"Hail to Jesus our King," in high heaven they sing:

all those spirits restored in GOD's image and likeness;

Till He comes once again for His church pure from sin,

when this earth that GOD first made a home for the righteous,

is fully recreated, restored in pure love; and at last handed up to THE FATHER above;

beyond time GOD's Kingdom in eternity, final home for souls reborn,

with King Jesus 'twill be.

What happened to that 380 tons of explosives that disappeared from Baghdad at the start of the Iraqi war? Kerry is making it his October surprise by blaming it on the "incompetence" of GW while the New York Times is agreeing by saying it's "a Messopotamian mess-up." So we will go to the polls Tuesday with a sense of dialectic (double-minded-ness) about the war. Proverbs says that such a man is "unstable in all his ways." Yet the whole Bible begins dialectically as "In the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth" which is a spiritual superverse and a material universe: dwelling place of GOD and all the holy angels along with the region of galaxy clusters, nebula and galaxies, stars of our own milky way and their respective planets. Now we've learned that even a majority of the stars are dialectic or binary (two in close orbit of each other). That dog star I saw some months ago, which is the brightest of all, was the first binary ever discovered back in the 19th century. Sirius typified nearly all the rest it's been found. Now our own local moon that was eclipsed by Earth just a night or two back, is a rival to Jupiter's largest one, Titian. The latter's just one of nine but the only one in the solar system with an atmosphere and oceans of some fluid, though not likely H2O.

Here on Earth it's Reformation Sunday, a sign of religious dialectic as Protestant/Catholic. PV now has the start of a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church that will meet at 7:30pm Sundays in St.Timothy Episcopal. Only half a dozen were there to start last week, but Martin Luther began the world shaking Protestant Reformation with only a handful there in Germany. Read my column of the web from last week. Luther even got married in later years. That's the human dialectical that echoes the heavens full of binary stars, though the center of our Solar System is just a single named "Sol." The word for "alone" is solitary. But dialect is a bigger term, though we only use if for language today. The dictionary says "a variation in language from the standard." Yet it's in almost everything. Even our WW scarecrow that is up again on Kerr Blvd. to portend Halloween. It's also an angel that will soon signify the glorious season of Nativity. Scarecrow/Angel is a real dialectic I'd say. And our Pumpkin Fest will have it all today, including a pumpkin roll. I've learned that "pumpkin" is a term of endearment some folks use for their grandkids. So why not WW too? And you probably know that "dialectic" was the term that Hegel made famous in philosophy a couple of centuries ago. He used it for an idealistic interpretation of history. Then Marx turned it to materialism in his "Das Capital." I see that it can apply also to the Advent season coming next: Christ's coming first as a babe in the manger and then the returning King of kings and Lord of lords. He came from shamayim (highest heaven) into this fallen world, then went back there with His Father until this old heaven and earth pass away. Then He'll return making all things new. Shalom/Hallelujah

My last column missed the publishing deadline, but is on the website shown below, where each page has columns for a month. You can punch them up back to 2001, but downloading is often slow. My web host ANGELFIRE adds a lot of advertising, along with a black box that before anything else. Since I get the site free, I can't complain. Just be patient. I've also reversed the order of postings to let the current column appear first.

