Praising God In the Psalms---The World's Ultimate Anti-Depressant for Self-Absorption

UPDATE: WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT INDIANA'S RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT

PETER KREEFT WRITES ELOQUENTLY ON THE BOOK OF PSALMS IN HIS BOOK, YOU CAN UNDERSTAND THE BIBLE,

Though the Psalms span the range of a multitude of human attitudes, one stands out as their primary theme, the one they keep coming back to: praise, worship, adoration. 

If our prayers are not largely praise, they fail to conform to God's prayer pattern. 

Praise is our rehearsal for heaven. Praise is tremendous therapy for self-absorbed, worried, and self-pitying souls, for praise is self-forgetful---one of the things we need the most. 

Praise looks at God, not self. We praise God simply because he's God, because he is praiseworthy. 

Nothing else can free us from the terrible slavery to the thousand little tyrants of the modern world---our cares, worries, worldly responsibilities and diversions---as perfectly as self-forgetful praise of God. It need not be accompanied or motivated by emotion; merely doing it worlds healing within.

PSALM 100, A PSALM FOR GIVING GRATEFUL PRAISE:

1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

2 Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

3 Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his[a]; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.

5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

 

Talk Show Host Dave Ramsey's Story

THE SEXUALLY CONSERVATIVE MILLENNIALS

FROM THE PJMEDIA PIECE BY DAVE SWINDLE--WHO ARE THE BEST CONSERVATIVE TALK SHOW HOSTS?: I agree: Dave Ramsey is one of the best, if  not THE best because he teaches and lives real hope and empowerment.

He's helped more families to financial peace and solvency that anyone else. He teaches Biblical finance and common sense. Dave Ramsey: where hopelessness and insanity go to die. Now if we could just get Dave to Washington D.C.

Analyst Boockvar Says Market Selloff Sign Fed Bubble Is Bursting And Interest Rates Need to Rise

WHAT WE'RE LEARNING ABOUT THE PILOTS.... SHOCKING REVELATIONS ABOUT GERMANWINGS CRASH: WAS DELIBERATE..... GENDERCIDE OF BOYS IN FEMINIST-RUN CLASSROOMS
 BOOCKMAN NAILS WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE ECONOMY AND HOW FED COULD START THE HEALING PROCESS, if it only had the guts. 

 Zero interest rates and Keysian monetary policy haven't worked, except to push stock markets unnaturally higher and higher. Getting things normalized will be painful but necessary, but Fed Dove Lady Yellan hasn't the stomach to do the right thing. She continues to think easy, free money is the answer to everything.

The Fed and these central banks are ruling the world with ridiculous monetary policy and when the inevitable crash happens----as it will---it's going to be very acutely painful for our country---and the rest of the world.

A Few Words About Verizon Wireless, Blogging and Living In the Country..... Away From Maddening Construction Noise

IBD: STOCK MARKET SELLS OFF---BIOTECHS AND CHIPS HARDEST HIT

.....MAYHEMIC DESTRUCTION COMING FROM ABE'S

 I AM SO FORTUNATE TO CONTINUE HAVING A HOME-AWAY-from-home here in the country. As spring springs, I can now open my bedroom windows on warm nights and hear the magical sounds of frogs croaking  off in the distance. Just wish some of my neighbors who are suffering more than I from Abe's Garden  ill-sited project could be out here with me.

 Meanwhile, my trusted WiFi---My-Fi--went  completely out early this week and I only had time to replace it at the  dreaded Verizon store this morning.

If you want to see me truly at my dead level worst, then follow me into a Verizon store after I've had two cups of half-and-half coffee.  Mercifully for all concerned, I wasn't fully caffeinated but trust me, it wasn't pretty.

Always feel like I enter the store like a crack addict.  I need a fix and they know it.  They know how to work the crowd and love to make us sign new TWO YEAR CONTRACTS or else pay double or triple for anything that's out of warranty, which is everything.

They are professional at Bait-N-Switch....and are always saying they understand...

No, don't think they do.  After telling the salesman for the umpteenth time I was NOT going to sign another two year contract and having him keep on  badgering me (May I ask why?...We sure don't want to lose you!), I told him I was not willing to work for them and be hog-tied by anymore contract that penalized leaving or changing carriers.  These guys are courteous but relentless.  I don't care for such pressure.

Anyway,  I ended up paying for the My-Fi device---- and not signing a contract. I would have let the whole damn thing go were I not living in the country where it's mandatory for Internet service.

Two Favorite Quotes From Aleksandr Solzhenitzen's Gulag Archipelago and Another From C.S. Lewis

TIM KELLER:  WE NEVER MARRY THE 'RIGHT' PERSON

IT'S ALL TOO EASY FOR EACH OF US TO FALL UNDER THE VERY HUMAN SPELL OF PRIDE AT ANY TIME when we lapse into seeing the world in a them-verses-us dichotomy of good and evil. We point to the evil bad guys as if out there as we assure ourselves of our  self-righteousness and goodness.


