ANGELFIRE 1-04-06
We are indebted to Scotland for that favorite song sung as the year ends and a new one begins, "For Old Time's Sake." It's a Scottish custom now so American, just as bag pipes at our military funerals or the nomenclature of our navy i.e. "aye aye, sir." I learned to say that in boot camp at San Diego back in '45 and carried it into my denomination serving as a minister. My first bishop was tougher than any skipper could ever have been. And his cabinet of superintendents were all his lieutenants aboard "the old ship of Zion." Dr.Harry Millard told us at Rotary some years ago when he got back from there that Scotland had made two special contributions to the world, golf and whiskey. But I'd include capitalism for a third, because it's founding philosopher/ economist, Adam Smith, was Scottish. I think of the economics in that song "Ye take the high road and I'll take the low road, and I'll be in Scotland 'afore ye. Yet me and my true love will never meet again on the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Loman." So the Scotch also give us both these songs that make us cry. It's because they are such a passionate people. Better never cross one of them either. Dr.Millard also mentioned the Presbyterian Church, which has also been basic in the making of America.
Last Friday's "Democrat" had a neat photo of that guy working up underneath the old PV tower. I've always had respect for men in high places, especially like that one. We have a new tower in WW now up at the city park. It's not for water but cell phone communication, yet stands about the same height. Brings back to mind the time at OU when I worked at it's radio station WNAD. Frequency modulation was the new thing and a taller tower was built northwest of Norman for us to add FM to our AM broadcasting. The anodes atop it's 450 feet had to be adjusted and tuned, so I wanted to do the job. But chief engineer Reamy Perote got a professional steeple jack instead who allowed me to go up with him. Since it was my first climb he said "Now just don't look down and you'll be ok." And I never did until we were way at the top. Then I couldn't resist the temptation as some were calling my name below. When I saw how small things looked way down there, I clung too tightly to ever climb down until he coached me from overhead saying "I can't get past you so just try to loosen up." I'd taken flying lessons and gone a lot higher in a Cessna. But on that tower I felt much more exposed and still admire those who can "just not look down" while getting the job done. Recalls that axiom "Don't ever look back. Something might be gaining on you." Of course we know something is anyhow. It's called old age. I went to visit a colleague Monday who has been in a Norman nursing home for several years now. Try to get by for a visit at least monthly, though he just lays there being fed on a tube and unable to communicate. He didn't even open his eyes. Two of the care givers told that me no one else ever comes to see him any more. He's up in years and I know he doesn't have much family left. So he lies trapped in this living death, not even able now to protest against it. He used to make jabbering sounds that I couldn't understand. Now he's just there (in body) with no release in sight. while surely not clinging to life the way I did that tower so long ago. Everyone should write out their final directive and sign it, I say. You can even will your body to be used for medical research, since student physicians need cadavers with which to learn srgery. Then the remains will be cremated and your ashes returned to your family (to await the coming Day of resurrection in glorified bodies meeting the Lord).
A Muslim friend in WW asked me on New Year's if the day had any religious meaning to Christians. I said that we measure time from the birth of Christ (which he knew) but don't celebrate Jan. first, as would seem proper. He knew we celebrate the Birth on Dec.25 so I said we leave the New Year as a secular date. I didn't admit to him that we got the Dec.25th date from Roman paganism but he's pretty sharp and probably knows that already. Muslims revere Jesus as one of their prophets, but we Christians know Him as the Prophet, Priest and King of kings that brings sacredness into each and every day. Hallelujah
ANGELFIRE 1-6-06
Remember that main article on our front page nearly a month ago about Jeff Moore's role in the launch of a space craft to probe Pluto out at the edge of our solar system? Well the launch window begins less than a week from now (Jan. 11) and Jeff is from right here in Pauls Valley where his family still live. He will oversee the longest voyage into outer space ever taken, which will last about ten years and fly at a speed greater than any other before. New Horizons is NASA's name for the probe. In just a year it will have passed beyond Mars clear out toward those gigantic planets so remote from the sun. As it swings by Jupiter, biggest of all with such powerful gravity, it will gain even more speed that the huge Atlas 5 launch rocket first gave it. Acting like the sling that little David used to slay the giant Goliath, Jupiter's gravity will hurl it at phenomenal speed for all the years getting to Pluto in 2015. I was just three when an American astronomer discovered that far out place in '30. And now it's seen as almost a double planet because there's a moon so large up close to it; and two others going round it to boot. The probe won't be able to orbit because there'll be no way to slow it down. So data will be gathered in the months before arrival. AU stands for "astronomical unit" which is the distance of Earth from the sun (or Sol), 93 million miles. So Pluto is 40AUs from Earth. Yet beyond our solar system the measure in space becomes light years, which is how far light going at 186 thousand miles per second can travel in a year. Interstellar space is so vast that our minds