It's less than a week until election day, and there'll be a number of races along with state questions to be decided. As I see it, the polling booth is like that "prayer closet" the Lord mentioned. He said we should pray to the Father in secret. Thus wee should cast our vote unto God the same way as our prayers. Then our conscience is clear no matter what choice the majority makes. If unrighteousness prevails, we must suffer the consequences along with the many who chose it, though we can still refuse to participate personally. While legalization of gambling here in Oklahoma means officially conducting the lottery, we who vote "no" have still not condoned it just as we condemn so much done now illegally. Democracy doesn't mean that the majority is necessarily right, but only that it rules, at least until the next election. So the only way to waste your vote is in failing to cast it. When I was just a child up in Illinois, I learned that president FDR had brought us repeal to the 18th amendment (prohibition) as his start to ending the depression. My church had taught me to see it as surrendering in that early "drug war" waged during the roaring twenties. Well. the consequence I've lived to see is a society now rampant with drugs; plus narcotics far worse than just alcohol. And it has grown into this narco-terrorism which is even using false religion for creating the global conflict. Since Islam prohibits drinking and gambling, it's Koran is used to picture us as the great satan. And Gambling is becoming as pervasive here as drug abuse, along with sexual permissiveness all the way to same sex marriage and even ordination homosexual clergy. All these trends have ended the admiration we once enjoyed from other nations. Our upper crust are the social drinkers and their counterpart at the bottom is a generation of addicts to drugs galore. I can remember when the fingers of your left hand numbered the "petty sins" of swearing, smoking, drinking, gambling and sex out of marriage. those of your right were considered worse, thus made also crimes: slander,, theft, arson, rape, murder etc.   The first were "just personal piety", but the second seen as serious enough for legal control. Now the first have almost faded from public awareness; but not to church people. Thank GOD for church folks in America who love the Lord first and then humanity as well. May their vote be heard next Tuesday because our Lord will soon return and require an accounting.

Jolting local headlines really do get your attention i.e. "Punch Leads to Tragic Result," "Bleak Outlook on Horizon," or Park Mystery Now Solved." But one that got mine last a week ago Friday said "Timing Is Everything." It told of the accident just over Jackson hill on S. Chickasaw where a lady had lost consciousness driving south and swerved across the northbound lane to crash into a motorcycle and auto repair shop. All the things that could have been so much worse were averted by just seconds. If you didn't read the story, go back and do so. Jim Bostic, whose car was shoved into the front of his business place where he was sitting, told me how repairs were made and that the driver now appeared ok too. So there's a happy ending that's so opposite to a tragic death nearby several months ago when a teen driver going north topped the hill and then ran over a man laying prone across the highway. It seemed from the report that the youth had been distracted by some guys yelling a warning to him as he went past them. . Ever since a large bouquet has been there on the east edge of #77 to show grief. Yet now the joy of a miracle shows at Ridley's Cycle Sales on the other side. Indeed, "timing is everything" including life or death. There are two words in the N.T. for time: chronos and kairos. The first is man made or artificial while the second is GOD's set season of happening. It's where the supernatural can be seen.

Maybe there's to be even a Lutheran church in PV. It's being considered at a meeting in St.Timothy's Episcopal right here a week before Reformation Day. I once studied at Augsburg University in Minneapolis and I saw Lutherans as numerous as Baptist churches down here. Since it was Martin Luther's nailing those 95 theses up in public on Oct.31, 1517 that started the Reformation, Germany took his name for it's state church. The pope had been raising funds to build St.Peter's cathedral in Rome by selling certificates of forgiveness. They were checks on the heavenly bank filled with merits from the sacrifice Christ made by His death on the Cross, or Indulgences. Dr.Luther was a university professor at Wittenburg who boldly spoke out in protest. He set the Bible above church tradition or papal authority by preaching that souls find salvation through faith in Christ alone. Thus the movement came to be called "Protestant" as nations broke away from Rome and established national churches the way the Germans had done: Anglicans in Britain, Presbyterians in Scotland, Reformed in Holland and Denmark,etc. with other denominations coming later from the state churches.

