Does your faith need strengthening? Are you confused and wondering if Jesus Christ is really "The Way, the Truth, and the Life?" "Fight for Your Faith" is a blog filled with interesting and thought provoking articles to help you find the answers you are seeking. Jesus said, "Seek and ye shall find." In Jeremiah we read, "Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall seek for Me with all your heart." These articles and videos will help you in your search for the Truth.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Before Bombs, a Battered American Dream


By Deborah Sontag, David M. Herszenhorn and Serge F. Kovaleski, NY Times, April 27, 2013
BOSTON—It was a blow the immigrant boxer could not withstand: After capturing his second consecutive title as the Golden Gloves heavyweight champion of New England in 2010, Tamerlan Anzorovich Tsarnaev, 23, was barred from the national Tournament of Champions because he was not a United States citizen.

The cocksure fighter, a flamboyant dresser partial to white fur and snakeskin, had been looking forward to redeeming the loss he suffered the previous year in the first round, when the judges awarded his opponent the decision, drawing boos from spectators who considered Mr. Tsarnaev dominant.

From one year to the next, though, the tournament rules had changed, disqualifying legal permanent residents—not only Mr. Tsarnaev, who was Soviet-born, but several other New England contenders, too. His aspirations frustrated, he dropped out of boxing competition entirely, and his life took a completely different direction.

Mr. Tsarnaev portrayed his quitting as a reflection of the sport’s incompatibility with his growing devotion to Islam. But as dozens of interviews with friends, acquaintances and relatives from Cambridge to Dagestan showed, that devotion, and the suspected radicalization that accompanied it, was a path he followed most avidly only after his more secular dreams were dashed in 2010 and he was left adrift.

His trajectory eventually led the frustrated athlete and his loyal younger brother, Dzhokhar, to bomb one of the most famous athletic events in this country, killing three and wounding over 200 at the Boston Marathon, the authorities say. They say it led Mr. Tsarnaev, his application for citizenship stalled for eight months, and his brother, a new citizen and a seemingly well-adjusted college student, to attack their American hometown on Patriots’ Day, April 15.

Mr. Tsarnaev now lies in the state medical examiner’s office, his body riddled with bullets after a confrontation with the police four days after the bombings. He left behind an American-born wife who had converted to Islam, a 3-year-old daughter with curly hair, a 19-year-old brother charged with using a weapon of mass destruction, and a puzzle: Why did these two young men seemingly turn on the country that granted them asylum?

Combing their lives for clues, the authorities have focused on Mr. Tsarnaev’s six-month trip to Dagestan, Russia, last year. But in Cambridge, sitting on the front steps of the ramshackle, brown-shingled house where the Tsarnaev family lived for a decade, their 79-year-old landlady urged a longer lens.

“He certainly wasn’t radicalized in Dagestan,” the landlady, Joanna Herlihy, said.

Ms. Herlihy, who speaks Russian and took the family under wing shortly after it resettled in the area, declined to elaborate. But she said that over the last few years, Mr. Tsarnaev had identified more fiercely than previously with his religious and ethnic roots, seeming to abandon his once avid pursuit of the American dream.

He dropped out of community college and lost interest not just in boxing but also in music; he used to play piano and violin, classical music and rap, and his e-mail address was a clue to how he once saw himself: The_Professor@real-hiphop.com. He worked only sporadically, sometimes as a pizza deliverer, and he grew first a close-cropped beard and then a flowing one.

He seemed isolated, too. For the last year, he, his wife and his child were the only Tsarnaevs living full time in the three-bedroom apartment on Ms. Herlihy’s third floor.

Mr. Tsarnaev’s two younger sisters had married and moved out; his parents, now separated, had returned to Dagestan; and his brother had left for the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, returning home only on the occasional weekend, as he did recently after damaging his 1999 green Honda Civic by texting while driving.

“When Dzhokhar used to come home on Friday night from the dormitory, Tamerlan used to hug him and kiss him—hold him, like, because he was a big, big boy, Tamerlan,” their mother, Zubeidat, 45, said last week, adding that her older son had been “handsome like Hercules.”

Not long after he gave up his boxing career, Mr. Tsarnaev married Katherine Russell of Rhode Island in a brief Islamic ceremony at a Dorchester mosque in June 2010. She has declined to speak publicly since the attacks.

His wife primarily supported the family through her job as a home health aide, scraping together about $1,200 a month to pay the rent. While she worked, Mr. Tsarnaev looked after their daughter, Zahira, who was learning to ride the tricycle still parked beside the house, neighbors said. The family’s income was supplemented by public assistance and food stamps from September 2011 to November 2012, state officials said.

It was probably not the life that Anzor Tsarnaev had imagined for his oldest child, who, even as a boy, before he developed the broad-shouldered physique that his mother described as “a masterpiece,” dreamed of becoming a famous boxer.

But then the father’s life had not gone as planned, either. Once a government official in the prosecutor’s office in Kyrgyzstan, he had been reduced to working as an unlicensed mechanic in the back lot of a rug store in Cambridge.

“He was out there in the snow and cold, freezing his hands to do this work on people’s cars,” said Chris Walter, owner of the store, Yayla Tribal Rug, “I did not charge him for the space because he was a poor, struggling guy with a good heart.”

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was born on Oct. 21, 1986, five years before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in Kalmykia, a barren stretch of Russian territory by the Caspian Sea.

A photograph of Mr. Tsarnaev as a baby shows a cherubic child wearing a knit cap with a pom-pom, perched on the lap of his unsmiling mother, who has spiky black bangs and an artful pile of hair. Strikingly, she did not cover her head then, as she does now; she began wearing a hijab only a few years ago, in the United States, prodded by her son just as she was prodding him, too, to deepen his faith.

When he was still little, his parents moved from Kalmykia to Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic, where their other three children were born. They left during the economic crisis of the late 1990s, and spent a few brief months in Chechnya, then fled before the full-scale Russian military invasion in 1999. They sought shelter next in his mother’s native Dagestan.

In an interview there, Patimat Suleimanova, her sister-in-law, said the family had repeatedly been on the run from war and hardship in those days: “In search of peace, they kept moving,” she said.

Finally, Anzor Tsarnaev sought political asylum in the United States. He arrived first, with his younger son, in the spring of 2002. His older son, a young man of 16, followed with the rest of the family in July 2003.

Their neighborhood in Cambridge was run-down then, with car repair lots where condominiums have since arisen. But the city has long been especially welcoming to immigrants and refugees; its high school has students from 75 countries.

The school superintendent, Jeffrey Young, described Cambridge as “beyond tolerant.”

“How is it that someone could grow up in a place like this and end up in a place like that?” he said of the Tsarnaevs.

Unlike his brother, who was well integrated into the community by the time he started high school, Mr. Tsarnaev was a genuine newcomer when he entered the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, from which he graduated in 2006. Enrolled in the large English as a Second Language program, he made friends mostly with other international students, and his demeanor was reserved, one former classmate, Luis Vasquez, said.

“The view on him was that he was a boxer and you would not want to mess with him,” Mr. Vasquez, now 25 and a candidate for the Cambridge City Council, said. “He told me that he wanted to represent the U.S. in boxing. He wanted to do the Olympics and then turn pro.”

Shortly after his arrival in the United States, while at registration for the Golden Gloves in Lowell, he awed about two dozen people around him when he started playing classical music on a piano in a nearby room. The impromptu performance lasted about 20 minutes and ended to a burst of applause from surprised onlookers.

“He just walked over from the line and started playing like he was in the Boston Pops,” his trainer at the time, Gene McCarthy, 77, recalled. He added that even “the person signing people up stopped what he was doing to walk over and listen.”

Having trained in Dagestan, where sport fighting is the national pastime, Mr. Tsarnaev boxed straight-legged like a European and not crouched, American-style. He also incorporated showy gymnastics into his training and fighting, walking on his hands, falling into splits, tumbling into corners. So as he started working out in Boston-area clubs—and winning novice tournament fights just six months after immigrating—he made an impression, although not an entirely positive one.

“For a big man, he was very agile,” said Tom Lee, president of the South Boston Boxing Club. “He moved like a gazelle and was strong like a horse. He was a big puncher. But he was an underachiever because he did not dedicate himself to the proper training regimen.”

In 2009, Mr. Tsarnaev won the New England Golden Gloves championship in the 201-pound division, which qualified him for the national tournament in Salt Lake City in May. Introducing what would become his signature style, he showed up overdressed, wearing a white silk scarf, black leather pants and mirrored sunglasses.

Stepping into the ring, as The Lowell Sun described it, Mr. Tsarnaev floored Lamar Fenner of Chicago with an explosive punch that required an eight-count from the referee, and then he seemed to control the rest of the fight.

Bob Russo, then the coach of the New England team, said: “We thought he won. The crowd thought he won. But he didn’t.”

Mr. Fenner’s mother, Marsha, said her son had called her the night of his “bout with the bomber,” thrilled to have defeated an opponent he described as unnervingly strong. Her son, who died of heart problems last year at 29, ended up coming in second in the tournament and turning professional, she said.

