Stephen King's Recurring "Empire of the Ants" Theme

Psalm 8:3-4King James Version (KJV)
³ When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
⁴ What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

To the left is one of the Hubble telescope's photos of a globular cluster of stars. As it travels through the universe, Hubble has given us a small glimpse of the manifold objects scattered throughout the "heavens." While I personally have never been visited by anyone from outside of our own earth's atmosphere, neither can I deny the probability that life exists, in one form or another, somewhere outside of our solar system.

Having said that, I need to ask one of this world's most revered writers, Mr. Stephen King, what is it with his obsession with some sort of evil ant empire awaiting us either here, to wit, ants using human beings in a reversed "ant farm" project as in Under the Dome, or  hereafter, as in, waiting for us humans to die so they can enslave what is left of our pitiful selves when we die, per his latest tome, (destined, of course, to be yet another best seller for this "king" of the horror genre),Revival?????

All I could think as I read the end of Revival was, really? Ants, yet again? I was so disappointed, even let down. I felt, not suckered-in so much as I was "succored" by King's undeniably excellent power of narrative; he had me hooked, as usual, from the first paragraph. As the drama unfolded, I was increasingly interested in the source of the pervasive electricity  sought by Rev. Jacobs, and where the final charge would lead. I just KNEW it would be a spectacular and awe-inspiring conclusion.

I didn't even care that the whole novel was tilted against anything spiritual. Perhaps the "revelation" would finally explain the unexplainable, reveal a bizarre but nevertheless believable continuance for the souls of humanity, a place where, at the very least, the intellectual vestiges of mankind would be allowed to grow and go on; in other words, a hopeful place, even if it were godless expanse.

But why such a depressing and sad end for us all? "Howling stars", "paper sky"? Malevolent ants marching the chained remnants of human beings in long lines toward some dim horizon, toward some huge evil queen ant? NOOOOOOOOOO! I howled at the paper sky I held in my hands. Not ants, not again!

I can only hope that Mr. King has finally written all  of the ants out of his computer and will never again foist these foul critters upon his faithful reading public. I could never NOT read a new Stephen King novel. (Besides, I am in his book club and always get the newest book about the same time as it hits the library's shelves where I work.) I only plead that Mr. King let go of this obsessive compulsion to throw all of mankind under the six feathery legs of monsters with large mandibles and empty eyes. Enough already. We get it; big ants make really bad taskmasters.

And, besides, the ending does not make scientific sense, i.e., how can you chain non-corporeal human beings in any way at all? All that is left after death, if there is an afterlife, would be the electrical charges that reside in the brain. The flesh is in the ground or burned to ash or otherwise converted, so that the remaining unseen portion of our body, e.g., electricity, has to go somewhere, since, as Dr. Einstein once noted, matter cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be changed into either more matter or energy.

My alternate ending (without the fleshing-out it would need in real life novels, pun wholly intentional): Rev Jacobs has wrought the unthinkable: he has revived the newly dead woman and, although she does not breathe, her heart responds to the intense electrical prompt and begins to beat again. Her eyes snap open while her arms and legs jerk in spasms. The fallen, former man of God leans into her face, gazes into the glazed but still beautiful orbs of the recently deceased and sees a painting by Akiane Kramarik, the child prodigy painter/poet/author, who believes that God spoke to her when she was four years old, telling her to paint her visions and share them with a despairing and unbelieving world.

Akiane's parents were atheists who converted to Christianity because of Kramarik's paintings and visions, and so Rev. Jacobs  is also converted, as he draws his last breath, with the image of his dead wife and son smiling from one of Akiane's portraits, only they are alive and well, and Jamie Morton slips to his knees in awe as, at the same time Rev. Jacobs sees HIS version of the vision, so Jamie sees his sister, Claire, smiling and happy.

Why not a happy ending? No need to mention a god or angels; just these angelic-looking faces of lost loved ones, smiling from a golden frame, painted in heavenly hues. Eternally at rest, forever young and beautiful. And like the paintings in Harry Potter's school (Hogwarts), these paintings are alive so the subjects in the frames can move around and visit people or places in other frames.