It looks now like a win for Bush on Nov.2 as national polls have him several points ahead. Of course there's always Harry Truman's amazing comeback in '48 when he beat Thomas Dewey despite the odds. But polling was so primitive then that the margin of error could allow for such an upset. This race has gotten plenty tough yet the debates were admirable I felt. America's greatness has shown bright as we move toward decision day. Being neither Republican nor Democrat has enabled me to respect both candidates, though I've prayed we could keep our strong president. When he states a matter, he doesn't keep nodding his head about it. He just moves on to the next point. I saw "American Experience" on OETA telling about "The Fight" which took place in NYC's Madison Square Garden back in the early thirties. Our black boxing champion, Joe Lewis, faced one of the supermen of Nazi Germany, Max Schmelling. We had only radio back then in the early thirties when Hitler had come to power. He used it as well as FDR ober here and he wanted the fight to demonstrate his dogma of an Aryian master race. But "superman" suffered a KO in the ring and had to go home to Germany in disgrace. The Nazis just played like he hadn't existed, though he was conscripted into their army the same as was Joe Lewis over here during WW II. Then men met again after the war (in '61) when that TV show "This Is Your Life" for Lewis brought Schmelling back to join him on the program. Schmelling had rejected Nazis ideology and made a fortune selling Coca Cola in Germany. So he befriended Joe Lewis financially since Lewis had lost his winnings to federal taxes. I'd never know of that happy ending to "the fight." It made a powerful witness to the brotherhood of humanity, black or white, old world or new world. And looking back on the boxing match, I feel it was a parable of the US bringing Germany to unconditional surrender in '45. By then an American comic strip had picked up the idea of Superman (which began with a German philosopher named Fredrick Nietsche a century before) in red, white and blue (plus yellow). After we stamp out an idea abroad, we usually tolerate it at home. So Christopher Reeve became it's Hollywood version. Then his horse riding accident was for him like that 8th round for Max Schmelling, knocked out. Yet it made him a greater person in spite of his broken condition. I guess I see Reeve becoming more like that true SUPERMAN who took a basin of water and washed His disciples feet and said "He that would be greatest among you, let him be your servant." Even though Reeve lived only 54 years, and became only slightly religious, he has been an example of caring for others, which recalls a song I learned in church: "Lord help me live from day to day in such a self forgetting way, that even when I kneel to pray my prayer may be for others. Others, Lord; yes others. Let this my motto be. Help me to live for others, that I may live like THEE."

Glen Simonsen has worked for Halliburton many years and he's not a fan of their former CEO that is now our veep. But he told me that the corporation got that contract in Iraq because no other bids were made on such a huge task. And now that branch has lost so much money in Iraq that it's a drag on the rest of Halliburton. So in a sense, it just did it's duty (though I understand that corporations are only duty bound to their stock holders with no pace for altruism). Yet could it be a patriotic loss? I hope so. though I admit to being a dreamer. After all, may name is Joseph.

Romans 13 was my Scripture this morning, which tells us that GOD uses governments to prevent chaos among us. That's hard for me to see, especially when a Hitler or Stalin gains control. But then I remember in the book of Job where even Satan has a role to play in the total divine scheme. But his will end forever with the return of our Lord Jesus in glory and majesty to judge the world, when this earth shall give up it's dead and the bodies of those who sleep in Him shall be changed to be made like unto His own glorious body, according to His mighty working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself world without end. Amen

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere. I see them on street corners in both WW and PV and even in yards along my route. There's a huge patch just across from the Court House at Grant and Walnut where they filled the whole corner when I first saw it. I thought of how a pumpkin planet's surface might appear. The Garden Spot has another such display on W. Grant. You can see it on channel 2 KJCS by five or six.each evening. Reminds me of that nursery rhyme "Peter, Peter pumpkin eater, had a wife and couldn't keep her. Put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well." I went through a stage of seeking profound insight in such stuff, but never could find any there. It's just fun to say, though it may outrage the current generation of liberated females. My late uncle C.L. Hightower (called Lem) used to call his California wife, Eleanor, "Pumpkin" as a term of affection. But that was clear back in WW II days. I stayed with them and their two kids in the Bay Area to work at Oakland Dry Dock one summer and then for Kaiser Ship Yard at Richmond the next until I joined the navy. E.C. or "uncle Carroll" had been a sailor himself, even before the war. Just can't imagine where he learned that pumpkin meant endearment. Seems I recall Charley Brown of comic strip fame being so attached to the melons. Wasn't the Great Pumpkin and Halloween a sort of spoof of Santa Clause at Christmas in those cartoons? Best that I still like is the pies made from them. Even better than   jack-o-lanterns. The latter are all artificial now, which are improved.. Why waste such a wonderful mellon just to put a candle inside. Hey, an insight! Maybe your wife in a new home with bright lighted windows to show off her beautiful home as she's dressed like a candle in all the new clothes she wants; is that what that rhyme tells about "keeping her very well."

