Helping Hands Ease Pain of Isaac-born Flooding

Longtime residents of Tullier Road in Sorrento, Louisiana - a small town crisscrossed by I-10 and Highway 61, located between Baton Rouge and New Orleans - said this area had never flooded and that was a major reason my fiance, Philip Braud and myself, decided to purchase this property only last month.

That no-flooding claim changed forever - and devaluated our property as well -  after Hurricane Isaac rolled through the area the week before Labor Day 2012.

Of course, it could be worse, MUCH worse, and, sadly, some of that happened to many others due to this huge, slow-moving storm. I have sent many prayers out lately for those who lost family and friends and all or most of their property thanks to the huge Category 1 system that began impacting southern Louisiana and Mississippi Tuesday, August 28. We lost power in our area around 9:10 p.m. CDT and winds up to 90 miles an hour buffeted us through the next couple of days. Thank goodness we had Philip's generator to keep cold stuff cold, lights and Internet service on for updates.

When Entergy got the power restored Friday afternoon, we thought we had seen the worst of Isaac's effects. We couldn't believe our eyes when the waters started rising in the yard and then began approaching the house Saturday afternoon. We almost gave up and had nearly decided to just let the dirty brown water do its worst and handle the resulting mess the best we could, but a passing Ascension Parish truck dropped a load of sandbags in our driveway, and our good neighbor Bradley Tullier, had his son-in-law bring over one of his water pumps and he then began to help us stack bags around the concrete foundation. My youngest son, Dale, helped sandbag, and my oldest son, Andy Jackson, and nephew, Leevon Zedlitz, also showed up to help.

As we were working desperately to get the bags stacked, two Ascension Parish Councilmen happened to be passing our house - Kent Schexnaydre and Randy Clouatre - and then things began happening fast. Schexnaydre got right on his phone and called in Spencer Chauvin and his four-wheeler and trailer rig to our house to help move the bags. Clouatre quickly surveyed the situation, left for awhile and returned with his personal two-inch sump pump to start pumping water behind the stacked sandbags. I called my niece, Shannon Cernich. She sent her husband, Jamie, over to our house and right behind him a crew of willing workers from the Gonzales Ward of the LDS church and - miraculously it seemed, and within only about 45 minutes - our new home was safely ensconced behind a five-bag high wall of white bags, with two donated pumps working mightily to lower the water behind the bags and keep it away from our foundation.

At 1 p.m. Saturday, we had been about 30 minutes away from interior flooding. As darkness fell and our flood lights reflected off the vast lake surrounding our home, we wholeheartedly thanked our friends, elected officials and all of the other kind and helpful hands that worked so diligently to help us in our hour of need. In days to come, Councilman Schexnaydre came by at least two more times to see how we were doing. State Representative Clay Schexnayder also came by the day the flood waters began to rise along Tullier Road and promised he would investigate the flooding situation and work to alleviate or prevent its reoccurring.

And above all, I want to thank my tireless and hardworking fiance, Philip Braud, for making my children, myself and our home safe under the worst of circumstances. He has labored for more than a week, through well failure, power outages and flooding, on less then four hours sleep per day, and had to miss a much anticipated IHMSA Regional shooting match and several days of work in order to accomplish this. I love him and appreciate him more than I can say.

Bottom line, with flooding, as in most things in life, never say never, 'cause you just never know.

But it IS nice to know that sometimes the worst of times brings out the best in the best of people.

A big THANK YOU again to you all! 

