THUMBPRINTS

Unearthed

By stepping down from her targeted perch, Sarah Palin has done more in baring the leftists' teeth than most other high profile conservatives could've accomplished in a lifetime.  It's as if she simply stood up, shook herself, and scrubbed off the bull's eye.  This move proved to be a real groove-buster for those who've secretly tried to keep her in their line of fire.  They've made it very easy for the rest of us to be onto their agenda by how rapidly their bogus, inane air-fillers began spewing through their fang-lined gums.  To accuse Palin of anything right now is like Ali accusing Frazier of throwing punches.  Amazing what time unearths...and it's still ticking. 

Whatever

I remember the first time I saw that corn-ball commercial for the faux orange juice product: Sunny Delight.  Apparently the company must have realized how weak the name had been in terms of actually selling the product and began a desperate campaign of cramming the term: Sunny-D, down our media-driven throats.  I remember watching the non-believable cast interact through a forced-fit script that was targeted at trying to convince everyone "Sunny-D" was the obvious, indisputably common term for our generation.  I felt insulted & violated.  Cheese.  Big steamy stanky wedgies of it.

This morning I heard the same repetitious technique being use with the newly invented noun: Man-cession - a term wrapping "recession" & the rapid loss of man-jobs in one bogus word.  Things haven't changed.  What's so kooky about the delivery of this term, and every smoke & mirrors term for that matter, is the manner in which the viewer is left feeling manipulated.  Almost as if bullied into an unspoken "I dare you to say anything about how stupid this is" thing.  They also relish in the use of "shovel-ready" in describing the types of jobs that most of the newly unemployed are looking for.  I'm actually OK with this term.  As a matter of fact, I'm force-fitting it now with everything I've just discribed.  It's perfect.  Ripe & ready for me to grab a shovel, locate it all in the back yard, and scoop it all back into the agenda-plagued hole they came from.

What's New...

I woke up to thrumming of FOX News.  Out of every backdrop in my life, this seems to be my most common one under-roof.  From Ed McMahon's death, to the Metro crash in DC, to the riots in Iran, crisis seems to be the current celebrity.  I know, what's new?  Which...is my point.  Why are we so surprised when the backdrop of our world becomes more disturbing?  It's not like we weren't warned a couple of millennia ago.  I guess the spell of current news somehow resets our memories.  In the web of prophetic fulfillment, the tension-before-release has to come from somewhere.  Why not Iran?  Why not N. Korea?  Why not now?  The bottom line is: end-time events are not based on our preferred time-line.  Just because we weren't expecting it to happen now doesn't nullify its connection to the words of Jesus.  It's us who have to adjust.  There is no mystery here.  As to why these key figures are creating each crisis, there's no mystery there either.  It's been in print for quite a while...

"This is the crisis we're in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won't come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is."  John 3:19-21 (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

Hmmm.

And so it begins...

Scary

I was deeply disturbed at the possible truth within this 10 minute piece.  Impelling to say the least.

No Bama-rama

I sat at an intersection today and the light was as red as the guy in front of me.  His truck was plastered with the "No Bama" slogan stickers, accented here and there with some sacred McCain/Palin anchors.  While I felt this to be a bit over the top from a cultural perspective, I did find some sanity in the presentation.  It painted an exact model of how absurd the double speak is peaking.  Never since the Clinton sex scandal have we as a nation been treated with such a varied palette of black is white & white is black.  This would be the spirit of anti-Christ beginning to weave its introduction to a strung-out generation.  Stunning.  Disturbing and exciting.  Duplicity is clearly seen by the clear-minded; but for the rest of humanity, it's an enticing, flesh-feeding frenzy.  So, get ready to witness a pageant of deception being laid out on a scale grander than any one of us has ever seen before.  No Bama-rama is just the beginning...

Got Gas?

I'm currently car #2 in what looks to be a rediculously long motorcade of fellow gas seekers.  That is to say, gas as in car fuel, verses waiting in the drive-thru at Taco Bell.  This is bizarre.  Appearently the greater Nashville area is a black hole in the pipeline system.  So, in the scope of feeling the pinch nationally, Franklin, TN. is really feeling it.  What about you guys?  What are your gas supply stories?  Talk to me...