Niece is in PV for "Moonlight Madness" as I write this. That "something to howl about" suggests a better way to spell the season's name: "H-o-w-l-o-w-e-e-n". Now doesn't that fit better? It seems that every event is scheduled to raise money for some worthy cause. So now this second such Main Street event is for local merchants to raise money themselves, and that's top priority I think. My dad taught me that business is basic to all else in the life of a community. May the h-o-w-l of this night (whoopee) continue through the whole year ahead, especially the next two months up to Christmas.

  I recently mentioned PV's Hope Tower in connection with aviation's start in 1903.. Then I saw this by Governor Henry that seems to extend that first small step toward the sky taken at Kitty Hawk: " The tradition continued into the space age. Perhaps inspired by pioneering aviation and Oklahoman Wiley Post, our state has produced more astronauts than any other state. Those eight remarkable adventurers are (the late) Gordon Cooper, Sharon Lucid, Owen Garriott, General Thomas Stafford, Susan Roosa, Fred Haise, William Pogue and John Harrington, the first Native American to walk in space." You probably know that Garvin countie's Wiley Post invented the first space suit for his highest flight. So it wouldn't it be great to have a platform atop our old tower from which we could see Mayville, his home town. That could be a tourist attraction for sure. And what a place from which to howl at the moon. Three more astronauts are on their way to the ISS in a Russian Soyus space craft. And soon we earthlings will he heading back to the moon, unless the Lord returns first.

The election in Afghanistan on Saturday seems to be proving valid despite all the claims of fraud. It's a first in the history of that nation with millions of Afganies participating. So Hamid Karzai, who will surely be their choice, will have a mandate from his own nation to be in charge rather than those war lords who engage in a lucrative opium traffic. Thousands of coalition troops will probably have to remain there for some years to protect that new democracy. It could be a role model for Iraq's election early next year. Columbus Day brought memory to me of my visit in Central America back in the eighties. Any who failed to vote down there were subject to paying a fine. It seemed strange, but there was so much civil war then that I guess voting had to be coerced. Communism from Cuba had grown strong in both Nicaragua and El Salvador. Honduras was siding against it and with the U.S. as a base for the Contras, who sought to overthrow a San Denista party ruling from Managua. We got a brain wash from them on our "fact finding mission" sponsored by the Okla.Conference of Churches. Marxism was their basis for government, economics, public education, and even a "peoples church.". So I can guess how difficult it's been to overcome Islamism (political rather than spiritual) in Afghanistan during three years since the Taliban were defeated there.

And speaking of elections, a deadlock like that one in FL four years ago could possibly happen in a bunch of states this time. But the "consoling words" I heard one pundit say were that thousands of lawyers on both sides are prepared in advance to fight for rights this time, whereas none were back then. My, but that's reassuring isn't it?

Maybe Mt.St.Helens will have erupted when you read this. I get tired of seeing it just blow off steam. Makes me think of a hot head person who keeps boiling inside. Want to say "Come on now, cool down." But temper in a mountain is far more than tempest in a tea pot. In fact, it's not temper but temper-ature we keep seeing. If there's ever an eruption, that would amount to "blowing your top" I suppose. So keeping your cool is a lot better. One of the Bible texts I memorized in my youth was PROVERBS 16:32. Now I've put it to the tune of Skiptamalou My Darling: "Proverbs sixteen thirty-two---shows what self control can do---'cause just like trouble, the numbers double--- when you loose your cool.   HE THAT IS SLOW TO ANGER IS---BETTER THAN THE MIGHTY---AND HE THAT RULETH HIS SPIRIT THAN---HE THAT TAKETH A CITY."