Mr. Tsarnaev remained an amateur. But if he was chastened by the defeat, it did not temper his behavior. During a preliminary round of the New England Golden Gloves in 2010, in a breach of boxing etiquette, he entered the locker room to taunt not only the fighter he was about to face but also the fighter’s trainer. Wearing a cowboy hat and alligator-skin cowboy boots, he gave the two men a disdainful once-over and said: “You’re nothing. I’m taking you down.”

The trainer, Hector Torres, was furious and subsequently filed a complaint, arguing that Mr. Tsarnaev should not be allowed to participate in the competition because he was not a citizen.

As it happened, Golden Gloves of America was just then changing its policy. It used to permit legal immigrants to compete in its national tournament three out of every four years, barring them only during Olympic qualifying years, James Beasley, the executive director, said. But it decided in 2010 that the policy was confusing and moved to end all participation by noncitizens in the Tournament of Champions.

So Mr. Tsarnaev, New England heavyweight champion for the second year in a row, found himself stymied. The immigrant champions in three other weight classes in New England were blocked from advancing, too, Mr. Russo said.

But Mr. Tsarnaev was devastated. He was not getting any younger. And at that point, he was more than a year away from being even eligible to apply for American citizenship, and there appeared to be a potential obstacle in his path.

The previous summer, Mr. Tsarnaev had been arrested after a report of domestic violence.

His girlfriend at the time had called 911, “hysterically crying,” to say he had beaten her up, according to the Cambridge police report. Mr. Tsarnaev told the officers that he had slapped her face because she had been yelling at him about “another girl.”

Eventually, charges against him would be dismissed, the records show, so the episode would not have endangered his eventual citizenship application.

But his life was changing. He married. He had a child. And he largely withdrew from Cambridge social life, and from many of the friendships he had enjoyed. “He had liked to party,” said Elmirza Khozhugov, 26, his former brother-in-law, who lost touch with him in 2010. “But there was always the sense that he felt a little guilty that he was having too much fun, maybe.”

In 2011, the Russian security service cautioned the F.B.I., and later the C.I.A., that “since 2010” Mr. Tsarnaev had “changed drastically,” becoming “a follower of radical Islam.” The Russians said he was planning a trip to his former homeland to connect with underground militant groups. An F.B.I. investigation turned up no ties to extremists, the bureau has said.

In early 2012, Mr. Tsarnaev left his wife and child for a six-month visit to Russia. His parents, speaking in Dagestan, portrayed it as an innocuous visit to reconnect with family and to replace his nearly expired passport from the Republic of Kyrgyzstan with a Russian one. His father said he had kept his son close by his side as they visited relatives, including in Chechnya, and renovated a storefront to turn it into a perfume shop.

But American officials say Mr. Tsarnaev arrived in Russia months before his father returned to Dagestan and so did not have the tight supervision, as portrayed by his father, for a good chunk of time.

Also, Mr. Tsarnaev, with no apparent sense of urgency about his travel documents, waited months to apply for a Russian passport, and it was not ready for him when he returned to the United States.

After his return, Mr. Tsarnaev applied for American citizenship. But the F.B.I. investigation, though closed, had caused his application to be stalled. Underscoring how detached he had become, he no longer had any valid passport and was, in a way, stateless.

He grew a five-inch beard, which he shaved off before the bombings, and he engaged neighbors in affable conversations about skiing one week and heated ones about American imperialism the next. At a neighborhood pizzeria, he explained to Albrecht Ammon, 18, that “the Koran is great and flawless, and the Bible is ripped off from the Koran.”

“I asked him about radical Muslims that blow themselves up and say, ‘It’s for Allah,’” Mr. Ammon said. “And he said he wasn’t one of those Muslims.”

From Jesus With Love Books


by Dennis Edwards -

I wanted to take time to introduce the From Jesus with Love books. I can’t recommend these books highly enough. From Jesus with Love books are like that morning cup of coffee or that loving sex first thing in the morning with your mate. It lifts you up for the whole day or at least gets your day started on a high and in the right direction.

We all seek for spiritually uplifting material or we should do. Having a good reading or viewing diet will help in those moments of crisis or stress that we all experience. Not developing good reading or viewing or listening habits can lead to disaster and leave us without solutions or strength or the will to go on when we hit the hard walls of life. From Jesus with Love books are just the thing you need if you want to develop a more positive reading agenda.

Recently, I went to visit a dear man and his wife who are going through some very difficult times. His company went bankrupt and he lost all his properties and savings. He was suicidal and spent time in a psychiatric hospital. When we sat down after the usual formalities, I suggested we read from the From Jesus with Love for Troubled Times. The Lord let me to start off with the following selection which left this man in tears. He commented, “It sounds like it was written for me.” I responded, “It was, it’s From Jesus with Love!” Here’s the selection that we read.

Seasons of Life

          “When you hit bottom, when dreams give way to disappointment, when all you've worked so hard for goes to pieces, when life no longer holds any purpose or promise, you are tempted to despair and wonder if there is any reason to go one living. In extreme situations you may even be tempted to end it all yourself, right now.”

          “That’s when you must remember that you were created for a purpose, and that purpose isn't a single, one-time thing; it’s multifaceted and complex. As long as you live, there will be something more you can accomplish—something you are meant to accomplish—and there is always more to get out of life. The end of one dream doesn't mean the end of all dreams. Just as the seasons come and go in their cycle, periods of success and setback, fulfillment or disappointment, and emotional highs and lows come and go. You may be in the depths of despair now, but that won’t last forever.”

         “Soon you will find hope and a reason to go on—and the sooner you ask Me to show you what I have for you next, the sooner you will find new inspiration and purpose. The best may be just around the corner, but you’ll never know if you stop here. Take My hand and let Me lead you into a new season of fruitfulness and fulfillment.”

          That is one of the 68 pages of encouraging words from the book From Jesus with Love for Troubled Times. It will lift your spirit and give you new meaning and purpose in living. From Jesus with Love is a great gift book, great devotional, great for people needing encouragement. Please order one today for yourself or a loved one. You won’t be disappointed. Click on Link to see books available.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Duck Dynasty Star: Fame Is Fleeting; What Matters Most Is Jesus Christ


By Melissa Barnhart, Christian Post, April 26, 2013
Phil Robertson, the patriarch of the Robertson family whose Duck Commander business is the backdrop for A&E’s hit program “Duck Dynasty” will release a new book on May 7 titled, Happy, Happy, Happy, in which he shares his faith in Jesus Christ, his knowledge about the founding fathers, and how he’s grown Duck Commander into a multimillion dollar business.

The hour-long season finale of Duck Dynasty was the most-watched program on television Wednesday night, beating out American Idol with 9.6 million viewers, which is a record for A&E.

Robertson credits all of his family’s success to their faith in Jesus Christ and their devotion to living a Christian lifestyle. He told CP on Thursday that his family has managed to stay humble, amid all of the fame, because they know that all blessings come from God; and in the end, everyone’s going to the same place: a six-foot hole.

“Fame is rather fleeting, as you know, or should know,” Robertson said. “Money can come and go, and fame comes and goes. Peace of mind and a relationship with God is far more important, so this is the precedent that we’ve set in our lives. The bottom line is, we all die, so Jesus is the answer. Many have told me through the years: ‘I think I’ll take my chances without Jesus.’ And I always come back and say, ‘so what chance is that?’”

Robertson wasn’t always a follower of Jesus Christ. In fact, for the first 28 years of his life, he said he lived a “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle,” and rejected his sister’s efforts to bring him to the Lord, until he read a sign in the Atlanta airport that stopped him in his tracks.

“I’m walking through the airport in Atlanta, and there was a large sign on one of the terminal walls and the question on it said: ‘Were you born between the years of 1945 and 1965?’ And as I was walking through, I stopped and said, ‘oh, well that would be me.’ I read on and the sign said: ‘Report to the Centers for Disease Control immediately, because you’re in the highest risk group on planet earth for hepatitis C.’ The point is that for the first 28 years, I was in that group of individuals,” Robertson said.

“Fortunately, no debilitating disease fell upon me,” said Robertson who attributes his walk with Jesus Christ for all of the success he’s achieved in the last 38 years.

Robertson told CP that his book, Happy, Happy, Happy, is an extended version of the speeches he’s been giving across the country for the past 25 years.

“Basically, the book is about my life story,” he said. “I’ve been speaking all over the United States about duck calling, the founders of the country, and the Gospel. Once I started doing that, people started asking me: ‘How can I get a copy of what I just heard, why don’t you write a book?’ The book is just about that: ducks, founding fathers, and my faith in God. And the rest of the story is about how it all turned out—went from rags to riches, as they say.”

Robertson also attributes his wife, Miss Kay, for the success of Duck Commander, and for being a Christian example to their four sons who are married and raising families of their own.

