Posted by jeannefrois | Filed under Uncategorized
More Light And Light And Light
25 Monday Apr 2016
25 Monday Apr 2016
24 Sunday Apr 2016
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inThis is really what everyone is looking for…because Christ is already at your door knocking for you to let Him in with his light…you have to open the door to him and let him in…
20 Wednesday Apr 2016
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inYou can find me using the name of one of my favorite flowers with the maiden name of my paternal grandmother. Same domain.
16 Saturday Apr 2016
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inJust wanted to add that it’s the magical hour when everything has been done; jammies on, red flannel shirt now torn at elbow after four sterling years of daily service; slipper socks on, face washed, hair loosened and free…no stabbing pins…my favorite Hobbit? It’s Sam, good old, wonderful Sam. Merry comes second.
16 Saturday Apr 2016
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inUnited States…Brazil…Bahrain…Italy…South Africa…Venezuela. And so it goes.
Where is the hell is Bahrain exactly?
Made myself sleep in until 6 AM this morning. Stayed in jammies until 9 AM, wrapped in an afghan watching a Paranormal State marathon, then a Pioneer Woman episode, then left for errands. Really dragging and tired today. Going to make Mexican chicken soup tomorrow, thank God they’re making Ro-Tel salt free now…filled with corn, peppers, onion, tomatoes, cumin and ONE teaspoon of chili powder, top the bowl with cheddar cheese, avocado, tortilla chips that I will roast myself and a dollop of light sour cream.
Came home from errands starving, had lunch and as TNT is showing all episodes of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, found it was very relaxing to settle down with The Fellowship of the Ring; had to leave The Two Towers to go to 4PM Mass–even more of a super skeleton crew because I was the only soprano who showed up outside Stephanie, the director and Joan who was on the altar as cantor. But we got a thumbs up again from Stephanie, and a gentleman who sings bass behind me said that when I sing with them, the quality goes up a notch and he wasn’t just saying that flatter me he claimed. And then he said, when you’re here, and we have Linda besides you (who has a gorgeous voice) he said, then we’re singing like the angels. I guess I’m a music minister again…seriously, they really need some bodies there.
Felt you waiting to walk to communion with me as though you felt you might not be sure I wanted you there…what rot, man. I’ll always want you there…and no, I’m not mad at you because of all this international stuff…goodness gracious, once there was a Tarot reading that said a certain woman would win the world…this is not quite how I imagined it.
In a Lord of the Rings moos; might watch it all night provided I don’t conk out; it’s gray and windy and somewhat misty. All is well.
15 Friday Apr 2016
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inToday: USA…Brazil…Germany…Colombia…Mexico…all getting my messages about Mores.
Friday evening, work week is done, gray, drizzling, I’m tired, looking forward to snuggling down for the evening. When I went shopping and got all my Dr. Teal’s, there, where someone who obviously changed their mind about buying them, but left with all the soap products was the most adorable pair of slipper-socks. These were caramel-colored, and knitted in that soft cable stitch like your grandmother might knit for you, trimmed with caramel colored faux fur about the ankles, padded, thick, soft, with little rubber grips on the bottom. They were my size and I bought them. I even sleep in them now because I can’t tell you how deliciously comfortable and warm they are to snuggle your tootsies in for a good burrowing. Wearing them now, about to go get a glass of something and kick off the week and relax.
Thinking about the people clicking on the Mores link looking for one thing and finding something definitely different. This might be a good vantage point to insert my views on abortion.
14 Thursday Apr 2016
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inJust wanted to say hi almost in person. Started this blog as something personal, and just between the two of us. Somehow along the way, it got a following. Albania, Sierra Leone, Turkey, Norway and India also showing up. Having such strong wishes about Mr. Magarvio’s shop again popping up in my brain and heart. All of the non-hashtags. But to achieve this, you would have to play your part and do your share.
Funny the thought that pops up, when someone has never been for you in their actions, and suddenly they were, would you even know, from a lack of it for so long, how to even accept it?
14 Thursday Apr 2016
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inIt continues to rain, and I don’t mind. Terrible weather moved through yesterday and I left the house early to try to beat it and it hit right as I reached Claiborne Avenue but I was nearly to work anyway so not too bad. Rained steadily on the way in this morning but everyone driving seemed to be on their best behavior and the drive was one of rain that I again enjoyed. That line from, “V for Vendetta…” “God is in the rain.” Rushing yesterday to leave early enough to beat the storm, randomly threw leftovers into my container for lunch–i.e., rice, okra, small piece of chicken, dab of Smart Balance and dropped a slice of Swiss cheese over all, which, when warmed in the microwave, all combined into a surprisingly tasty little lunch that smelled divine.
Slept all night in my own bed, head and should propped up on pillows; both legs propped on a long, firm pillow and again no excruciating pain, the usual crick that’s now relieved by a good rubdown with Dr. Teal’s Lavender Epsom Salts rub. I beginning to think this guy, if he is a real human, should be canonized. Speaking of lavender, on my tiny plant I have three gorgeous blooms. Sunday I moved them into a large, royal purple pot on the front porch and the shade of the green leaves combined with the purple blooms looks beautiful in that pot. My front porch no longer looks Tuscan, because I have pots in almost every color in the spectrum matched best to the plant they hold; my neighbors compliment me about my porch all the time and that’s very nice.
Left work a little early yesterday to make it to the post office so I could mail my tax returns before it closed at 4:30 PM. The same people have worked at the Metairie Road Post Office for years and some of the customers are on mutual first name or last name basis with them; that was nice. It reminded me of Apple Street when I was a kid. The lady who waited on me asked, looking at the addresses–IRS and LA Department of Revenue–“regular mail?” I nodded and said, yes, it’s the most wonderful time of the year…she laughed and replied only if you’re getting money back, which in this case I am not, due to the emergency car withdrawal last winter when they failed to deduct for taxes. Oh well, not a monumental amount to pay, thank Goodness, or as they say in some novel, “Bress Gawd.”