The Palin Crisis

It’s amazing to me the levels at which we are willing to rise, the lengths we are ready to go, the words we are capable of speaking in our pursuits of defending what we believe to be true.  Whether we’re right or ridiculously off base is irrelevant.  What’s at stake here is our own sense of self-preservation, our continuance of self-worth.  It’s less about the issues at question and more about us.  You know, that Far Side cartoon of several thousand identical looking penguins clustered on some arctic land mass, with one of them singing “I’ve gotta be me; I’ve gotta be me.”             
As I watch my life become involuntarily drenched in political coverage, it’s easy to see an entire culture deeply affected by this exaggerated defense mechanism.  It’s no secret that, for generations, we’ve seen an articulated erosion of innocence take place globally.  But now it’s gettin’ just down right crazy.  The fight against conscious-driven morality is reaching critical mass.  When scripture is read, conviction is now being scrutinized as “the bad guy”, the racist, or the impetus for hate crimes.  So, when someone like Sarah Palin steps up to the plate, bringing with her the portrait of everything this hedonistic generation is trying to turn the rest of the country’s head away from, the fangs are bared.  The claws are ejected.  All because of how it makes them feel.  As if to think our culture has managed to arrive at some apex of supreme sophistication and intellect, exempt from the consequences that plagued its former, much more simple-minded generation of thought. 
So, it comes down to the basic idea of feeling; how it’s all about us and our right of expression.  2 Corinthians 7:10 says: “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”-(NIV).  When God-centered conviction is villainized, we’re basically sealing our own doom.  When we get to the point that our flesh is supremely more important than dying to it, we’re well on the road to dying in it.

Flair

I'm doing one of my favorite things to do on a Saturday: hang out @ Borders with the fam.  This is not only a strong bonding activity, but a killer way to cut back on the periodical expenses.
Walking around the store sort of gives me a semi-accurate read into the current cultural barometer.  So far, what I've picked up on are the amazing amounts of pin-on button designs on offering.  What's up with that?  I for one am an endearing fan of the movie "Office Space", but the thought of Jennifer A.'s niche encounter with "flair" actually becoming an emergent fashion trend is a bit bizarre.  The last thing on my seasonal radar was to start my own line of "Open" buttons, but hey, I'm all 4 marketing strategies that have sticking power.

Oblivion

     I read something last week that's taken a little time to digest.  It was the Life section cover story in the 6/24 issue of USA Today.  Here's an excerpt:

[...] the long-standing links between highly religious people, conservative ideology and the Republican Party are starting to fray, says a co-author of the study, John Green, a Pew Forum senior research fellow. The margin is a bit larger for subgroups such as "evangelicals" (26.3% of adults, who share strict ideas on salvation and common historic origins), mainline Protestants (18.1%, who share "a less exclusionary view of salvation and a strong emphasis on social reform") and historically black churches (6.9%, "shaped by experiences of slavery and segregation").

   The basic premise of the article continues with an overall disturbing revelation.  The "fraying" among evangelicals that's mentioned here is supposed to imply a dramatic acceptance of "many paths" to God. 

     So, what part of John 14:6, or Acts 4:12 are we not buying into anymore?  There's really no margin for error or misinterpretation in these 2 passages, much less in the volumes of others that are equally as irrefutable.  Are we actually getting bored with our own life-changing, eternal-hope-giving, highly undeserved message?  Has the mind blowing sacrifice of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection actually become an over-used, uncool way to Heaven --- by His own followers?  The ground work is definitely being laid down for the ultimate deceiver to waltz in and start spewing his ludicrous crap.  This is crazy.  Exciting, but crazy.   

     If Jesus Himself made no bones about Who Truth was, is, and is to come, where do we come off believing that we have some sort of an intellectual, culturally sophisticated edge on the exegetical interpretation of what He said vs. what He meant?  Sheer lunacy.  We've now officially gotten too big for our theological britches.  This is the exact kind of relativistic, sleepy logic that the enemy's trying to weave throughout our present culture.  He's working all of these smoke and mirrors in order to condition most of humanity for his king whacko.  What good is it to have an official anti-Christ if no one actually believes in him?  I mean,this kind of stuff takes a lot of time and preparation.  Because of our newest crop of resident loons, the time factor has been trimmed back considerably.