“I told Miss Kay we need to make sure our children don’t turn out like I turned out,” he said. “So they were raised up around biblical instruction. That mixed with discipline—the discipline code, I call it. They just had a lifestyle of seeing their parents do good things. I think maybe me loving their mother and me loving my neighbors around me had a profound impact on them. And what came out of that was four sons who are all married to their original wives. And they’re acting godly and I think Miss Kay and I had a hand in that.”

“So basically, I would recommend that to all parents. You have to discipline your children, or they won’t respect you, law enforcement or God, or anyone else. But I would say, overarching, I made sure they knew that we loved them, their mother and myself. … They were loved, they were given biblical instruction, they were seeing their dad and mom reach out to their neighbors around them, helping them, whether it be financial or marriage problems.”

Robertson quoted 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 and cited it as being one of the scriptures he likes to share with people. “So basically, I don’t ever move too far past the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, because it’s of first importance. And I make sure it’s of first importance with anyone I’m talking to. It all comes down to that, really, when you get right down to it. So it’s not complex. Jesus removed our sins and guarantees we can be raised from the dead. I’m still waiting on someone to enlighten me on what story beats that one.”

Part of the Christian lifestyle is the Christian work ethic, and Robertson achieved his dream of getting his duck call on the market by setting goals, maintaining his focus, and holding fast to his unwavering faith in God.

“I worked hard,” Robertson said about his job as a commercial fisherman, catching catfish and buffalo while he worked to get his small business off the ground. “The first year, my gross sales totaled $8,000 in the duck call business. The second year was like $13,000, and the third year was $22,000. Simply put, I set a goal, stayed the course, and trusted in the Almighty. I did what was right, and the result is for everyone to see now.”

Speaking about his book, Robertson said: “All I would tell people is the first 28 years of my life I wasn’t going anywhere very fast. The last 38 went beyond anything I could’ve asked for or imaged. So it was either luck—I was just lucky, as the atheists probably would say—or I was blessed by the Almighty. I’m leaning toward blessings came once I was converted.”

“I would tell anybody who was listening, ‘Hey this is my story, a lot of good came out of it.’ The second half has been far better than the first half, I can tell you that.”

Pope Francis Has a Few Words in Support of Leisure

By Mark Oppenheimer, NY Times, April 26, 2013
On Tuesday, “Pope Francis: His Life in His Own Words,” a book of conversations with the man who was then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, will be published in English (Putnam; $24.95). These interviews from 2010 with two journalists in Argentina yield cute facts about the new boss of the church—a favorite movie? “Babette’s Feast”—but not much interesting theology.

But one passage in the book, at first glance rather slight, ends up insinuating a radical note into the proceedings. On a close read, it seems that Pope Francis believes that we must—indeed, that God is calling us to—relax.

Responding to the question, “Do we need to rediscover the meaning of leisure?” Pope Francis replies: “Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport. But this is being destroyed, in large part, by the elimination of the Sabbath rest day. More and more people work on Sundays as a consequence of the competitiveness imposed by a consumer society.” In such cases, he concludes, “work ends up dehumanizing people.”

Some pages later, he derides people who think of themselves as Catholic but don’t make time for their children. This is an example, according to Pope Francis, of living “with fraud.”

Catholic social teaching is known for promoting the idea that workers deserve dignity, which includes rest. But Pope Francis seems to be saying something more: that an authentically Christian life includes a proper dose of leisure and family time. That may sound unusual coming from a man whose tradition valorizes solitude and monasticism, and whose clergy members are not permitted to take spouses or beget children.

The idea of a Catholic exalting the Sabbath sounds particularly peculiar in the American context. In the United States, Catholics were never the great proponents of Sabbatarianism, observing Sunday as a special day, for worship or rest. That was a Protestant thing.

From the moment the Puritans arrived, they began enforcing laws to reserve Sunday for churchgoing. Over time, what came to be called “blue laws” covered different activities, and varied by state. Some laws forbade hunting on Sunday, others the sale of liquor, others any commercial activity. In religious towns, cultural norms made some recreation, like sports, taboo as well. As a child being raised in a Pentecostal family, John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, wasn’t allowed to ride a bicycle on Sundays.

Over time, the official justification for the laws had changed, but it was still Protestants who pushed for them. “In the 1820s, they would say this is a time to pause to reflect on our religious obligations to God,” said David Sehat, a historian at Georgia State University. But by the 1870s, “they started using Pope Francis’ justification: a time to spend time with family, for ‘the preservation of health and the promotion of good morals,’ ” to use one jurist’s language.

And the temperance movement, which of course supported laws against Sunday liquor sales, was Protestant in character. Activists often depicted Catholic immigrants as drunkards.

Today, the laws are disappearing, relics of a time when Protestant culture was more dominant. Connecticut, for example, finally decided to permit Sunday liquor sales last year. And in the United States, Sunday has lost its sacred character. Most Christians see little conflict in going to church in the morning, then watching a football game—maybe with the family, or maybe at a sports bar—in the afternoon.

The Sabbatarian tradition is upheld, in a serious way, by some small groups of religious Protestants and, of course, by observant Jews. And, it so happens, by those who think of themselves as both Christian and Jewish. “Messianic Jews,” who believe in the divinity of Jesus but pay special attention to the Jewish roots of Christianity, are often very attached to Sabbath observance.

Sarah Posner, a staff writer for the ReligionDispatches.org Web site, recalled a conference of messianic Jews she attended last year in Ellicott City, Md. “They weren’t selling their books, CDs and DVDs on Saturday, because they didn’t want to exchange money,” Ms. Posner said. “But they were using electricity”—which traditionally observant Jews would not.

Our religiously diverse country includes those who call their weekly day off from smartphones a “secular Sabbath.” Some groups may not even have a concept of Sabbatarianism. In Islam, for example, “there’s a deep theological objection to the idea that God rested on the seventh day,” according to Marion Holmes Katz, a scholar of Islam at New York University. “The idea of God resting seems to imply God being tired. So the whole idea that you refrain from work as some sort of ritualized recapitulation or symbolic nod to the process of creation—it’s not one that has any traction in Islam.”

But in Catholicism, as Pope Francis suggests, the Sabbath actually is supposed to matter—the whole day, not just Mass. For as the catechism teaches, in Paragraph 2185, “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body.”

Of course, those who preach a relaxing Sabbath, with friends and family, are often working hardest on the day they exalt. For clergy members, the Sabbath is the busiest workday of the week.

Study: Monsanto's Roundup Herbicide Linked to Cancer, Autism, Parkinson's

Common Dreams, April 26, 2013
The active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide may be “the most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment,” being responsible for a litany of health disorders and diseases including Parkinson’s, cancer and autism, according to a new study.

It’s “the most popular herbicide on the planet,” widely used on crops like corn and soy genetically engineered to be “Roundup Ready,” and sprayed on weeds in lawns across the US. But in the peer-reviewed study published last Thursday in the journal Entropy, authors Anthony Samsel, an independent scientist and consultant, and Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at MIT, crush the industry’s claims that the herbicide glyphosate is non-toxic and as safe as aspirin.

Looking at the impacts of glyphosate on gut bacteria, Samsel and Seneff found that the herbicide “enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins,” and is a “textbook example” of “the disruption of homeostasis by environmental toxins.”

The researchers point to a potential long list of disorders that glyphosate, in combination with other environmental toxins, could contribute to, including inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, depression, ADHD, autism, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, multiple sclerosis, cancer, cachexia, infertility, and developmental malformations.

The herbicide’s “Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body,” they write.

The authors conclude:

Given the known toxic effects of glyphosate reviewed here and the plausibility that they are negatively impacting health worldwide, it is imperative for more independent research to take place to validate the ideas presented here, and to take immediate action, if they are verified, to drastically curtail the use of glyphosate in agriculture. Glyphosate is likely to be pervasive in our food supply, and, contrary to being essentially nontoxic, it may in fact be the most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment.

The new findings may add further momentum to concerns from food safety and food sovereignty advocates who have challenged Monsanto’s grip on corporate agriculture and its genetically engineered crops.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

How to Multiply your Physical Output!

By Dennis Edwards:


You can increase your physical output by following these simple steps.

Did you know how much your spiritual or psychological attitude affects your physical output? Of course, we all know that to be true. But a few days ago, I was reminded of this reality. As you may know, I like to keep myself in shape physically & sometimes post my 5-km times on my Facebook page. I do it mainly to encourage some of you who may need to be doing more exercise. “If Dennis can do that, maybe I should give it a try.”

Most of my life I have been quite active physically, having been involved in teaching young teens. I was usually pulled into playing soccer, if only as a goalie or defensive player, neither of which I did very well.  At the same time, I also have fought low self-esteem, insecurity & discouragement, which has translated into a deeper relationship with the Lord for the needed strength & inspiration in daily living. Like Paul said, “For I know in me (that is in my flesh) dwells no good thing.”[1] And James advises, “Draw nigh to God, & He will draw nigh to you.”[2]

Over the last 3 or 4 years, I started a running project as I saw I was putting on weight around mid-drift bulge! I have always liked to eat, as I come from a family of big-eaters. At my father’s death, he weighed in around 300 pounds. I am a little under 200 right now, & my 2 brothers are quite a bit over that!