AND the quality of the frame is an indicator of how well the lives of the subjects had been lived, so these last three decedents are framed in gold and silver set with jewels, and bad people have wooden frames with knotholes and some sort of weevil chewing at the edges (this is for those who simply MUST have some sort of evil insect involved in their endings, hint, hint.) In addition, the evil people have to stay in their frames until they learn to live well with others.

Okay, I have had my say, I am out of here. Keep up the great writing, Mr. King. Just a little less of the ant themes in the future, and take a long look at Ms. Kramarik's works and tell me that brain is destined for some sort of ant chain in the next life. Yeah, right. People can be bad, Stephen, and they can even be evil, but there are a whole lot of good ones out there, too. I refuse to give up on the human race, and I refute any claims stating death is the end of us or worse.

I, for one, intend to go on, in some form or another, along with the rest of you. There may not be a single creator involved in our design, but there is surely some source for our ingenuity, our good emotions, our sense of community and our insatiable curiosity about everything around us, the world, each other, the universe. Something compels us to seek and in that seeking, (or, in that sleep of death, as Shakespeare once noted), what dreams may come, indeed! And if we are bound in any way in the next realm of existence, it will be by the bonds of affection and love, memory and faith, and even by verifiable science and a new plane of reality.

Goodnight and sleep easy, fellow humankind. All is not lost, there are no demon ants awaiting us on the other side, and I personally believe that we will survive; something of us will continue and go on. I believe that we forge our own chains, if we want to continue an analogy: the ones we will have to carry, for good or evil, in this life for awhile; in the next, forever.

("Faithfulness" a painting by Akiane Kramarik)
  

Swamped

I've been feeling "swamped" lately, overwhelmed by life and all of its emotionally charged turmoil, and it's not just because of all the "swamp" -related shows being filmed around and about here in South Louisiana.

To begin with, I am in media-sensory-overload what with the fallout from the George Zimmerman trial, Detroit going bankrupt, alleged government cover-ups, mismanagement of public funds, the plight of Israel, and wondering how much of my personal data contributed to the downfall of the America in which I was raised.

I am firmly convinced that my Eisenhower baby-flavored version of the good ol' USA is in a downward spiral and soon will be gone, as surely as if it, too, were sinking in some vast quagmire, returning to its primordial state, a land without man, machine or media. I have dreamt of this nightmare landscape, a deadly quiet, misty, gray place where unknown danger surrounds and paralyzes me, and I don't want to go to that place in real time.

I have gotten the impression that our current president truly dislikes the majority of US citizens, or worse, he truly does not care about most of us. Mr. Obama was a popular-vote president, a historic first for America, being half-black, and even though I did not vote for him, I hoped he would not be vindictive and/or belligerent. Alas, I hoped in vain. He is contributing to the vicious blame game and racial unrest without a thought to the consequences of his inflammatory rhetoric, so shame on him for not being a wise leader.

Aside from politics, I am sad for the family of Trayvon Martin. I was not there the night he died, nor was I in the courtroom for George Zimmerman's trial. But I have three sons of my own, and no mother wants to have to bury her baby.

On the other hand, I have served on a jury before and I trust that the jury members did their best and came to the correct verdict: it was not second degree murder as there was no malicious intent to kill in this tragic case, only a lack of communication that led to a very sad ending; a badly scared man, in a flurry of fear and pain, used the weapon of last resort on a young man, thereby ending that young man's life. Zimmerman has to live with that fact for the rest of his life. He will be targeted by disgruntled people who want to see him punished, so his life is pretty much ruined from henceforth anyway. There were no winners in this matter; everyone lost something.

As my health begins to fail, I find it ever harder to remain hopeful. I wish I knew how to make everything okay for everyone, but I don't have the answers, the cure for all ills, social or physical. I can barely afford to pay most of my bills, cannot afford to go to the doctor as often as I need, and I need to do more for the two children I have left at home, make their future more secure. There is too much to do and little energy or means to do it.