Recently saw where there was a centennial celebration of someone in New York last January. You looked miserable.
14 Thursday Apr 2016
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inEveryone who searches by that title can now feast on these words forever:
In answer to the question: “Is smoking cigarettes, or pot, a sin?” by Dean VanDruff.
The bible does not forbid smoking cigarettes or smoking pot directly. Most generally, the case is made that we should be good stewards of our bodies.
1 Cor 6:19-20 (NIV) Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body.1 Cor 3:16-17 (NIV) Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
As an alert reader has pointed out, the “temple” mentioned here refers to the collective body–as in the church, and individually–as in sexual immorality. While this verse has traditionally been applied to cigarettes, 1 Cor 6:18 (just after the above verse) suggests a more focused meaning. So the “destruction of the temple” case is weak in the context of smoking, and better understood in the context of abject sexual immorality being indulged in by those in the fellowship.Beyond the traditional case made, there are two applicable biblical principals that apply to substance abuse such as cigarettes or marijuana.
First is the addictive nature of both. The idea of Scripture is that any habit (even of coffee or some “legal” drug) that has mastered us puts us outside of the control and freedom of Christ. In short, if we live at the level of “carnal instincts”, we put ourselves under condemnation rather than grace. The battle is between the carnal nature and God, and when we decide to cave to the lower nature we are spiritually rejecting the grace of Jesus Christ who came to “set us free” from all such. Jesus is “Lord”… or not–really–in our lives. It is no good calling Him “Lord, Lord”, and actually serving another master.
Rom 6:16 (Phi) You “belong” to the power you choose to obey…1 Pet 2:11c (Phi) Keep clear of the desires of your lower natures, for they are always at war with your souls.
Rom 8:12-13 (Phi) So then, my brothers, you can see that we owe no duty to our sensual nature, or to live life on the level of instincts. Indeed that way of living leads to certain spiritual death. But if on the other hand you cut the nerve of your instinctive actions by obeying the Spirit, you will live.
1Co 6:12 (NIV) “Everything is permissible for me”–but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”–but I will not be mastered by anything.
Rom 6:16 (NEB) … if you put yourselves at the disposal of a master, to obey him, you are slaves of the master whom you obey; and this is true whether you serve sin, with death as its result; or obedience, with righteousness as its result.
2 Pet 2:19 (Jer) … if anyone lets himself be dominated by anything, he is a slave to it…
Rom 6:12-13 (Phi) Do not, then, allow sin to establish any power over your mortal bodies in making you give way to your lusts. Nor hand over your bodily parts to be, as it were, weapons of evil for the devil’s purposes. But, like men rescued from certain death, put yourselves in God’s hands as weapons of good for his own purposes.
Secondly, and more to the point of marijuana, is using drugs to change our moods or improve our lives. In Scripture, the word “witchcraft” is “pharmakia”, from which we get pharmacy. Drugs are not sin in general, but “pharmakia/witchcraft” is using drugs to solve spiritual problems instead of turning to Christ or using chemicals illicitly as a short-cut to real spiritual growth and maturity.Taking substances for spiritual effect is witchcraft, pure and simple, which is a grievous sin. Those who continue to do so will “in no way enter the kingdom of God” (Gl 5:19-23). We cannot have it both ways. We can wait upon the Lord for what He has promised “beyond what we can ask or think”, or we can spiritually cheat with drugs.
God offers all that we could desire in the Gospel: love, joy, peace, energy, power, fellowship, relaxation and rest, sweet sleep, and the like. In the Gospel we lay our lives down and wait for His resurrection power in us; or… we could pop a pill or smoke something and “cheat” to get it.
This contest between “substance abuse” vs. being filled with the Spirit is portrayed to us as either/or, with wine being the drug that is abused most often in Scripture; as it was the most readily available back then.
Eph 5:18 (NRS) Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit.Eph 5:15-18 (NIV) Be very careful, then, how you live–not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
Eph 2:1-3 (NIV) As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
Rom 8:5-8 (NIV) Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
Gal 5:16-17 (NIV) So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other.
Gal 5:24-25 (NIV) Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Eph 5:18 (TCN) Do not drink wine to excess… but seek to be filled with the Spirit of God.
John 6:63a [Jesus:] “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.”
John 10:9-10 (NAS) “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly!”
John 5:40 (NIV) “…Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”
This subject is perhaps most applicable to the radical brain-chemistry altering drugs many Christians are taking nowadays. In most of the cases where such drugs are being prescribed the source of the problem is sin, and drugs are being taken as the answer. Are we believers in the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the way to address the spiritual problems and ramifications of sin in our natures, or are we believers in the new gospel of mood-altering drugs? Are drugs the answer to sin? In whom, or what, is our hope?In summary,
- we should never allow ourselves to be “mastered” by any addiction/habit if we are truly “set free, indeed” by Christ; and
- we must choose between the Holy Spirit and drugs/witchcraft to improve our lives, for we cannot participate in both.
For a general case on witchcraft, or spiritually cheating, see the full Bible Study on Witchcraft.
1Cor 10:21 (NIV) You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.Gal 6:7-9 (NIV) Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
2Ti 2:19 (NIV) …God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”
2 Cor 7:1 (NIV) Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
2 Tim 2:21-22 (Wey) All who cleanse themselves of the things I have mentioned will become special utensils, dedicated and useful to the owner of the house, ready for every good work. Shun youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.
13 Wednesday Apr 2016
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inIt’s been less than five minutes since I posted Mores–deleting a post–and it’s already been viewed. Good. Spread the word. Trash.