I never had any problem with weight, & could usually eat all I wanted with little or no consequence. I have usually kept a healthy diet & stayed away from pork products, white sugar, white flour & white rice most of my life & very little alcohol. But a few years ago, I noticed a tire starting to develop around the waistline. So I decide a running project was in order. On the beach that summer, I started running for between 10-15 minutes. That’s all I could do. I soon built up to 20 minutes &, over time, 25-30 minutes.

Now, I run my 5 km in usually under 35 minutes. My fastest time has been just around 30 minutes flat. But I generally do around 33 minutes. It’s a slow pace, but it gets my heart pumping & lungs expulsing & inhaling deeply. I feel really good afterwards. I feel physically refreshed & psychologically renewed. My mind seems sharper & I am less stressed.

Last Tuesday, however, I was quite discouraged. I had had an argument with my wife over something I cannot even remember at the moment. Book distribution has been way down, which means financing is low. Financial problems normally affect other aspects of our lives, & the problems become exaggerated in our minds, especially if we are looking down at the waves, like Peter did.

I sure you remember the story from the Bible. Jesus had just miraculously fed a huge amount of people, about 5,000 men, besides the woman & children. He then constrained the disciples to get away by boat, while He Himself sent the multitude away. What a humble leader concerned about His flock. He then went into a mountain to pray until evening.

Meanwhile, the disciples were having trouble getting to the other side of the lake as the wind was against them. At about the fourth watch of the night, or about 3 a.m., Jesus goes unto them walking on the water. By this time, the disciples are exhausted & probably discouraged, worried or fearful even though they are men of the sea. The Bible says, that when they saw Jesus walking, they cried out in fear that it was a ghost!

Finally, Jesus calls out to them to not be afraid, that it is He. Peter then answers, “Lord, if it is you, bid me to come out on the waters with you.” And the Lord says, “Come.” Peter then starts his famous walk upon the waters. He seems to do quite well until he is reminded about how strong the winds are & how high the waves are. He starts to sink, & cries out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately puts forth His hand & catches Peter & says unto him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”[3]

When they get into the ship, the wind stops, & the disciples worship Jesus saying, “Of a truth You are the Son of God.”[4]

Well, I got my eyes off the Lord & on my problems & so, I began to sink. Nevertheless, that day even though I did not feel like running, I compelled myself to. It took all my effort to not stop in the middle of the 5-km distance & just walk. When I finally finished the 5 km, my time was 38 minutes & 39 seconds. At least I had run the whole distance. But it was a very slow time, in fact, the slowest time all year. The discouragement I was feeling had resulted in a low physical performance.

It reminds me of the true story of an Olympic athlete who was expected to win his competition. However, the same morning of his final race, he was informed of his mother’s death. He ended up falling during the race & finished poorly. His psychological attitude had defeated him & he had lost the race even before it began.

Back to my story: The day after my poor time was a national holiday in Portugal. A couple who has been going through a very serious financial situation, where their business closed & they lost all their savings & property to the banks, came by for their bi-monthly visit. It is during this time that they pick up needed staples & we are able to share God’s Word with them, counsel, pray & fellowship together.

That day, we started with a Bible class on discouragement, as our friend has had suicidal tendencies. After class, we then snacked & sang some Christian songs together & praised God for our blessings. We ended up reading from the Bible together, before finishing with a good strong heartfelt prayer for the next 2 weeks until they come again.

What happened the next day surprised me. After running my 5 km, I looked at my watch & my time was 5 minutes 20 seconds faster than my time 2 days before. I realized how my spiritual state had affected my physical performance. Also, the day of rest & relaxation & prayer & praise & reading & sharing God’s Word had made a difference & had affected me positively.

In conclusion, take that day off that you need & don’t push yourself so hard day after day. Even God rested on the seventh day & commanded us to follow His example. That is where we get the 7-day week. Try to maintain your spiritual life. Get together with like-minded people to share your faith & encourage each other. Like it says in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together.”[5] 

Yesterday, I spent the day working on my present passion: stories with meaning for children. I finished up the first 3 books I had been working on for quite some time, but never seemed to have the time to finish. Instead of going out fundraising & distributing books, I wrote & edited & formatted & finished 3 books. At 7 o’clock, when I went running, my time was one minute faster than the day before, or 6 minutes & 20 seconds faster than the day of my discouragement. Doing my passion & trusting God for tomorrow increased my physical performance.

So there are a few tips for you. Trust God. Take a break. Pray. Do your passion. They’re all good for you! Get the inspiration you need. But don’t forget to get back to work. Do what you can do & trust God for the rest! He loves you & wants you to trust in Him. Just pick up a dollar bill or coin & read, “In God we trust!” Won’t you?

Footnotes:

[1] Rom.7:18
[2] Jam.4:8
[3] Matthew 14:31
[4] Matthew 14:33
[5] Heb.10:25

US tourists swim for 14 hours after boat sinks

By Danica Coto, AP, Apr 25, 2013
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)—The fishing trip off the rugged north coast of St. Lucia was supposed to last all day, but about four hours into the journey, the boat’s electric system crackled and popped.

Dan Suski, a 30-year-old business owner and information technology expert from San Francisco, had been wrestling a 200-pound marlin in rough seas with help from his sister, Kate Suski, a 39-year-old architect from Seattle. It was around noon April 21.

He was still trying to reel in the fish when water rushed into the cabin and flooded the engine room, prompting the captain to radio for help as he yelled out their coordinates.

It would be nearly 14 hours and a long, long swim before what was supposed to be a highlight of their sunny vacation would come to an end.

As the waves pounded the boat they had chartered from the local company “Reel Irie,” more water flooded in. The captain threw life jackets to the Suskis.

“He said, ‘Jump out! Jump out!’” Kate Suski recalled in a telephone interview Thursday with The Associated Press.

The Suskis obeyed and jumped into the water with the captain and first mate. Less than five minutes later, the boat sank.

The group was at least eight miles (13 kilometers) from shore, and waves more than twice their size tossed them.

“The captain was telling us to stay together, and that help was on its way and that we needed to wait,” Kate Suski said.

The group waited for about an hour, but no one came.

“I was saying, ‘Let’s swim, let’s swim. If they’re coming, they will find us. We can’t just stay here,’” she recalled.

As they began to swim, the Suskis lost sight of the captain and first mate amid the burgeoning swells. Soon after, they also lost sight of land amid the rain.

“We would just see swells and gray,” Dan Suski said.

A plane and a helicopter appeared in the distance and hovered over the area, but no one spotted the siblings.

Several hours went by, and the sun began to set.

“There’s this very real understanding that the situation is dire,” Kate Suski said. “You come face-to-face with understanding your own mortality … We both processed the possible ways we might die. Would we drown? Be eaten by a shark?”

“Hypothermia?” Dan Suski asked.

“Would our legs cramp up and make it impossible to swim?” the sister continued.

They swam for 12 to 14 hours, talking as they pushed and shivered their way through the ocean. Dan Suski tried to ignore images of the movie “Open Water” that kept popping into his head and its story of a scuba-diving couple left behind by their group and attacked by sharks. His sister said she also couldn’t stop thinking about sharks.

When they finally came within 30 feet (9 meters) of land, they realized they couldn’t get out of the water.

“There were sheer cliffs coming into the ocean,” she said. “We knew we would get crushed.”

They swam until they noticed a spit of sand nearby. When they got to land, they collapsed, barely able to walk. It was past midnight, and they didn’t notice any homes in the area.

“Dan said the first priority was to stay warm,” she recalled.

They hiked inland and lay side by side, pulling up grass and brush to cover themselves and stay warm. Kate Suski had only her bikini on, having shed her sundress to swim better. Dan Suski had gotten rid of his shorts, having recalled a saying when he was a kid that “the best-dressed corpses wear cotton.”

As the sun came up, they began to hike through thick brush, picking up bitter mangoes along the way and stopping to eat green bananas.

“It was probably the best and worst banana I’ve ever had,” Dan Suski recalled.

Some three hours later, they spotted a young farm worker walking with his white dog. He fed them crackers, gave them water and waited until police arrived, the Suskis said.

The Suskis were hospitalized and received IV fluids, with doctors concerned they couldn’t draw blood from Kate Suski’s arm because she was so dehydrated. They also learned that the captain and mate were rescued after spending nearly 23 hours in the water.

St. Lucia’s tourism minister called it a miracle, and the island’s maritime affairs unit is investigating exactly what caused the boat to sink. Marine Police Sgt. Finley Leonce said they have already interviewed the captain, and that police did not suspect foul play or any criminal activity in the sinking of the ship.

The brother and sister said they don’t blame anyone for the shipwreck.