 

God's Fingers, a Pathway to Heaven

I remember traveling across this land of ours from Georgia, across Texas and Arizona, to Washington state, and seeing the "fingers of God" as I called them, streaming through openings in the dark clouds looming over the gray highway before us.
It gave me a sense of hope even when I was little, sitting in the back seat of our brown '57 Bel Air, smelling my dad's Old Gold cigarette smoke and listening to him sing Hank Williams songs.
There was very little light in my life back then, but I looked for the rays of light every chance I got and imagined myself being lifted through the clouds one day, riding a beam of golden sun back to the source from whence I came, away from the blackness and horror of my childhood.
As an adult, I left my childish fancies behind for many years, losing my faith in any kind of god or religion. I came to believe that all religion was man made and therefore flawed, and I still believe that is true. Everything mankind touches and messes with becomes corrupted as it is reformed in the imagine of fallen men and broken women, and I had had enough of that forever.
Then I began reading new research in quantum physics and discovered that everything we expected of God, all of the potential for miracles and an afterlife, already resides within us: we create our realities and shape our own destinies simply by the way in which we view and develop our lives.
In his book, "Sole Survivor", I think Dean Koontz sums it up best on the last page when he wrote, "he understood that eternal life was not an article of faith but a law of the universe as true as any law of physics. The universe is an efficient creation: matter becomes energy, energy becomes matter; one form of energy is converted into another form; the balance is forever changing, but the universe is a closed system from which no particle of matter or wave of energy is ever lost ... The human mind and spirit, at their noblest, can transform the material world for the better; we can even transform the human condition ... Only the human spirit can act with volition and consciously change itself; it is the only thing in all creation that is not entirely at the mercy of forces outside itself, and it is, therefore, the most powerful and valuable form of energy in the universe. For a time, the spirit may become flesh, but when that phase of its existence is at an end, it will be transformed into a disembodied spirit once more."
Ultimately, Koontz noted, we are all shining lights.
So, on second consideration of what I used to call "God's Fingers," I now think those bright shafts of light may be the guiding lights of people who have gone before us, souls touching briefly again the earth they once called home, and giving us all a glimpse into the brighter existence for which we all may hope.
I hope a can be a light for others as I live, as well, a kindly and glowing candle that shines through good works and genuine concern for others. I have not felt this hopeful in a long time, but I finally begin to understand that God is not a fearful judge waiting to throw me into hell for not following "rules" of some organized religion. The God I believe in does not count how much tithing you have paid, he does not keep a record of how many Sundays you sat in a church, nor does he care where you live, what color you are, how much money you make or how many times you've been married.
Rather, God is a force within each of us, an energy waiting to be released, making us truly the masters of our own fates, captains of our individual destinies, no matter what happens all around us.
That is what I believe for now, at any rate. I will keep looking for the lights that shine hopefully through life's storms, and will hold out my own little light to those I meet along the way.
See you in the sunbeams!

No more "Prophets for Profits"

You know, at some point I really ought to just stop looking for "free" answers from anyone resembling or pretending to be a prophet.

Every time I think I might have found some site or book that could help me understand what God wants me to know or do with my life, I am asked to "donate" or give money to their particular cause; in other words, all of these self-proclaimed "prophets" are out to make a profit from their "inside" knowledge.

I blame my bad (as in "incorrect") upbringing in that falsest of all modern religions, the Mormon Church, for my fixation on wanting to believe that some mortal has answers for these impending dark days in America, but I am consistently as disappointed in these new sources as I am with Joseph Smith's lies.

The latest gaff I made was thinking a book called "The Harbinger" by one Jonathan Cahn might contain some of the answers to my queries about God. The book made some really great connections between Isaiah's prophecies about the fall of ancient Israel and modern day America, and I was anxious to learn more. I went to Cahn's "Hope of the World" (what a great and promising-sounding site!) hoping to get some direction, inspiration, hope and so on. I really hoped that perhaps Cahn really had been communicating with God and that he would let the rest of us know what the heck was going on. But sadly, as with other false leaders, I went to the author of this book's web site and - sure enough- he was asking for donations and would not share his complete "messages" with me without me first making a donation.

What the heck? I'd already paid $14 to buy the book; what was going on?

Did Moses stand in front of the downtrodden children of Israel and say, "Yes, I got a calling from God to come deliver you ... but first, a word from our sponsor" and then maybe his brother Aaron (his mouthpiece) steps forward, leaning on his staff, and says, "My brother Moses said God has asked that I pass a bushel basket around and only those who put their two shekels in can hang around and hear the rest of the deliverance message. If you can't afford the price, please head on back to the mud pits. Thank you for coming, and good luck digging your way to the promised land!"