can't comprehend it. We just rely on symbols. Our star is named Sol, though we usually call it the sun. And other stars are light years away. So AU is a helpful unit of measure close to Sol and his ten planets. Maybe the Pluto probe can go on out to UB313 that lies 90AUs out there in an eliptical orbit around Sol. But just the radio signals back and forth would be so slow that communication would poop out. Think of taking days or weeks just to get back a radio contact, which always seems so instant here on Earth. Our own Dr.Moore of NASA will be keeping this amazing venture on course, the most complex I can ever recall. What a thrilling episode of deep space adventure, right up to the brink of "outer space" if human history continues. Right on Jeff Moore! You might be in the role of that archangel, Gabriel. In PV's Methodist manger display, he stands with his trumpet atop the inn of Bethlehem where GOD stepped down upon earth (material universe) the first time as a Baby. Now Gabriel's trumpet is sounding in world events and those with ears to hear are making preparation for their King's return in glory and majesty. Shalom/Salaam
ANGELFIRE 1-11-06
As the name tells us, a "lobbyist" is someone who stands at the entry way to a legislature and tries to influence the vote. Money is usually the way it's done, though not with cash in hand because that would be outright bribery. But deals and promises achieve the same selfish purpose now once linked to Benedict Arnold and now to Jack Abramoff. He had nearly all of D.C. in his hip pocket, but now they're all jumping ship like rats from a skinking vessel. Nearly all have sent him back the tainted "donations.". That makes me think of the state's rights attitude when I was young. Some states first refused federal funds knowing there were strings on it that would take control of local affairs. So it was called "tainted money." Later we all began to compete in getting it and just said "'taint enough." Now everything appears to be bought off. I keep praying for our troops in Iraq who sacrifice their lives for America, but this corruption at home surely must strain their patriotism. Even a big chunk of hurricane relief for the Gulf coast has Abramoff's finger print on it, not to mention some foreign expenditures. That's why I like to write about outer space, where it hasn't reached yet. I talked on the phone with Jeff Moore's mother and she tells me the New Horizons launch is now set for Jan.17 and that she will be there in FL to see it. I'm awed at such an ambitious endeavor by mere humans to reach out so far into the vastness of Creation. But I tell myself that there's a "chaos factor" even to the rim of this material universe. It's where Murphey get's his law that if anything can go wrong, it will. On discovery channel there was a program about dragons that every culture known has acknowledged in their history. So I think of Leviathan mentioned in our Bible, or in it's second verse that says "earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep" (place of that ancient serpent later known as Satan). Thank GOD for the blood of Jesus that breaks the bondage to that powerful avarice of men that's seen again and again in our public affairs. Even Judas sold out the Savior for thirty pieces of silver; avarice at the utmost.
I credit WW for keeping our beautiful display clear up until Epiphany that all might behold. It was still larger this time that a year ago. Then Monday night I noticed PV's evergreen tree still up above the corner of Chickasaw and Paul. Maybe it's there yet. Sure isn't any fun to take our trees down like it was to put them up. We had the biggest and best ever here at the Pinkhouse, but what a job that was getting it all put away last week. In fact there's a little one Niece has left up with lights shining near our front door. But our electric bill is up too, along with gas. And so is gasoline. Just name it and it's up. Ouch! Plus our need for moisture. Sunday was when the governor asked us to pray for rain and today (Tues.) the noon hour at 1st Presbyterian will continue the prayers. The Ministerial Alliance proposed such and that headline Friday hit it off just right, "Looking to a Higher Power." Jim Richardson's story set us on course as Rev.Tom Buzbee offered the place. I'll tell next time about our praying for rain early in my ministry while I was a pastor at Erick OK. Shalom/Salaam
ANGELFIRE 1-14-06
My sister in Altus, Jane Oden, told me of the death a few days ago of Bill Craig from PV. She went to his funeral down there and said there was such a large crowd that she didn't get to speak to any of the family. Bill and I had worked for the late Jim Tom Kendall in his grocery store. It was right below the Old Tower I mention so often. Several Craigs were also there: Fred, who was his dad, ran the butcher shop and Jack, an older brother helped in it. He had several sisters that helped too. But Bill and I both played football under Peacho Thomson, PV's famous coach who had won a couple of state championships. And the late Jack Grimmett, who was Peacho's assistant. So many of that team are long since deceased. I think of Walter Nance, John Wayne Ward, Billy Walker, Joe Thomas who each became a prominent person in life. Also one's still alive, Lee Fields and Hooter Brewer as well as my older brother, John; plus Bert Goodpasture now retired in OKC and Paul Ross right here in PV. One guilt I've carried about Bill has been from breaking his collar bone at football practice when instead of using dummies, we just blocked each other head on. He had to drop off the team that year and and wear a neck brace. I've felt bad ever since. Yet he went on to achieve far more that football with considerable success emplyed by the George Wacker Corporation (from which our city park takes it's name) and finally retirement in Altus. That large gathering for his funeral showed that he was held in high regard.