“We are so grateful to be alive right now,” Kate Suski said. “Nothing can sort of puncture that bubble.”

Upon returning to their hotel in St. Lucia earlier this week, the Suskis were upgraded to a suite as they recover from cuts on their feet, severe tendonitis in their ankles from swimming and abrasions from the lifejackets.

“It’s really been amazing,” Dan Suski said. “It’s a moving experience for me.”

On Saturday, they plan to fly back to the U.S. to meet their father in Miami.

Once a night owl, Kate Suski no longer minds getting up early for flights, or for any other reason.

“Since this ordeal, I’ve been waking up at dawn every morning,” she said. “I’ve never looked forward to the sunrise so much in my life.”

Canadian Priest Killed in Snatch and Grab Shooting in Haiti

Reuters, April 25, 2013
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters)—A Canadian missionary was shot to death on Thursday as he left a bank in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, according to local media reports.

The priest, Richard Joyal of Manitoba, was shot three times in the back by a man on a motorcycle who snatched a bag the priest was carrying, the reports said.

Joyal had previously worked in the Philippines and Ivory Coast, according to a source familiar his activities in Haiti.

The Canadian government recently issued a travel advisory for its citizens visiting the Caribbean nation, warning them to “exercise a high degree of caution due to high crime rates in various parts of the country and ongoing political tensions.”

Like a Tarantino movie: carjacking victim tells of 90 harrowing minutes spent with Tsarnaev brothers

Eric Moskowitz, The Boston Globe, April 26, 2013
The 26-year-old entrepreneur had just pulled his new Mercedes to the curb on Brighton Avenue to answer a text when an old sedan swerved behind him, slamming to a stop. A man in dark clothes got out and approached the passenger window. It was nearly 11pm.

The man rapped on the glass, speaking quickly. Danny, unable to hear him, lowered the window—and the man reached an arm through, unlocked the door, and climbed in, brandishing a silver handgun.

“Don’t be stupid,” he told Danny. He asked if he had followed the news about the previous Monday’s Boston Marathon bombings. Danny had, down to the release of the grainy photos of suspects less than six hours earlier.

“I did that,” said the man, who would later be identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev. “And I just killed a policeman in Cambridge.”

He ordered Danny to drive—right on Fordham Road, right again on Commonwealth Avenue—the beginning of an achingly slow odyssey in which Danny felt the possibility of death pressing on him like a vice.

Now, Danny—the victim of the Tsarnaev brothers’ much-discussed but previously little-understood carjacking—filled in some of the last missing pieces in the timeline between the murder of MIT police officer Sean Collier, just before 10.30 p.m. on April 18, and the Watertown shoot-out that ended just before 1am. Danny asked that he be identified only by his American nickname.

The story of that night unfolds like a Tarantino movie, bursts of harrowing action laced with dark humor and dialogue absurd for its ordinariness, reminders of just how young the men in the car were. Girls, credit limits for students, the marvels of the Mercedes-Benz ML 350 and the iPhone­ 5, whether anyone still listens to CDs—all were discussed by the two 26-year-olds and the 19-year-old driving around on a Thursday night.

Danny described 90 harrowing minutes, first with the younger brother following in a second car, then with both brothers in the Mercedes, where they openly discussed driving to New York, though Danny could not make out if they were planning another attack. Throughout the ordeal, he did as they asked while silently analysing every threatened command, every overheard snatch of dialogue for clues about where and when they might kill him.

“Death is so close to me,” Danny recalled thinking. His life had until that moment seemed ascendant, from a province in Central China to graduate school at Northeastern University to a Kendall Square start-up.

“I don’t want to die,” he thought. “I have a lot of dreams that haven’t come true yet.”

After a zigzagging trek through Brighton, Watertown, and back to Cambridge, Danny would seize his chance for escape at the Shell Station on Memorial Drive, his break turning on two words—“cash only”—that had rarely seemed so welcome.

When the younger brother, Dzhokhar, was forced to go inside the Shell Food Mart to pay, older brother Tamerlan put his gun in the door pocket to fiddle with a navigation device—letting his guard down briefly after a night on the run. Danny then did what he had been rehearsing in his head. In a flash, he unbuckled his seat belt, opened the door, stepped through, slammed it behind, and sprinted off at an angle that would be a hard shot for any marksman.

“F—-!” he heard Tamerlan say, feeling the rush of a near-miss grab at his back, but the man did not follow. Danny reached the haven of a Mobil station across the street, seeking cover in the supply room, shouting for the clerk to call 911.

His quick-thinking escape, authorities say, allowed police to swiftly track down the Mercedes, abating a possible attack by the brothers on New York City and precipitating a wild shootout in Watertown that would seriously wound one officer, kill Tamerlan, and leave a severely injured Dzhokhar hiding in the neighborhood. He was caught the following night, ending a harrowing week across Greater Boston.

Danny spoke softly but steadily in a 2 ½-hour interview at his Cambridge apartment.

Danny, who offered his account only on the condition that his Chinese name not be revealed, said he does not want attention. But he suspects his full name may come out if and when he testifies against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

“I don’t want to be a famous person talking on the TV,” Danny said, kneading his hands, uncomfortable with the praise he has received from the few friends he has shared the story with, some of whom encouraged him to go public. “I don’t feel like a hero… I was trying to save myself.”

Danny, trained as an engineer, made scrupulous mental notes of street signs and passing details, even as he abided the older Tsarnaev’s command not to study his face.

“Don’t look at me!” Tamerlan shouted at one point. “Do you remember my face?”

“No, no, I don’t remember anything,” he said.

Tamerlan laughed. “It’s like white guys, they look at black guys and think all black guys look the same,” he said. “And maybe you think all white guys look the same.”

“Exactly,” Danny said, though he thought nothing of the sort. It was one of many moments in their mental chess match, Danny playing up his outsider status in America and playing down his wealth—he claimed the car was older than it was, and he understated his lease payments—in a desperate hope of extending his life.

Danny had come to the United States in 2009 for a master’s degree, graduated in January 2012, and returned to China to await a work visa. He came back two months ago, leasing a Mercedes and moving into a high-rise with two Chinese friends while diving into a startup. But he told Tamerlan he was still a student and that he had been here barely a year. It seemed to help that Tamerlan had trouble understanding even Danny’s pronunciation of the word “China.”

“Oh, that’s why your English is not very good,” the brother replied, finally figuring it out. “OK, you’re Chinese … I’m a Muslim.”

“Chinese are very friendly to Muslims!” Danny said. “We are so friendly to Muslims.”

When the ordeal had started, Danny prayed it would be a quick robbery. Tamerlan demanded money, but Danny had just $45 in cash—kept in the armrest—and a wallet full of plastic. Evidently disappointed to get so little out of holding up a $50,000 car, he told Danny to drive. The old sedan followed.

“Relax,” Tamerlan said, when Danny’s nerves made it hard for him to stay in the lane. Danny, recalling the moment, said, “My heart is pounding so fast.”

They lapped Brighton and crossed the Charles River into Watertown, following Arsenal Street. Looking through Danny’s wallet, Tamerlan asked for his ATM code—a friend’s birthdate.

Directed to a quiet neighborhood in East Watertown, Danny pulled up as instructed on an unfamiliar side street. The sedan stopped behind him. A man approached—the skinnier, floppy-haired “Suspect No. 2” in the photos and videos released by investigators earlier that evening—and Tamerlan got out, ordering Danny into the passenger seat, making it clear that if he tried anything he would shoot him. For several minutes, the brothers transferred heavy objects from the smaller car into Danny’s SUV. “Luggage,” Danny thought.

With Tamerlan driving now, Danny in the passenger seat, and Dzhokhar behind Danny, they stopped in Watertown Center so Dzhokhar could withdraw money from the Bank of America ATM using Danny’s card. Danny, shivering from fear but claiming to be cold, asked for his jacket. Guarded by just one brother, Danny wondered if this was his chance, but he saw around him only locked storefronts. A police car drove by, lights off.

Tamerlan agreed to retrieve Danny’s jacket from the back seat. Danny unbuckled, put on the jacket, then tried to buckle the seat belt behind him to make an escape easier. “Don’t do that,” Tamerlan said, studying him. “Don’t be stupid.”

Danny thought about his burgeoning start-up and about a girl he secretly liked in New York. “I think, ‘Oh my god, I have no chance to meet you again,’ ” he recalled.

Dzhokhar was back now. “We both have guns,” Tamerlan said, though Danny had not seen a second weapon. He overheard them speak in a foreign language—“Manhattan” the only intelligible word to him—and then ask in English if Danny’s car could be driven out of state. “What do you mean?” Danny said, confused. “Like New York,” one brother said.

They continued west on Route 20, in the direction of Waltham and Interstate 95, passing a police station. Danny tried to send telepathic messages to the officers inside, imagined dropping and rolling from the moving car.

