped that I had seen hate and love in a bigger  context than I had seen before
It didn't help that I suddenly didn't know where I was , who I was and  WORST  how if possible ( cause hate is damningly real to our sense of worthiness ) to get outta there 

It helped that I admitted to myself that I really hated this person.  Confession is first base U know , but you don't know until you do it !
Gradually then I realised why I hated this person  and why some other wonderful caring people hate people too --sometimes (I am not saying its all right . I am only talking about the hate that comes through caring and sharing . The sort that develops in a mother and she doesn't even know it .
What kind of hate ? 
The hate that I experienced
- where my care for one child or dependant person would mean I would have to open the door to that person all my life .
Suddenly I realised why I hated that person
They were going to take away my life ----or a good chunk of it OR at least I thought so ( see later )..  The people I am talking about were violent young adults who scared just everyone they came across . Inside they were just scared kids looking for a home and coming back to me to find one.

It helped me come to terms with hate  that I had seen it in others and at least knew why I hated that person - they have become dependant on me .( or so I thought ) I was a dry trunk and spring was not in sight . I could see no fruit and none ever likely .

I don't want to make my experience yours but to cut the story to a short story . Let me suggest that like me admitting to who I am and how inadequate I am ( with my own inadequate ability to give - ie my whole life ) I was drawn back to One who had given his whole life .

I still care for people and for individuals , I can only do it now ( as mothers in despair too only can ) though knowing my limits and because i have a ridiculous faith that says " leave it me and the angels son " You don't have to carry the burden . Each day is a  new day with me and boy do I have some resources . I make it hard but then I have my reasons .One of them is like with this  hate thing--- to remind you that none of my children are as clever and as capable on their own as they think they are . Sometimes that means that the only friend I am going to leave you with is me .  I still want you to enjoy life . Live in the freedom of a daily walk with me .



I truly hope and pray you too will hava gooday

Make sure you have seen "The Cosby Show" - its too good not to see again and again until you absorb its  comfort in all our big  everyday needs

Make the commitment -not because your feelings will follow but because you chose that person

You may not always like each other but the wonder of it is that you agree to stick with it OK http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/lifestyle/sa-lifestyle/stuck-on-you-car-covered-in-postit-notes-was-nathan-humphris-marriage-proposal-to-girlfriend-belinda-modra/story-fnizi7vf-1227004947663?nk=f322d1a74921d927d7611f90d2cb1467 …

Where is God when you need Him ?

Wonderful things - the people close to us
I have got friends like this to remind me of this amazing reality
This is someone else's  version  of  a similiar person in  my own life . 

I envy Kevin. My brother, Kevin, thinks God lives under his bed. At least that's what I heard him say one night. 

He was praying out loud in his dark bedroom, and I stopped to listen, 'Are you there, God?' he said. 'Where are you? Oh, I see. Under the bed....' 

I giggled softly and tiptoed off to my own room. Kevin's unique perspectives are often a source of amusement. But that night something else lingered long after the humour. I realized for the first time the very different world Kevin lives in. 

He was born 30 years ago, mentally disabled as a result of difficulties during labour. Apart from his size (he's 6-foot-2), there are few ways in which he is an adult. 

He reasons and communicates with the capabilities of a 7-year-old, and he always will. He will probably always believe that God lives under his bed, that Santa Claus is the one who fills the space under our tree every Christmas and that airplanes stay up in the sky because angels carry them. 

I remember wondering if Kevin realizes he is different. Is he ever dissatisfied with his monotonous life? 

Up before dawn each day, off to work at a workshop for the disabled, home to walk our cocker spaniel, return to eat his favourite macaroni-and-cheese for dinner, and later to bed. 

The only variation in the entire scheme is laundry, when he hovers excitedly over the washing machine like a mother with her newborn child. 

He does not seem dissatisfied. 

He lopes out to the bus every morning at7:05, eager for a day of simple work. 

He wrings his hands excitedly while the water boils on the stove before dinner, and he stays up late twice a week to gather our dirty laundry for his next day's laundry chores. 

And Saturdays - oh, the bliss of Saturdays! That's the day my Dad takes Kevin to the airport to have a soft drink, watch the planes land, and speculate loudly on the destination of each passenger inside. 'That one's goin' to Chi-car-go! ' Kevin shouts as he claps his hands. 
His anticipation is so great he can hardly sleep on Friday nights. 

And so goes his world of daily rituals and weekend field trips. 

He doesn't know what it means to be discontent. 

His life is simple. 

He will never know the entanglements of wealth or power, and he does not care what brand of clothing he wears or what kind of food he eats. His needs have always been met, and he never worries that one day they may not be. 

His hands are diligent. Kevin is never so happy as when he is working. When he unloads the dishwasher or vacuums the carpet, his heart is completely in it. 

He does not shrink from a job when it is begun, and he does not leave a job until it is finished. But when his tasks are done, Kevin knows how to relax. 

He is not obsessed with his work or the work of others. His heart is pure. 

He still believes everyone tells the truth, promises must be kept, and when you are wrong, you apologize instead of argue. 

Free from pride and unconcerned with appearances, Kevin is not afraid to cry when he is hurt, angry or sorry. He is always transparent, always sincere. And he trusts God. 

Not confined by intellectual reasoning, when he comes to Christ, he comes as a child. Kevin seems to know God - to really be friends with Him in a way that is difficult for an 'educated' person to grasp. God seems like his closest companion. 

In my moments of doubt and frustrations with my Christianity, I envy the security Kevin has in his simple faith. 

It is then that I am most willing to admit that he has some divine knowledge that rises above my mortal questions. 

It is then I realize that perhaps he is not the one with the handicap. I am. My obligations, my fear, my pride, my circumstances - they all become disabilities when I do not trust them to God's care. 

Who knows if Kevin comprehends things I can never learn? After all, he has spent his whole life in that kind of innocence, praying after dark and soaking up the goodness and love of God. 
And one day, when the mysteries of heaven are opened, and we are all amazed at how close God really is to our hearts, I'll realize that God heard the simple prayers of a boy who believed that God lived under his bed.

But Kevin won't be surprised at all ! 

When you receive this, say a prayer. Thank God for the people He has put in your life, the ones He has brought across your path, so you could show some kindness, as well as the ones who challenge and take all your patience! 
Prayer is one of the best free gifts we receive. There may be no financial cost, but there are a lot of rewards. 

Someone once said:

FRIENDS ARE LIKE ANGELS WHO LIFT US TO OUR FEET AGAIN

WHEN OUR WINGS HAVE TROUBLE REMEMBERING HOW TO FLY

Someone also said
"Unless you become like children.............