Jeffrey Moore's another PV person of prominence with his fantastic NASA assignment. Tuesday, Jan.17, he'll be at Cape Canaveral FL overseeing the launch of that Pluto probe by an Atlas V rocket. The craft is only the size of a piano and weighs just two thousand pounds, but that massive rocket that could hoist a skyscraper is supposed to shove it into space at super speed for such a long journey. If it gets there in nine years, as planned, Pluto will be the ninth planet (and most remote one officially designated) to be visited by any human spacecraft as it arries in 2015. Jeff has his work cut out, that's for sure. And nine years to the ninth planet makes me call this a "nova," which is the human number of months for childbirth. Thus it means new. And the Nova Testament is filled with references to the Gospel's new birth. So Pluto's going to be a long tough scientific/technological undertaking, I also see other than spiritual ramifications. There were protestors at the launch site against the plutonium being used for it's power source. They claimed it might pollute outer space with radio activity. It's needed aboard to generate electricity to power all the craft's equipment. And how fitting, "plutonium to Pluto." Though seems it should be the other way around, doesn't it i.e. New Horizons bringing a load of it back to us from Pluto to Earth. But the craft will just keep going on past and explore a region out there that's full of rock like objects which also orbit our sun. Since we earthlings just have to somehow get off petroleum, maybe this plutonium powered vehicle is a sign of what's to come. Your hip pocket could hold enough to circle the planet, but it sure would be the hot seat. So hydrogen's probably the way instead. Look up at little Iceland. They don't use any petroleum up there. So I'd say that Iceland's our role model for fuel instead of Pluto and bet that Jeff sure agrees with me. Not plutonium from Pluto, but ice from Iceland. Melt it into water, which is H20. Then split it for hydrogen! How's that for an answer?
I spoke with my Muslim friend about those hundreds who've been trampled to death in the hajj now happening in Mecca and he said "At least their families believe they'll go straight to heaven." As a Christian I'd rather see the UN show concern to prevent such calamities. It happens too often at their annual pilgrimages and could merit some outside supervision. My GOD means for all those lives to be lived, instead of lost in that throng circling around the Kabaa (black box) there in Islam's greatest mosque. It's like the Israelites used to gather in Jerusalem for Passover in O.T. times. In the N.T. we even read where Mary and Joseph took the boy Jesus there with them and then started down to Nazareth without Him. They hurried back up to find Jesus where He'd been left, at the Temple. It was always "up to Jerusalem" from whatever direction you came. That's how they viewed the Holy City. So Muslims always face Mecca for prayer with that same attitude. They kneel and bow face down to pray, which looks very religious. If only they'd face Christ Jesus like that! Islam means "submission" to Allah(God). If only they knew that He has a Son soon coming back, to Whom "every knee shall bow and every tongue confess."