Tamerlan asked him to turn on and demonstrate the radio. The older brother then quickly flipped through stations, seemingly avoiding the news. He asked if Danny had any CDs. No, he replied, he listens to music on his phone. The tank nearly empty, they stopped at a gas station, but the pumps were closed.

Doubling back, they returned to the Watertown neighbourhood—“Fairfield Street,” Danny saw on the sign—and grabbed a few more things from the parked car, but nothing from the trunk. They put on an instrumental CD that sounded to Danny like a call to prayer.

Suddenly, Danny’s iPhone buzzed. A text from his roommate, wondering in Chinese where he was. Barking at Danny for instructions, Tamerlan used an English-to-Chinese app to text a clunky reply. “I am sick. I am sleeping in a friend’s place tonight.” In a moment, another text, then a call. No one answered. Seconds later, the phone rang again.

“If you say a single word in Chinese, I will kill you right now,” Tamerlan said. Danny understood. His roommate’s boyfriend was on the other end, speaking Mandarin. “I’m sleeping in my friend’s home tonight,” Danny replied in English. “I have to go.”

“Good boy,” Tamerlan said. “Good job.”

The SUV headed for the lights of Soldiers Field Road, banking across River Street to the two open gas stations. Dzhokhar went to fill up using Danny’s credit card, but quickly knocked on the window. “Cash only,” he said, at least at that hour. Tamerlan peeled off $50.

Danny watched Dzhokhar head to the store, struggling to decide if this was his moment—until he stopped thinking about it, and let reflexes kick in.

“I was thinking I must do two things: unfasten my seat belt and open the door and jump out as quick as I can. If I didn’t make it, he would kill me right out, he would kill me right away,” Danny said. “I just did it. I did it very fast, using my left hand and right hand simultaneously to open the door, unfasten my seat belt, jump out … and go.” Danny sprinted between the passenger side of the Mercedes and the pumps and darted into the street, not looking back, drawn to the Mobil station’s lights. “I didn’t know if it was open or not,” he said. “In that moment, I prayed.”

The brothers took off. The clerk, after brief confusion, dialed 911 on a portable phone, bringing it to Danny in the storeroom. The dispatcher told him to take a deep breath. The officers, arriving in minutes, took his story, with Danny noting the car could be tracked by his iPhone and by a Mercedes satellite system, mbrace.

After an hour or more—as the shoot-out and manhunt erupted in Watertown—police brought Danny to Watertown for a “drive-by lineup,” studying faces of detained suspects in the street from the safety of a cruiser. He recognized none of them. He spent the night talking to police and the FBI, appreciating the kindness of a state trooper who gave him a bagel and coffee. At 3 the next afternoon, they dropped Danny back in Cambridge.

“I think, Tamerlan is dead, I feel good, obviously safer. But the younger brother—I don’t know,” Danny recalled thinking, wondering if Dzhokhar would come looking for him. But the police knew the wallet and registration were still in the bullet-riddled Mercedes, and that a wounded Dzhokhar had probably not gotten far. That night, they found him in a boat.

The "Facts" Keep Changing About the Boston Bombings--And It's Fueling a Conspiracy Theory Industry

(DID THE GOVERNMENT HAVE PRIOR INFORMATION THAT A BOMB WAS PLANTED AT THE MARATHON BUT DECIDED NOT TO POSTPONE THE EVENT?) Dennis

By Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon, April 25, 2013

In the aftermath of massive, complicated crimes it’s not uncommon for a bit of crucial information to be immediately put forward by police, only to be contradicted later on. While it’s understandable that initial leads and assertions might end up being wrong in a dynamic situation like the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, wholesale contradictions can encourage skepticism of the motives of those releasing inaccuracies—as with initial, false reports that Osama bin Laden hid behind his wife when U.S. forces shot him. Another effect of changing details can be to encourage conspiracy theorists who latch onto inconsistencies, and to undermine trust in authorities. (IF AUTHORITIES WANT TRUST THEY NEED TO BE TRUTHFUL)


Now, almost a week after the Tsarnaev brothers fought a rolling street battle with dozens of heavily armed police officers, we learned Wednesday night that they had only a single handgun, according to sources who spoke with ABC News and the AP, something that directly contradicts what officials had previously said.


Here are some of the biggest changes to facts released in this investigation:


•Suspects’ arms—After the manhunt, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said the brothers were “heavily armed” and numerous reports detailed a fairly extensive arsenal. According to a New York Times report from April 21 citing a law enforcement official, “The authorities found an M-4 carbine rifle … two handguns and a BB gun.” Now unnamed sources say there was only a single 9mm pistol between the two brothers. Indeed, photos of the shootout suggest only one brother had a weapon. (MAYBE THE POLICE STARTED SHOOTING AT THEM!)


•Boat gunfight?—Police initially reported that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev fired on police when they found him hiding in a boat Friday night. “It was back and forth … yes—he was firing,” Watertown Police Chief Ed Deveau told CNN Saturday (though the FBI cautioned at the time that only federal authorities had official information). The Washington Post reported that the suspect inside the boat “was shooting back.” But later, the Washington Post and the AP reported yesterday that Tsarnaev was unarmed when police found him after what was described as a gunfight. As it turns out, police may have been spooked by an errant shot, and fired into the boat, but apparently zero shots came out. (THE MAN THAT FOUND HIM SAID HE SEEMED TO BE BADLY INJURED AND UNCONSCIOUS)


•7 -Eleven and the MIT officer—Initial reports suggested the brothers tried to hold up a 7-Eleven, and then killed an MIT officer who either responded to the robbery or just happened to be in the area. But days later, authorities revealed that the holdup was committed by different suspects and the confusion was caused by the close proximity of the two events. It’s still unknown exactly why the brothers killed the police officer. (DO WE KNOW IT WAS THEM?)


•Carjacking—Some reports indicate that the person whom the brothers carjacked escaped while they inexplicably went into a store to buy snacks, while others say the brothers let the victim go because he wasn’t American. It’s also still unclear which brother stole the black SUV, and which drove the Honda that followed.


•Trip to NYC—What the suspects did after the bombing remains a mystery, but one detail that emerged was that they were planning to head to New York City—to party. That’s what New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday. But today, NBC News reports the brothers discussed trying to detonate a bomb in Times Square, but that the plan was not well developed and “aspirational at most.” (WILL WE EVER KNOW THE TRUTH?)(IT STARTS SOUNDING LIKE DALLAS 1963 ALL OVER AGAIN)

Catholics try their hand at old-fashioned evangelism


Tim Townsend, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr 25, 2013
SHREWSBURY, Mo. (RNS) On a recent rainy Saturday, about 125 Catholics packed a basement conference room, many of them older, most of them lay people. Many were representing their parishes.

They gathered here to learn how to spread the faith, a concept that is both fundamental to Christianity and nearly foreign to modern Roman Catholics.

For the first hour of the conference, Kenneth Livengood, a parishioner at Holy Trinity Parish in St. Ann, Mo., detailed one way—door-to-door evangelization, a missionary strategy more familiar to Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses.

“We’ve been tricked into thinking faith is a private matter,” Livengood told the audience. “That’s a lie. Faith is meant to be public, and there are many ways to share it.”

He taught them how to form a door-to-door ministry, explained how to divide a boundary map of their parish into geographical sections, suggested useful handouts, gave safety tips, and showed videos that detailed the best way to respond to various reactions from those on the other side of the door.

“Divide up into teams of two,” Livengood said. “One of you can do the talking and the other should be a silent prayer warrior. At the next house, flip your roles.”

Evangelization is central to the Christian mission, but for the average adherent, the physical act of approaching a neighbor, work colleague or family member can be daunting.

A pamphlet produced by the Archdiocese of St. Louis called “Witnessing Christ Door-to-Door” offered a list of suggestions “since this may be a novel, perhaps, intimidating path.”

The suggestions include:

•”Ask each person you meet if they are in need of prayer.”

•”Early Saturday mornings may not make for the most receptive ears.”

•”Trying to provide too many facts about the Church may cause misunderstandings.”

•”Doing a little role-playing before going out for visits may be helpful.”

•”Sometimes a person answering the door thinks getting back to regular Mass attendance would make their grandmothers very happy, which might present a welcoming start for conversation.”

In the final scene of the Gospel of Matthew, the resurrected Christ appears to his disciples and tells them—in what has come to be called the “Great Commission”—to make new disciples by “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

Catholics are no less engaged by the Great Commission than evangelicals, but over the last century, the church has relied on evangelizing through the example of its social justice work, relieving those in the pews from having to knock on a neighbor’s door.

In the late 1980s, Pope John Paul II began referring to “the new evangelization” as a strategy of bringing lapsed Catholics in Europe back into the church.

In his book “Crossing the Threshold of Hope,” the pope wrote that evangelization “has never been absent” in the church. He quoted the Apostle Paul from the book of 1 Corinthians: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!”

Pope Benedict XVI made his predecessor’s “new evangelism” a central theme of his papacy, even convening a monthlong meeting of bishops from around the world last fall to discuss it.