The late Christopher Reeve raised our consciousness about stem cell research. Thus private foundations may grant far more support since our laws certainly don't ban it even on embryonic stem cells.. But federal funding would disregard moral scruples against destroying human life. Since the Living GOD gives life it's value, this may be a measure of our allegiance to Him, same as the Marriage Amentmen. Though a number of Hollywood stars favor federal funding, I feel sure that the same ones also oppose a Marriage Amedment. Marriage signifies the return of our Lord Jesus for the Bride awaiting Him. She is the New Jerusalem that John saw in Rev.21, "coming down from GOD out of heaven, prepared as a bride adored or her husband." That final vision in the Bible sites marriage as closing (as well as opening in Genesis 3) institution of Scripture. Thus, it is never to be redefined. Jesus soke of it "as at the first." Now the shame and disgrace of our land is the disregard it is shown: half ending in divorce, more and more just living together, and pressure to legalize same sex unions. Come Lord Jesus!

Vandalism at Nature Park and then theft at our Depot museum last week have been followed here in WW by damage in our High School to the trophy case and vending machine early last Sat. morning. Three male students quickly identified and arrested for expressing anger at their teachers so destructively. It's expected that they will have to pay for all the broken glass and other property loss. A former WW law officer began as police chief in Elmore City the first of this month. He is Tony Johnston who lived just around the corner from our Pinkhouse. Then he volunteered to serve with a thousand civilians who were to be sent to Iraq to train Iraqi police. But the state dept. put that on hold as his place had been filled in WW. So after some undeserved job difficulties, the little family of three is back in Elmore City. He's hired there for at least three years I'm told.

Don't think I've ever written about this column before, but it was in Oct.of '91 that it began. Critter was the subject so I called it "Daily Dogalogue," claiming that there were already enough catalogues being published. Well, the name changed to "Biblical Perspective" and then just became my name and photo. Jeff Shultz has been quite fair to let me write. Though some things get taken out, my website is show if any want to read the unedited copy/. Berry Porterfield corrects a lot of my typos that get past this web-tv spell checker. So now the column has survived year thirteen. It's certainly been a privilege for me here in the town I love and I've seen this paper grow into county wide coverage. Just hope I can keep up with the many improvements that it cotinues to make. If you read me often, you know that I have a fixation on the old (former) water tower. Knowing that it was erected the same year the Wright brothers began this aviation age makes we recall my job at Kendall Grocery beneath it while in PV High. I'd look up and imagine it was a space craft to ride into the sky. That was when German V-2 rockets were falling on London. Now what has shrunk this planet as much as air travel? Only radio, TV and the Internet can compare. And when I listed the "expansion of man" last week, I forgot to mention it. Not only his arms and legs have been lengthened, but man sprouted wings. Add space travel to that, wingless flight. I also neglected to name his brain expansion with computers. He couldn't have this world of 'instant everything' without them. Back in 1903 he was still traveling on horses or in a horse and buggy. Last year the old tower marked a full century and what a leap in all technologies it has been up to now. We may reach out next to grab Mars and then the stars. Here's a quote from seminary I recall: "Man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" Yet we also await the Lord's return, which will be far greater than all man's accomplishment.   

It will be over when you see this, but it will have been the only v-p debate of our presidential race. As Cheney faces Edwards, the challenger, it will be a sit down exchange in answering questions from the audience instead of the moderator, who will be again from NPR, but this time a female reporter. And Cleveland OH, the place. Now that may signal something since it's the city where traffic lights first began. Maybe the Republicans will get a green light in that state, which they must win to take the election, And the polls seem to show that Democrats came out ahead in FL last week. But Bush has two more to go with Kerry and I felt he won the first one, though the majority seems to disagree.

I picked up a copy of the ballot at our WW library and also watched Brad Carson debate Dr.Tom Colburn on TV. Both are running for the Senate seat Don Nichols will vacate. There are nine state questions for voters too. I counted six that change our state Constitution. The one to ban same sex marriage is #711. It only adds to the Constitution, which I favor as I do nationally also. But several requiring change are for legalization of gambling. They will certainly loosen the moral standards as the public concludes that anything legal is ok. Since we are the OK state, we should have some higher expectations than just pleasing everyone. One state leader has said that passing # 711 would slow new business coming into Oklahoma. Yet I'm sure he favors passage of the gaming questions. He has the same name as that son in the Bible's first family who slew his brother, then left home to build the first city.