We all have problems, some worse than others, but it seems to me the best thing we can do now is take care of our own business; don't try to run the lives of others, don't fight others' battles. We are all a little overloaded in these trying times, and I sincerely hope all will be well for everyone. I grieve over the bad choices I made in the past, but am trying to do better now. Things could be worse, and probably will get a lot worse in my lifetime, but I still cannot abandon my duties nor run from my responsibilities. Whatever is wrong with me I alone can make right, and so I will keep trying to do better tomorrow than I did today.

My heart is broken, and my spirit is contrite. Keep your heads above water, don't let life drag you into bad actions against your neighbor or your fellow citizens. We did not kill that young man in Florida, and we should not be punished for a crime we all wish had not occurred. Fighting each other is not the solution. May God comfort the grieving; may the peace of Christ be as the balm of Gilead to the hurting soul of this nation and its people.

 

God have mercy on us all.

 

That is all I have to say.

Regina, Queen of Pups

This is all about Regina, the little mini-Schnauzer I bought for my daughter nearly two years ago after we made the move from Georgia to Louisiana. Every day when I get home from my job at the library, Regina greets me as though I just returned from a three-month tour of the Antarctic, wriggling all over, jumping as high as she can to reach my arms, whimpering and licking my face all at the same time.

 

I initially bought her for my daughter because, besides promising Lesley a dog of her own for several years, I also did not want the dog to be mine, thinking that fine distinction would keep me from caring too much or getting emotionally involved, yet again, with a canine. I pretend to be annoyed, instead of vastly entertained, when I am trying to vacuum and she reacts to the racket by violently barking at the offending machine and snapping at it as though it were a prehistoric monster invading our home.

 

Alas, too late for pretenses. This little dog has already claimed me as her surrogate "grandma" and has me eating out of her paw, so to speak. We have had to rescue her twice from death already, once from parvomyelitis after we had her only a few days, and another time last year from a horrific bout with hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, which had her bleeding from both ends. Good grief, where did THAT come from, I frantically asked the vet? I was told something as everyday as a violent thunderstorm could set off such an illness, but thankfully, $645 later, she recovered. We've had to spend more than $2,000 on her already between her illnesses, spaying operation and periodic grooming, but I don't regret keeping her alive and well, for the sake of everyone involved, not just Regina.

 

On the surface, I still pretend for my daughter's sake that Regina is HER dog. This is to get Lesley out of the house via walking her pet, and keeps Lesley on top of food bowl duty. Regina also sleeps in Lesley's bed at nights and it's up to her to handle most of the baths and poopy accidents.

 

But when it gets down to who the little dog really likes to hang out with, and who she likes to play fetch with, and who is the softest touch for dispensing multiple doggy treats, well, that would be me, Grandma Barb, who lets the dog order her around and even gets her to crawl on her hands and knees in the garage retrieving doggy golf balls lodged beneath lawn mowers etc., who cleans her little furry face everyday and scratches her ears and neck just right, and feeds her tidbits off her plate when she knows she's not supposed to. (shhh!)

 

I never tell my daughter the dog really belongs to me because that would break her heart, but we all know who her "fave" is. And I really wish it weren't this way as I never wanted to care this much about another dog as long as I lived, knowing how hard I will take it should anything happen to her.

 

But I know there are risks attached to every relationship, times of separation and times of being together, and the memories I am making now with my daughter and her beloved Regina will be with me always.

 

It is my sincere hope that no matter what, Regina will always be with us, both here and hereafter. I truly believe dogs belong to humankind as much as individual humans, like mothers and daughters, belong to each other, and the great thing that binds us all is love.

 

Casting My Vote Away

Well, the election is over. I voted Republican, as I have in every presidential election since 1972, when me and most of the other 18-year-olds voting for the first time per the 26th amendment, all voted for Nixon based on his promise to bring our friends home from Vietnam, (except for the time I cast my little vote for Jimmy Carter at the request of my Georgian uncle - alas, poor Richard, he got that one wrong!)