During a speech to his fellow cardinals in Rome last year, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan called evangelization “the sacred duty,” saying in the words of St. Augustine that it is “ever ancient, ever new.”

“The how of it, the when of it, the where of it, may change,” Dolan said, “but the charge remains constant.”

Many observers have cited Pope Francis’ humble behavior as its own kind of evangelization. Or, to use a phrase attributed to his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.”

Bevans said images of Francis stopping to bless a disabled man during his papal inauguration, or washing the feet of women during Holy Week, were especially powerful.

Julie Bostick, executive director of the St. Louis archdiocese’s office of laity and family life, said the archdiocese would hold another “how to” conference in June, focusing on evangelizing in the family. Another in the fall will tackle evangelizing in the workplace.

“Sometimes people get a little nervous talking about their faith, but spreading the message of Jesus Christ has always been the mission of the church,” she said. “We’re just trying to refocus.”

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Manter a Visão Celestial

Jesus falando em profecia

Manter a visão celestial é como observar por um planetário as realidades colossais, infinitas e magníficas do espaço sideral.

Manter a visão celestial significa focar em Mim acima de tudo, colocar as coisas do espírito acima das da carne. Significa lembrar-se por que assumi a forma humana, sofri e morri por você, para poder remi-lo, compreendê-lo, e perdoar-lhe sempre, curá-lo e protegê-lo.

Significa colocar a Palavra em primeiro lugar em sua vida, acreditar e agir segundo a sua verdade. Significa entrar no templo Comigo cada dia, ter comunhão com o Meu Espírito e se alimentar espiritualmente. Significa clamar as Minhas promessas não importa como se sinta ou quais as circunstâncias no físico.

*

Um atleta em treinamento para se classificar para as Olimpíadas tem que manter essa visão e meta. Ele tem a “visão olímpica”, que o faz aguentar os treinos e exercícios difíceis e exaustivos. Ele não dá importância ao fato de não ter tempo de folga, a fadiga do dia, ou as poucas horas de sono. — Porque aquela meta, a visão, se torna mais importante do que quaisquer dificuldades atuais. Para conseguir sobreviver aos anos de treinamento, a meta tem que ser algo que vai valer a pena para ele — tem de ser tudo para ele. E assim que ele decide que é, precisa lutar para permanecer concentrado naquela meta e manter aquela visão diante de si o tempo todo.

Tem que decidir se vale a pena deixar tudo o mais de lado pela Minha Palavra e as Minhas promessas para o futuro para ganhar esse prêmio. Então, assim que tiver decidido, tem de lutar para manter sua concentração, essa visão perante você!

Muitos de vocês já tomaram essas decisões; mas agora é o período em que têm que ser tenazes e determinados, quando é preciso lutar para não perder o foco.

O que pode fazer na prática para manter a visão celestial?

— Lute para ter o seu tempo no templo Comigo. Esta é a maneira mais eficaz de se renovar com a Minha visão e para não se esquecer da Minha visão celestial.

—Obedeça a Minha Palavra não importa como se sinta.

—Louve-Me regularmente, louve-Me consistentemente.Nada clareia a sua visão mais rápido do que o louvor. O louvor abre seus olhos para a visão celestial para que correr atrás dela, almejá-la e lutar por ela seja muito mais fácil para você. A visão se torna mais real para você, o que faz com que seu desejo de correr atrás dela seja ainda mais forte e efetivo.

*

A visão celestial, como Paulo disse, significa “prosseguir para o alvo, pelo prêmio da soberana vocação de Deus.”[1] Significa fazer da Minha vontade — da Minha soberana vocação — a sua meta e propósito na vida. É tudo pelo que você luta, “corre atrás” e procura — cumprir a Minha vontade, a ponto de considerar isso o prêmio. Não somente um prêmio, mas o prêmio, tudo o que sempre quis fazer na vida!

Tal como Paulo disse, é “a soberana vocação de Deus em Cristo Jesus”. Essas são palavras-chave: “em Cristo Jesus”. Você encontra essa soberana vocação em Mim — ao olhar para Mim, ao viver para Mim. Esta soberana vocação é no final das contas o chamado para viver por Mim. Tudo o que faz na vida está relacionado a Mim, ou seja, você tem que estar olhando para Mim. Tem que manter os olhos em Mim para alcançar a sua meta — Minha meta — para você.

*

Você mantém a visão celestial fazendo as escolhas que o levam para perto de Mim — a linha de chegada, se preferir. É como um corredor na pista: ele só pode ir na direção na qual está olhando. Se estiver com os olhos fixos na linha de chegada, é lá que vai parar. Mas se os seus olhos estiverem em outras trilhas que o distanciam da pista de corrida, não vai alcançar a meta da corrida.

Se quiser manter a visão celestial na sua corrida da vida, concentre-se em Mim, o Autor e Consumador da sua fé, do curso da sua vida. Mantenha a visão permanecendo focado em Mim e tomando apenas as decisões que você sabe que vão levá-lo para uma vida mais plena em Mim.

*

Uma conexão forte Comigo no espírito o ajudará a manter a visão celestial o tempo todo.

Pode fortalecer essa conexão através dos momentos que passa Comigo na Palavra. Você fortalece seu enfoque espiritual ao se concentrar no Meu poder. Ganha este elo mais forte sendo fiel, obediente, e seguindo adiante. Você mantém a visão forte ao ficar mais próximo e íntimo Comigo como seu Marido.

As chaves para manter essa visão são encontradas ao fazer aquelas coisas que o aproximam mais de Mim, que aumentam a sua fé e encorajam o seu espírito; aquilo que os funde ao mundo espiritual e traz o espírito muito mais à tona na sua vida. É assim que você mantém a visão. É assim que se mantém conectado e consegue correr com paciência a carreira que lhe está proposta — e vencer![2]

*

E vi um novo céu, e uma nova terra. Porque já o primeiro céu e a primeira terra passaram, e o mar já não existe.

E eu, João, vi a santa cidade, a nova Jerusalém, que de Deus descia do céu, adereçada como uma esposa ataviada para o seu marido.

E ouvi uma grande voz do céu, que dizia: Eis aqui o tabernáculo de Deus com os homens, pois com eles habitará, e eles serão o seu povo, e o mesmo Deus estará com eles, e será o seu Deus.

E Deus limpará de seus olhos toda a lágrima; e não haverá mais morte, nem pranto, nem clamor, nem dor; porque já as primeiras coisas são passadas.

E o que estava assentado sobre o trono disse: Eis que faço novas todas as coisas. E disse-me: Escreve; porque estas palavras são verdadeiras e fiéis.

E disse-me mais: Está cumprido. Eu sou o Alfa e o Omega, o princípio e o fim. A quem quer que tiver sede, de graça lhe darei da fonte da água da vida.

Quem vencer, herdará todas as coisas; e eu serei seu Deus, e ele será meu filho."—Apocalipse 21:1–7[3]

Publicado originalmente em 2006. Atualizado e republicado em abril.
Tradução Hebe Rondon Flandoli. Revisão Edson Campos.


[1] Filipenses 3:14.

[2] Hebreus 12:1.

[3] NVI.

Golden Opportunities

By D.Brandt Berg

Download Audio (10.5MB)

When very special opportunities arise, we’ve found from years of experience in the Lord’s work that it's something God does in a special way to reach a special audience that you may not have the opportunity to reach again.—Someone He wants to reach or some particular field of ministry that He wants you to proceed with and pursue and not to forsake too soon.

The primary ministry of all of us is reaching the lost and reaching the people who need the message. It’s more important even to leave the ninety-and-nine and go out and seek the one lost sheep—the ninety-and-nine are safe in the fold.1 There are far more out there who are unsaved and who need salvation and who need the message and the love of the Lord who do not yet know Him and are not yet convicted about serving Him, to whom you can speak and give the message both of His love and His call to service.

So I would not pass up a golden opportunity to reach people who are needy, including the poor rich, who seldom are ministered to by missionaries, particularly missionaries like us with such a simple message of His love. They are also in turn able to provide you more opportunities of service, as well as to help support the Lord’s work.

It’s important not to neglect those golden opportunities which the Lord presents and gives you a foot in the door to pursue. We have found it’s best to go ahead with those things as long as you can, and you’ve at least entered the field and covered as much of it as you can while you can, because you can’t always go back to it. You don’t always have a second chance. Sometimes we’ve thought, “Well, we have something else we’ve got to do in the meantime; we’ll go back to that later”—and we went back later and there had been a change of heart and they had grown cold.

God has certain setups that are golden opportunities, and that kind of opportunity is very rare. You have to have a real sixth sense of the Lord—maybe it’s a seventh sense of the Holy Spirit and His guiding—to recognize such unusual opportunities and to realize that this is something that God has suddenly opened to you, a golden opportunity that must be pursued at once and followed up now or it may never come again and you may never be able to reach those same people again, or that class of people or that type of people in that particular field again.