ANGELFIRE 1-17-06
This native of Pauls Valley is certainly in accord with the Alliance sponsored prayer meetings each Tuesday at 1st Presbyterian even though my schedule doesn't allow me to be there in person. All of us who believe GOD hears and cares can be joined for part of that hour in a plea for rain. We had an extra big crowd of inmates at the prison chapel Sunday evening as I asked them to join with us and some of them said they had already been praying about it. Friday's edition of The Democrat had two large photos of grass fire on the front page and a devotional warning of hell fire on the church page. That's a subject sometimes ignored in polite society, where the term is only used in anger. Now all these fires raging in OK are surely warnings from heaven. I understand that the Tuesday services include a time of confession, which should certainly mean repentance: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." We've had email from other states asking about our safety with all the burning here in OK. I don't mention it to them, but do repent to the LORD for my state's legalization of the Vegas industry at governor Henry's election. Now we are seeing how it had corrupted Washington DC with the Abramoff scandal tied to Indian tribe casinos. And even before Las Vegas became known as America's "sin city," New Orleans already had that reputation. I saw it first hand as a young sailor stationed down at Gulfport MS. And look what finally hit N.O. last fall. Nowdays you can't stay free from all the tv advertisement of such wickedness. Even cruises aboard floating casinos are continually touted, though George Smith and Natalee Holliway both have disappeared that way. It's a shameful industry built on cunning deception and never produces any new wealth. Just redistributes at the whim of lady luck. She is the false goddess of great delusion. And chance is illusive itself. Though randomness does exist, people of faith know that everything has not happened here in earth by the mere toss of a divine coin. Through faith we see an intelligence working out It's design. That's called the teleological argument. Others are the cosmological, anthropological and ontological. In the Bible Psalms 14 and 53 both begin "The fool hath said in his heart 'There is no GOD.'" Our religious freedom allows men to be fools if they persist in such folly, but we dare not allow it to be taught in our schools. The Bible has been our nation's basic book. It tells about the holy Creator's purpose in heaven and earth, with our subsequent human history; He's the One we must face in eternity according to responses made to GOD's gracious redemption offer made through Christ Jesus, Savior of souls (persons with eternal destiny). The mounting tension with Iran and Israel's lack of their strong leader both point to Jesus coming again, and for believers as the Prince of Peace. Shalom/Salaam
ANGELFIRE 1-21-06
Hooray for the New Horizon's lauch of that craft to probe Pluto as it flies past nearly ten years from now. PV's Jeffrey Moore of NASA is directing this longest ever space trip. Because it got off in time, the gravity of Jupiter will be in the line of flight so as to pull it in and sling it out faster than even, saving five years. So 2015 is the arrival date if all goes as planned. Of course Ole Murphey is out there too and will mess up what he can.
We prayed for rain with residents of PV Health Care on Thursday, as we did with the inmates at LARC last Sunday. Now I'll recount those two years of my early ministry at Erick OK. It was the mid fifties and drought was the grim situation in most of western Oklahoma. So I proposed prayer services at Erick's Ministerial Alliance. Not all favored it because there were farmers who used their own term for the lack of moisture that I can't recall, saying that we'd just have to wait for a change in the weather the way they and their parents had to do in years before. "All that praying won't change anything" they said. "If GOD want's us to have rain, He'll sent it." But I joined with as many as would come together, calling out to the Lord. It went on for weeks, then months and finally over a year. I began to think those farmers had a more realistic attitude, especially because they were faithful church folk. Then finally rain began again, but with such fury that it caused a disaster. Even now I sill don't quite get it. But there was a new concrete and steel bridge just built over a creek north of town on the road up to Sweetwater OK. Everyone was proud of it and their school principal with his two young kids went to stand on and watch the creek surge beneath. Suddenly a footing of that bridge built on a dry basin gave way. He escaped but the children were washed downstream to perish. In fact the little boy was never found despite the hundreds of us that searched for many days. The principal continued searching alone for months thereafter. It was as sad as any event I can recall. Over a decade later, when I was back in Beckham county serving as Methodist pastor in Sayre, the graduating class at Sweetwater honored their "missing classmate" at Sweetwater's commencement. And I remembered those farmers saying "GOD knows how much we need rain, so we leave that up to Him." It was a different sort of faith, with wisdom I had not then attained. As St.Paul stated it, "Whether we live, we live unto the Lord. Or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live therefore or die, we belong to the Lord." There's one more sequel to this story that I'll share in another column, as we presently continue to repent and seek the Lord's help stopping grass fires. Shalom|Salaam
ANGELFIRE 1-24-06
In recalling what our Lord Jesus said about rain, the first is that it comes from the heavenly Father as a sign of divine grace upon the just and the unjust, the same as His sun rises on both the good and the evil. That must be how those farmers out west faced that drought back in the fifties that I have previously mentioned. In Mt. 7:26 Jesus tells of a foolish man who built his house upon the sand "and the rain descended and floods came...and it fell. And great was it's fall." Such was the parable with which He ended that most famous of all His messages, the Sermon on the Mount. It says that "the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." Rain isn't always a blessing and can even be a calamity, just as the fires surely are right now with our lack of moisture. So let's build on rock rather than sand as the prayers continue for water from the sky. Let Mt.6:33 be our theme: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of GOD, and His righteousness and all these things (physical needs) shall be added unto you." That small shower Sunday morning might have been "the cloud no bigger than a man's hand" that Elijah's servant reported seeing on the horizon as the prophet was asked the LORD to send rain. Later on more clouds filled the whole sky as a downpour came, after such a long dry season. In James 5:16 we read that "the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." It doesn't even say we need to be gathered together, though that certainly adds strength. So those who attend each Tuesday noon at PV's First Presbyterian are setting the pace for the rest of us. Also pray for the families of those two WW teens who died in the wreck out past I-35 on #29 last Friday; also their junior classmates at WW Sr.Hi. who also suffer such loss. Looking back across all the years at that bridge collapse that cost a father the loss of his two children out at Sweetwater OK, I only affirm that "we'll understand it all bye and bye."