Really? Think about it. What TRUE PROPHET OF GOD ALMIGHTY is going to charge admission to a divine revelation? Are you getting my drift here? Obviously, a true prophet does not, cannot, and WILL NOT make a profit off of revelations.

So, although the "Harbinger" author makes some great points, he does not practice what he preaches. He made a web site and delivers the message only to the shekel payers, and I'm all "shekeled out." It is for this same reason that I eschew any and ALL organized religions, especially the LDS church in which I was raised, because I saw the faces of the poor being ground into the earth; I heard the snide remarks about "well, if you were really living a righteous life, you would be blessed with not only children but the money to care for them, and care for them very well!"

But I saw the same money changing going on in every other church as well. I shrank from the passing platter in both Baptist and Methodist churches. I shuddered at the immense wealth of the Catholic church and its grandiose cathedrals. And television ministries tell the ultimate lies to sucker people when they preach "seeding" one's way to heaven by paying funds up front to the slick TV preachers. It is everywhere and it all leads to ... no where.

A true prophet of God, then, will not ask for a donation or a tithe, which is actually a very private matter, a covenant, between a person and their God, and is not meant to fund any other person's lifestyle. ALL tithing, 100 percent of it, should go to a general fund to help those in need, period. No churches built, no missions funded and no corporate investments, the way the LDS (MORG) church has done by building shopping malls and other things on its way to becoming one of the top ten corporations in the United States. No, no and no.

Where, in ANY part of the gospel of Jesus Christ, is it written that he ordered churches to be built? Where in any part of his ministry did he ask for donations to feed or clothe his disciples or himself? Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you" and instructed people to love one another and to give alms to the poor, sick and unfortunate.

On the other hand, he clearly demonstrated that his Father's house of worship was not the place for business when he angrily threw out of the Jerusalem temple those who made profits from temple goers, and he compared a rich man getting into heaven to a camel getting through the eye of a needle. Any church that teaches that worldly wealth is a sign of God's approval or favor, then, is lying because of all the people who ever lived on this earth, surely the Son of God should have been graced with these "signs" of God's approval, n'cest pas?

Okay, I have ranted on long enough about this matter. I'll let Ralph Waldo Emerson, a much wiser and more astute student of human nature than myself, sum this all up:

We spend our incomes for paint and paper, for a hundred trifles, I know not what, and not the things of a man.

Our expense is almost all for conformity. It is for cake that we run in debt; 'tis not the intellect, not the heart, not beauty, not worship, that costs so much.

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32) By the same token, truth from God is given as a gift to all of mankind, and therefore should always be shared in the same spirit. We are told to let our lights so shine that all men and women can be enlightened. We are not to hide the light but "let it shine", as in "share it all." As sunshine is free for all to benefit from, so is the word of God, and ANYONE who makes a profit from that selfsame knowledge sent from God is not a true prophet, but a selfish, self-serving thief and a money changer grinding the faces of the poor.

Selah, and Amen, to Bro. Cahn and anyone else who profits from playing prophet.

Top Irrefutable Proofs that the Mormon Church Is a Hoax

I asked some other ex-Mormons what they thought were the TOP FIVE irrefutable proofs that the Mormon Church (aka Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) was a hoax. Former Mormons quoted below include Richard Packham, Nick Humphrey and Ed Bliss.