God has His harvest times, and they don’t always last, because as He said, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. The field is already white unto harvest.”2 Why is He in such a hurry? Why does He want to get so many laborers into the harvest quickly? Because the harvest won’t last if it’s not reaped when it’s ripe, and then you’ll be sorry.

You may find out when you come back that the harvest has been devastated by some storm of the enemy or some opposition or some freeze of their hearts, and it’s gone and past and you’ll never have it again. So it’s important to try to seize these golden opportunities of harvest time which may come but once, sometimes never again.

God rarely opens doors that He doesn’t want you to enter. When He opens doors like that, it generally means that you’re supposed to enter and follow it up until He closes the door. I have found that He will always let you know, and the time will come when the door will close, if you’ll follow it up at the time and do your best, harvest rapidly while the field is free and open and the harvest is good and the opportunity is golden and the people are receptive and responsive and their hearts are open.

If you wait too long or neglect it or put it off, you may find that the door has closed or God has even allowed it to be closed because you missed the ideal time, the psychological moment, the spiritual moment, God’s golden-harvest moment: His golden opportunity when the harvest is ripe and ready to be reaped.

We say, “I’ll do that when I get back” or “Later.” We procrastinate, we put it off, we postpone it, and we find out when we come back that the whole situation has changed—there are different people in charge who are not interested; the people have lost interest. The whims of man are fleeting, fame is fleeting, and when you’re on that wave of receptivity, you’ve got to ride it as long as it lasts, because it may eventually crash on the beach and go to pieces. But you can ride it while it lasts and you can get the glory of it while it’s going.

I preached almost this same sermon to a little group of 50 hippies in a little club called the Light Club in Huntington Beach a long time ago. I told them, "We’ve got to ride the wave now while it’s here, because it won’t last forever!" And it only lasted a few months, but as a result we became known almost nationwide before it crashed.

I have found that God’s appointments will not be disappointments. But you can disappoint God if you don’t meet His appointment, if you don’t get there and stay there when He wants you to be there. If you set for yourself too rigid a schedule, you may miss something that God is opening up. You may miss some choice field, some ripe harvest, and find out you just cannot get back in again, discovering that things will never be the same again. We must follow up such golden opportunities when we have them and ride the crest of that wave until it breaks on the shore.

This is what we have done many times over the years, and we have ridden the crest of a wave of popularity and receptiveness, a ripe harvest field, and we have reaped it until the Lord shut the door and it was no more.

This reminds me of a marvelous opportunity we had at the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair, six months of reaching 10,000 people a day with our witness at our little booth there; handing out hundreds of thousands of tracts and pieces of Gospel literature to thousands of people who maybe never heard or never got anything else with a personal sweet witness, smiling happy face of a young person, a kind loving word, and would remember it forever.

Our booth had a beautiful seven-foot-tall picture of Christ, the Prince of Peace. The theme of the fair was peace, and it had a beautiful golden frame with a blue tinge to the picture against this bright orange wall. Blue and orange were the fair colors, so a lot of the news media took pictures of it and marveled at the beauty of our little exhibit, which was the cheapest, smallest one in the whole building. People commented on it, and the manager loved us and loved it.

We had that opportunity only two summers and that was it. We almost didn’t go back the second summer, but the Lord convicted us and gave my mother a vision that we had forsaken our plow.

So we went back and we did what the Lord told us to do. We followed God instead of following our schedule or even some of our own ideas and our own plans and our own personal feelings. It was a marvelous opportunity that only lasted a little while. If we’d failed to go back, it would have been gone forever.

So don’t leave that plow deserted in a fertile field before a ripe harvest which God has opened a door to. Don’t forsake it, and don’t forsake the task God has given you. Don’t abandon something that is fruitful and paying off—as long as you’re reaping and fruitful and getting souls or support or the blessing of the Lord spiritually or in some other way. As long as God is blessing you and making you fruitful and making you a blessing, pursue it and keep after it until it comes to its end. And it generally will end, because harvests don’t last forever, fields are not open forever, doors do not stay open forever. Something closes them in the long run, and the time is gone, the time is past. “The summer is ended, the harvest is past,” the Scripture says, “and yet we are not saved.” They are not saved and the time is gone.3

“There is a time for everything,” God’s Word says. “A time to laugh, a time to weep, a time for peace and a time for war.”4 And there’s a time for each field, a time for each harvest, and we need to get action on the harvest fields when they are “white unto harvest” and ripe and ready, before they rot in the field or are destroyed by the storm or the freeze.

It’s important to go through the open doors and accept the invitations and take advantage of the golden opportunities which may only knock once and be gone forever. The door may only be opened once and then be slammed shut and locked forever afterwards. May God help us never to fail to go through those open doors and take advantage of those marvelous harvest fields which may never be available again.

When things are going strong, that’s the time to keep at it! If Nehemiah had come down to fiddle around with something else then, he might never have finished the wall.5 We have to keep on the job until it’s finished. Do the thing until the time is spent and over and the harvest is harvested and the door is shut and the wave is spent and crashed; then God will let you know when it’s time to go on someplace else and do something else.

“Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called.”6 When God calls you to a certain ministry, you’ll want to stay in it until you’re finished, and then go on to whatever else God wants you to do.

Don’t pass up those golden opportunities, leaving a plow in the field that may not be there when you get back. The field may not be there either. It may be their last chance. Seize it today!

Originally published October 1980. Updated and republished April 2013.
Read by Simon Peterson.


1 Matthew 18:12.

2 Matthew 9:37; John 4:35.

3 Jeremiah 8:20.

4 Ecclesiastes 3:1–8.

5 Nehemiah 6:3.

6 1 Corinthians 7:20.

Palestinian Christians battle Israel barrier route

By Diaa Hadid, AP, Apr 24, 2013
BEIT JALA, West Bank (AP)—Palestinians in this Christian village are hoping the new pope can succeed where others have failed—pressing Israel to drop plans to build a stretch of its West Bank separation barrier through their picturesque valley.

Since Vatican properties are affected, residents have appealed to the Roman Catholic Church to use more of its significant influence in the Holy Land to reroute the barrier, even as local Catholic leaders hold a special protest Mass in threatened orchards each week.

The Vatican has called on Israel not to seize the lands, but local Palestinian Catholics want the new pontiff to lean more heavily on Israel.

“We have hope in the new pope, as he is close to the poor and the oppressed,” said the Rev. Ibrahim Shomali, the Palestinian priest who has been leading the protests.

Israel has been building the barrier since 2002 in response to a wave of suicide bombings early last decade that killed hundreds of people. Israel says the barrier is needed to keep out Palestinian attackers.

Palestinians say the barrier is a land grab because it zigzags through the West Bank. When complete, nearly 10 percent of the West Bank, including many Israeli settlements, would lie on Israel’s side, according to the United Nations. Roughly two-thirds of the 700 kilometer (450-mile) structure has been built.

Beit Jala is a postcard-pretty Christian town of 16,000 in the overwhelmingly Muslim West Bank. The likeness of the Palestinian patron, Saint George, is carved into building facades. Groceries sell beer and butchers sell pork, items banned under Islamic law. A bowling alley faces an Israeli military base.

Yet the village feels hemmed in. It abuts the biblical town of Bethlehem on one side. On another, barbed wire separates Beit Jala from the Jewish settlement of Har Gilo. Part of the separation barrier seals in another side, protecting a nearby road used by Jewish settlers. Residents say the planned stretch of construction will close off one of the village’s last remaining open spaces.

“They are crowding us inside a ghetto,” sighed Issa Khalilieh, whose family lost 12 acres (five hectares) in years of Israeli confiscations, and is poised to lose another three acres (one hectare) to the barrier.

In the Beit Jala area, Israel’s Defense Ministry plans to seize some 790 acres (320 hectares) of the Cremisan Valley, said lawyer Ghaith Nasser. Some one-third of the land is Vatican-owned, with a monastery surrounded by pines, playground and vineyard that monks have used to make wine since 1882. Nearby is a convent where nuns run a school for 600 Palestinian students. Some 60 families own the rest, a series of terraced olive and apricot orchards plunging into the valley. Residents go there to relax, barbecue and pray.

If the route goes as planned, the monastery and orchards will be on Israel’s side of the barrier. The convent and school will be on the Palestinian side, surrounded by high concrete walls, lawyers said.

Yigal Palmor, spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said the government is in “direct dialogue” with the Vatican and affected monks and nuns in the area to try come to an amicable decision.

An Israeli-Palestinian documentary on the fight of residents in the village of Bilin to reroute the barrier was nominated for an Oscar this year.

The route of the barrier has drawn accusations that Israel is using the structure to incorporate some Jewish settlements, how home to more than 500,000 Israelis, into its future borders.

“The barrier has a route that … is clearly not defined by what Israel calls security reasons,” said Aviv Tatarsky of Ir Amim, an advocacy group that monitors the route of the barrier around Jerusalem. “The planned route goes way into the West Bank to put the settlement blocs within its area.”

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