Physics was my favorite subject at PV High and my teacher was the late Mable Erwin. At our '44 graduation, she presented a special award to me for study in that subject. I was amazed since it's the only honor or academic recognition I can recall ever getting. But I have long tried to keep aware of new discoveries in that field, most basic of all the sciences. So now our schools across the land are asked to make mention of an "original design" seen in this physical universe that outweighs the idea of "random mutations" to explanation the origin. Such truth points to a Creator, even though secular science prefers to call the point of beginning the term "singluarity" instead of creation. Nevertheless, physics is discarding the notion of "eternal matter." That was basic to secular materialism with it's non theistic view that once prevailed. Now the tide has turned and is flowing back toward Genesis 1: "In the beginning GOD." Hallelujah! I've been reading some letters from South Berrington KA about proof of GOD found in the structure of DNA, as well as the Big Bang. If you're interested, punch up
Pauls Valley National Bank has a terrific calendar for 2006 that includes photos of downtown from decades past. Since they have just finished a centennial year themselves, it's a peek into our past for all of PV being offered by them now. Our thanks to tha home town bank. Shaom/Salaam
ANGELFIRE 1-27-06
Though it's been a generation ago, I still recall the yelling I heard from Palestinian children on one of my visits to that land. It was wild and mean and it came as a shock to me from Arab looking boys and girls. Our bus had stopped to let us off for a few minutes, so I saw them gathering on the other side of a fence beside the road. When I went from our tour group over to try speaking with them, their response was just loud noise that was incomprehensible as it kept increasing. Shaken by the encounter, I returned to our tour bus where I was told that they were demanding some cash with yells of "gimme some money." That generation has now grown up and voted Hamas to be their leading party. The shock I felt there back in the eighties has arrived for the world. Palestine will be a militant Islamic state demanding part of Jerusalem for it's capitol. Muslims already have Mecca, where a couple of million made the hajj a week or so ago. So "Jerusalem for the Jews and Mecca for the Muslims" would be the Bible's rule. And since Christians are the Bible's true overcomers of evil with good, I'd add "Oklahoma for the Overcomers" as a one state solution (which would have been Biblical over there I think). We might even change our state song to "We shall Overcome." (Indeed wild speculation for these crazy times)
But out in space where there's peace and harmony, the Pluto Probe is well on it's way having been successfully launched a over a week ago. That Tuesday date had to be reset twice, but on Thursday Jan.19 it took off to begin the nine and a half year flight reaching New Horizons at the edge of our solar system. Such a gigantic human endeavor just blows my mind. And PV's own Jeff Moore is director of this bold NASA venture that's been seventeen years in preparation. CNN will show the story tonite from 19 years ago of a space flight disaster just after launch killing all seven aboard, including a young school teacher. She was to give lessons from space to children in classrooms across America. What a calamity that was. I was moved to write a song about it that's way back on this website. I used the Gospel tune "Will The Circle Be Unbroken Bye & Bye in the Sky?" In Christ Jesus we are more than conquerors being made fully complete at His coming again. All praise to His name!
Palestine's election outcome wasn't the only surprise. Long liberal Canada has voted conservative now. Can you imagine that, our neighbor to the north swinging in the right direction? I once spent a day in Montreal and saw what a magnificient city it was. They call it the Roman Catholic center of N. America. All the signs are bilingual, English and French. And there's a great university there, McGill. I spent the flight from London talking to an Israeli who graduated there, conversations I'll never forget though it's been 40 years ago. He said he was an atheist and yet admitted to being a Jew. Back then, I didn't know it was possible for the same person to be both. He told me many young Jews felt that way because if there had been a God, the holocaust couldn't have happened. I told him that the very emergence of their state of Israel in '48 was divine action, though he denied it. He said that religious Jews had waited from God to bring it about but finally the rest of them had to create it themselves. Shalom/Salaam
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