In my opinion, the top arguments are:
- Mormon scriptures are contradictory (see
http://packham.n4m.org/contra.htm%20/%20_blank )
- The church and its leaders are liars (see
http://packham.n4m.org/lying.htm%20/%20_blank ). According to scripture, God and
God's servants do not lie.
- Smith claimed he could translate Egyptian, but he couldn't (see
http://packham.n4m.org/tract.htm%20/%20BOA%20/%20_blank )
- Smith made major changes in revelations that had originally been
approved by God (see http://packham.n4m.org/tract.htm%20/%20BOC%20/%20_blank )
- Church leaders received no inspiration from God to let them know that
Mark Hofmann was a forger (see http://packham.n4m.org/tract.htm%20/%20HOFMANN%20/%20_blank )
- The Mormons cannot produce any contemporary corroboration for the
"first vision" (see http://packham.n4m.org/tract.htm%20/%20FV%20/%20_blank )

OK, that's six, but they are all solid.

Richard Packham
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1. the Book of Abraham is proven to be a hoax by modern Egyptology scholarship
2. science has proven (a LONG time ago) that the human race is MUCH older than 6000 years, i.e. the story of Adam and Eve is a fairytale
3. the story of Noah and the world flood has been disproven by science, e.g. the Greenland ice sheet project
4. DNA research proves that Jews are NOT the principal ancestors of the native Americans as claimed by the church for over 180 years. the church changed this claim, i.e. changed the intro to the BOM in 2007 to "among the ancestors" (rewriting history. there are other examples of the LDS church rewriting history as well, including recently changing all original Book of Mormon phrases “white and delightsome“ to “PURE and delightsome“ so as not to offend dark-skinned peoples like African Americans and Native Americans.)
5. the majority of eyewitness accounts of the "translation" of the Book of Mormon tell of Joseph Smith putting his head inside his hat and reading words he says he saw on a seer stone, (note: there is no depiction of this in official church art) and the church never mentions this actual method of translation. It also never mentions in Jos. Smith church biography the fact that Joseph used to make money from other people by claiming to “find” things for them using a seer (or, “peep”) stone, like buried treasure and so forth.

By (Nick Humphrey)

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　The top three to five? Well, I could list several dozen, but the five I would select are:
1. The fact that Mormon doctrine cannot be found in the Book of Mormon. This is something most Mormons (and most critics of Mormonism) are not aware of, but it’s an “irrefutable” fact. 　For example: 　
What does the BoM say about pre-existence?... Nothing. 　
What does it say about 　the Three Degrees of Glory? ...Nothing. 　
About the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods? ...Nothing
About baptism for the dead? ...Nothing
About eternal progression? ...Nothing
About marriage for eternity? ...Nothing
About progressing in paradise? ...Nothing
About temple endowments? ...Nothing
About the trinity being three distinct beings? ...Nothing
2. The fact that after reading Emanuel Swedenborg’s “Treatise on Heaven and Hell” Joseph Smith announced a number of doctrines that Swedenborg had previously advocated, including such things as pre-existence, eternal progression, the Three Degrees, marriage for eternity, the existence of many worlds besides this one, continuing revelation, etc. This is more fully discussed in my book, “A Friendly Discussion.”
3. The Kinderhook plates. It’s an “irrefutable fact” that Joseph Smith was taken in by the Kinderhook hoax. The “Encyclopedia of Mormonism” admits that the plates were a “frontier hoax,” yet Joseph Smith announced they were authentic, and said they contained a record, in Egyptian, of “a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh the king of Egypt.” One of the plates was discovered in the Chicago Historical Society in 1920, and it certainly isn’t Egyptian!
4. The First Vision problem. The version contained in the Pearl of Great Price and in the preface to the Book of Mormon is quite different than the earlier versions, which didn’t even mention that God appeared along with Jesus. In fact, the earliest versions stated that his first vision was a visitation of angels. As the Assistant Church Historian has admitted, “...there was apparently no reference to Joseph Smith’s first vision in any published material in the 1830’s...” The story of the First Vision, so fundamental to Mormonism, was embellished and added to the Mormon canon long after the event was supposed to have occurred.
5. The missing women problem. Most Mormons are unaware that women are almost non-existent in the Book of Mormon. Only three are mentioned by name, and there is a period of more than one thousand years of history in the Book of Mormon without the mention of a single woman. A thousand years with no women! As I pointed out in my book, lengthy volumes have been published about countless women of the Bible, but everything that is known about the women of the Book of Mormon could be written on a Post-it note!
Well, that would by my list of the five most “irrefutable” problems with Mormonism, but it’s tempting to list many more, such as the false prophecies of Joseph Smith, the Book of Abraham, the DNA problem, the true story of the Three Witnesses, the “View of the Hebrews” question, the “internal contradictions” in the Book of Mormon listed by LDS historian B.H. Roberts, and many 　more.
Good luck with your discussions, Barbara. And I think you are on the right track, looking for “irrefutable” arguments instead of the strategy of ridicule that many ex-Mormons seem to favor.