 

I try to take comfort from St. Paul, (I paraphrase here), who advised us that, after doing all we can do to make things right, then we stand. We stand together and try to get along, bear the taunts from the winning side (thanks, Beyonce, for the "Take that, Mitches" remark. Real classy) and turn the other cheek, try not to be bitter and spiteful, but long suffering and patient, if at all possible.

 

I live in South Louisiana, as you know, but I have also lived all over this great country. I was born on Luke Air Force Base in Glendale, Arizona. Since that time, I have lived from Bangor, Maine to Brownsville, Texas, and from Homestead, Florida to Anacortes, Washington; from Bainbridge, Georgia to Westminster, Colorado and home again to Gonzales, then, eventually, Sorrento, Louisiana.

 

Having lived in so many diverse places, I can tell you that I believe we are blessed with a great country. But ... since the re-election of Barack Obama, my daughter wants to emigrate to another country (like Ireland or New Zealand), and my son is talking about arming himself against our own government, fearful that U.S. troops will be set against their own citizens under martial law, at some point, to enforce policies dictated by a Socialist agenda. These children, only 18 years old, are afraid of their own government. They listen to reports on the Internet, tune into YouTube videos spouting dire warnings of things to come, and they want to get the heck out of here.

 

We cannot leave America, I tell them. We have neither the money nor the resources to just drop our lifestyle which I am struggling so hard to maintain. I try to explain this to them and assure them that all will be well, that good WILL triumph and things WILL be made right in time.

 

But am I lying to my children? Am I sugar-coating the situation in order to keep them in place and calm their fears? What kind of mess are we leaving for this future generation, when things like meatless Mondays are being approved in L.A. and the sex lives of agency leaders take precedence over saving the lives of our foreign ambassadors? Our priorities are upside-down and getting even  more inane on a daily basis.

 

No, I don't want to secede from the U.S. even though I also don't want to be kept in a part-time job forever, barely eking out a living, barely able to keep my children fed and a roof over their heads. So what is the answer? How do I assuage the fears of my children and also take that "stand" that the Bible suggests I take?

 

With all of my heart, I mean no harm to the current president, but I also suspect his agenda is skewed and not in the best interest of the majority of Americans. I cannot maintain my current living status indefinitely in the light of the current economic situation in the U.S. My hopes of even getting a full-time job just went south as more and more companies investigate reverting to and keeping more part-time staff in order to avoid higher insurance rates under Obamacare.

 

I guess you can equate this small blog of mine to a rant, but it is not one of threats or reprisal. I only want to state that if I could do more to protect my children, I would. I am doing all I can to survive and the game is changing before my eyes, making it an even tougher job to do.

 

I wish I could feel more hopeful, but right now, I can't. For right now, then, I'll just keep doing my job the best I can and keep trying to comfort my children with the promise that Americans are not going to keep on taking executive order after executive order that strips us of our constitutional right to self-govern our own states, and I will try to believe that at some point, some greater power will intercede and make things right.

 

I cannot trust the majority of my fellow Americans to think these matters through and vote for what is best for our country: the last election has proven that. It is too easy to lead people about by the nose with half-truths and innuendos and there is nothing to be done about it now, at any rate. If most states don't even bother to require legal identification before casting votes, voter fraud is blatantly rampant and suspect voters go unchallenged, allowing anyone to be president here, and so there are no limits to the resultant corruption from local government levels to national. Our electoral system has failed.

 

So now I will do all I can do to take care of my own business, keep my disappointment to myself, create as much security as I can for my family, instill hope in my children as best as I can, and then stand. Stay in my place and wait for the tide to turn.

 

I lived near beaches long enough to know that the tide will always turn, just like Tom Hanks' character observed in the movie "Castaway", and you never know what the next tide will bring,

 

 

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.