New things keep getting built right here in PV, and without killing or selling out. Our water towers are symbolic, the newest from '69 looking so fresh and clean and the old one from 1903 still a tower of hope downtown. Lintz is gone but is turning into the Toy Museum so very unique. Deana's Diner closed on S.Chickasaw but now Paula's Place is there. Preacher Reed's house built in 1907 down there looks new again as a business site. And even the 25 cent car wash is refurbished with a sign "grand opening" out front. Down here in WW we have a couple of brand new safe rooms at our elementary and middle schools. Supt. Weldon applied for them as soon as he was hired last year and now they match the architecture perfectly at both sites. The middle school's will also be used as band room. And I must mention our own former rent house just a block north of the Pinkhouse where we live. It's been completely rebuilt inside following a fire last year, and Niece now has it for sale. To me, it's like the Lord's new creation that happens within each self after Christ comes to dwell inside. A little song says it: "Let the beauty of Jesus be seen i me. All His wonerful passion and purity. O Thou Spirit divine, all my nature refine. TIll the beauty of JESUS be seen in me."

Kerry is from the east (MA) and Bush from the old west (TX) and they did meet, despite Kipling's poem: "Oh east is east and west and never the twain shall meet, till earth a sky stand presently at GOD's great judgement seat. For there is neither east nor west, border nor breed nor birth, when two strong men stand face to face; though they come from the ends of the earth." My late father, JMH, often quoted from Rudyard Kipling whose poetry he liked so much. (His father had belonged to the British "Black and Tans," an outfit somewhat like our Marines. Of course this poem comes from the height of the British Empire in which Christian of the west were confronted by Muslims of the east. Somehow the debate Wednesday recalled those words I learned long ago. It was in the finest tradition of gentlemanly behavior and made me proud that everyone on the planet was watching. I certainly felt that my man won, though the way it was carried out was a win for both sides i.e. no ugliness, slurs or gutter talk. And no yelling or anger on display. I had predicted that it might be dull and it might have been to some, but to me it was totally gripping. All the rules seem to have paid off with an excellent performance.

That vandalism in our Audubon Park down south of Rush Creek was more evidence of the chaos growing in our society. Terrorism is hatred of persons and vandalism of property. The latter may not seem as serious as the former, but I see it as an extension of the the same bizarre mind set. After all, property is the extension of persons upon their possessions, that for which they expend the energy of existence. And the ultimate property of each individual is his/her own body. So terrorism and vandalism interconnect as a form of destructive insanity. Remember that the latter takes it's name from a maritime Nordic race that seemed more beast than human from the way they ravaged and burned the ships they captured. "Vandal" is about the most disgusting term in our vocabulary.

I told you of seeing that brightest star of all named Sirius. Somewhere it was suggested that "the bright and morning star" designation of Christ could refer to this one that's visible all around the world. I also learned that it was first suspected of being double from calculations of an astronomer of the early 19th century. Later, another sky watcher verified that by telescope observation. Thus it was the original "binary" star. Today we know that over half of the visible stars are binary, our sun (Sol) being one of those still singular (thus the word "solitary"). The heavenly majority must be an example that "it is not good for the man to be alone." And the "bright and morning star's" coupled state may foreshow His being finally joined to the Bride. The largst Sirius star is three `times the size of itīs companion, which is a heavy neutron star (one thatīs collapsing). But it will surely explode finally into a supernova rather that going on down dead into a black hole. I know this isnīt astronomy. Iīm talking eschatology instead. Yet I see signs everywhere of a divine purpose coming to pass for humanity and possibly for intelligent life beyond our tiny

What a pace of events ahead in PV this fall! Football, staring a new kind of disc golf, Moonlight Madness, then Halloween, And the comedy drama next month by local actors, "Don't Drink the Water." We'd better fasten our safety belts (which means read from the Bible at the start of each morning).   Shalom/Salaam

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