Ed Bliss, author of “A Friendly Discussion: Mormonism Pro and Con”

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If the church were true, it could withstand any and all scrutiny and would welcome a serious investigation. But the church leaders do not invite such scrutiny, and in fact, tells its members to stick to "faith promoting" sources only, as what is true is not necessarily helpful, to paraphrase the words of one of the church's top leaders.

While I am all for individual choice and religious freedom, I am also all for truth, and this organization is a prime example of an all-powerful body taking advantage of its members by concealing the whole truth from them or discouraging the members from researching church history and drawing their own conclusions. The church holds absolute sway over its members , rendering them into "sheeples" that is, meekly obedient flocks with no minds or original thoughts of their own.

All I expect from these writings, all I hope, is that I can encourage people to seek truth and be guided by it, as I was. There was no first vision, there were no golden plates, and there is no plan of salvation, or at least not as Joe Smith and the Mormons render it. Christ taught that the kingdom of God was within each person, not in a building or in another person's mind. All of us must find our own way to the next life alone, doing as little harm as possible to others while on our own journeys of self-discovery.

That is what I believe, at any rate. I hope you believe that you are just as free to find your own path to peace and enlightenment, and I wish you well on your journey.

Despairing over job search

I have been fighting the tendency to despair after looking for work for more than six months.
I never thought I'd be this long without gainful employment when I decided to move from South Georgia to South Louisiana last year in order to be closer to my sons and granddaughters. Despite good references and a college education, I have applied for more than sixty jobs, all in vain, and it is beginning to affect my self-esteem in addition to wiping out my bank account.
What do you do after you've done all you can?
Any advice welcome, and the "To Hire" sign is still out. I am a hard worker, diligent and honest and easily trained. I have a Bachelor of Science in Education/Special Education, a 3.42 overall GPA and more than twenty years experience in office settings. I can do accounts payable, receivable, bank accounts, payroll and am a professional writer and assistant managing editor.
Anyway, best of luck to all of you other people looking for work. Here's hoping for a better, more prosperous year for us all.
(Addendum, 2-7-12: I have been offered a part-time position at a local library, beginning March 1, so that is a GOOD thing. I haven't worked in a library since third grade in Anacortes, WA, at Fidalgo Elementary School, but I liked it then and am sure I will like it now. Just hope those 20 hours a week will soon be expanded to 40, but in the meantime, thank you, thank you, Angelle Deshautelles and Ascension Parish Library, for giving me a chance to work again! It means so much to me and mine, and I'll do my best for the library, always ... blp)

The power of unconditional love

When a reporter asked billionaire Warren Buffett this week what he thought was the best advice he had ever received, he said it came from his father, who taught him how to l ive. He explained that all parents can make "a better human being" as follows:

"The power of unconditional love. I mean, there is no power on earth like unconditional love. And I think that if you offered that to your child, I mean, you're 90 percent of the way home. There may be days when you don't feel like it- it's not uncritical love; that's a different animal- but to know you can always come back, that is huge in life. That takes you a long, long way. And I would say that every parent out there that can extend that to their child at an early age, it's going to make for a better human being."

I realize that the advice of a billionaire is not exactly like gospel, but it sure is gratifying when the advice of a human so neatly segues with the example set before us in the Bible. I think of the Apostle Paul speaking about no power on earth or in hell being able to separate us from the love of God, and Christ's disciple John saying that those who love are born of God and know God, for God is love. The only thing that used to comfort me during hard times was this sustaining belief, that somehow, in spite of my insignificance to other human beings, after all of the meanness and cruelty I may have suffered at the hands of men, yet my God loved me always, and would one day take me home to live with Him. And the key to all of that was living my life as my Lord would have me live, and not be swayed or dismayed by the flesh and the devils that attacked me. It took many years to find my way to this particular truth, because I always deemed myself unlovable because of the way my parents treated me and my siblings. But many years later, I can even learn to love and forgive even them, no matter the damage they did to us.

I finally learned about unconditional love through my children, more through them than anyone else, because they needed me. By loving them without being critical, loving them each just as they were without demanding obedience to my will first in order to gain my love, this made all of the difference. Conditional love was all I had ever known from earthly family, I had to "earn" every bit of affection I ever got, and it was rare that I was ever praised any way. More often than not, I and my siblings were brutalized, mocked and shamed, sometimes for no reason at all, except that we were there for that purpose, I guess. We had no rights, no recourse and no advocate; we were at the mercy of a type of madness, I think. I guess I'll never fully understand, but I must let it go and forgive.

As a result, I tried to be for my children all that my own parents had failed to be for me. So it goes that today I was deeply gratified to find that my instinctive belief in loving my children the way I believe God loves me is validated in the life of another human being, even a rich and famous one like Buffett. We are all of us only human, after all.

"Love one another as I have loved you," Christ said, and so I shall always endeavor to do, not only showing unconditional love for my children and my husband, but for all of humanity and for this beautiful earth, our home.

Lesley of the Lion's Heart

Lesley is my only daughter and was born premature, low birth weight (about 2 pounds), the first of the twins (her brother was born 30 minutes later) and both have a form of autism known as Asperger's Syndrome.

She is 16 years old now and the bravest soul I have ever met.

Lesley attends the local high school but will never get a regular diploma because she cannot do high school math. She will receive a life preparation diploma, I think, after she does her 12 years but her dreams, her hopes of a future life, extend far beyond the limits of our small Southern city.

Lesley wants to travel the world, beginning with the United States. She researches various areas of the country and reports all of the attractions and features to me, puts photos of different places on her computer desk top and asks me what I think of them. She talks of sailing around the world in a one-person sail boat (with a small motor in case of dead calms) and she wants to live alone, with perhaps a friendly dog for company.

Lesley also has a knack for writing. She has written several long stories of at least 12 chapters about the adventures of various brave animals or people from another dimension. Lesley loves the characters of Severus Snape and Sirius Black in the Harry Potter series, as well as Strider (Aragorn) in "Lord of the Rings." Not having grown up with a father (I divorced him many years ago for his cruelty and lack of support) she instead created an idealized one for herself out of parts of these heroic figures. Her only friends are the ones she makes up inside her head. She is lonely and cries about not having real-life friends, but I tell her to find friends, you must first be a friend, so we are working on her "people" skills, how to make eye contact and smile and say "hello" appropriately.

Lesley also has a penchant for science, both biological and chemical, and would like to bring alchemy back to the realm of viable scientific research if possible (I tell her it is not but, oh well.) Bottom line, her imagination is great and flexible and expands her world much farther than her actual education will allow.

My quest is to help enable Lesley to reach some of those distant stars to which her imagination and interests incline. I cannot bring fictional characters to life but I can show her how to create some of her own and perhaps turn it into real stories that can be read by others (currently, all versions get shredded before I can read them.)

Or perhaps I can help her get the GED and continue her education in some real scientific field, like animal science or botany. Whatever I can do to help her, she deserves the very best I can offer so she can one day do her best on her own.

Robert Browning once wrote, " A man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?" Subsititute "girl's" for "man's" and there is my little Lesley, my only daughter and always my little girl. May God give me the strength and wisdom to help my daughter reach whatever heaven she desires. No one deserves it more.