This is especially true in the ongoing political and cultural wars of our time. That's why I love to go back often to several of Solzhenitzen's greatest and most convicting quotes from his time in the gulag. His unique Christian perspective of sin and grace is apolitical yet encompasses every human heart in our fallen state regardless of race, color or political or cultural persuasion: 

"It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience; how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains… an uprooted small corner of evil.” ―

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956  

“Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.” 

 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

Then this is the best of all thrilling quotes on the evil still within each of us, compliments of C.S. Lewis:

"When a man is getting better...

...he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping."

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Lent is a good time to  get back in touch with our sin nature and the evil and mixed motives that still lurk within us.  A very good time to remember that while we were still sinners,  Christ Jesus died for us and for our salvation....if we are but willing to acknowledge we're sinnersin need of a Savior---and can never save ourselves--- and accept His free and finished-on-the-cross gift of redemption.

Thanks to BG for teaching me about these famous quotes years ago.

Listen Up Nashville---Haven't We Had Enough Stadium Change Operations?

WHEN ARE CITIES GOING TO COME TO THEIR SENSES? When will taxpayers finally put their foot down and say NO!? NO MORE!? No matter how much promoters and developers promise no public monies will ever be used, it never works out that way.

Take the new Nashville Sounds Baseball Stadium for instance. Recent headlines indicate there are 'questions' still looming. Read that PROBLEMS are looming and costs are skyrocketing way out of budget. Is any thinking taxpayer really surprised at this? Of course not. It's the game these cities play to get their feet in the door so there's no going back...then wham! OOPS! we have a few money  problems and are going to need to be bailed out. Sorry.

Nick Gillespie Interviews Camille Paglia On Feminism, Race, Gender Obsessions and Nazi/Stalinist View of Art

LONG BUT WELL-WORTH WATCHING. PAGLIA HAS GROWN UP (SOMEWHAT) AND GOES AGAINST THE GRAIN OF LATE-STAGE FEMINISM. Gender and race lens are not enough to explain the totality of all human life and doesn't take into account nature and eternity.

Of course I agree though not on everything. She is no friend of Hillary Clinton whom she calls a liar, a mess and enabler.
Paglia is smart and actually very funny.

Mike Shmerling Continues to 'Charm' Our Densely Populated Residential Neighborhood--With His Abe's Garden Development and Horrific Noise and Dust

CONGRATULATIONS TO BIBI FOR A GREAT VICTORY IN ISRAEL

 BELOW, A SMALL SAMPLE OF THE DEFEAFENING, NON-STOP NOISE WE ARE FORCED TO ENDURE ONLY FEET FROM OUR HOMES

WAY TOO MUCH SQUEEZED ON FAR TOO LITTLE LAND AND NOW A GEO-THERMAL DRILL FROM HELL  

WHATTA SAY MIKE, maybe it's time to call all the local HD TV stations and give them a tour and let them see for themselves---and hear---what the new development ethic is in Nashville? Then give members of the Metro Planning Commission and Metro Council a look-see. It's coming soon to a news program near you. And our trial is coming up too.

(ABOVE, OUR BACK YARD A YEAR AGO AND FOR THE PAST FIFTY YEARS.)

Notwithstanding the slick, very expensive, continuous PR/charm campaign, this project to the stars is the most inappropriate, ill-placed and irresponsibly sited development Nashville has ever seen, imo. How would you like it if this happened in your back-yard, in your very gated community at Hill Place---off Davidson and Post Roads?

You've taken our land, cut down all our beautiful buffer and boundary trees---which would have mitigated many of the ghastly environmental damages/dust/noise etc---and completely destroyed our quality of life.  None of it was necessary.  You also made a deal with me at the Metro Planning Commission which you had no intention of  keeping and wrongly thought we and I wouldn't have the money or the will to stand up to you.  You counted on us to roll over and give up. We haven't, we aren't and I promise, we're not going away.

We're all for private property rights, but you have crossed the line with us in so many ways, too numerous to count. The deafening noise in the video above via Martha is now what all of us have to listen to 8 hours a day in the weeks ahead, non-stop, we're being told.

Scott Ott @ PJMedia Reviews the 'Shocking' Remake of Cinderella

ZERO HEDGE: CALIFORNIA IS TURNING BACK INTO THE DESERT IT ONCE WAS WITH NO PLAN B
OTT WRITES. 

CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THIS STUNNING FAIRY TALE WITH NOT A HINT OF FEMINISM OR POLITICAL CORRECTNESS! That's really good because I didn't care much for the Marigold Hotel movie---it drug in places and was terribly contrived.

The tale of Cinderella has been retold, directly or indirectly, countless times in recent years, but something just happened to it that I would not believe if I had not seen it.

The latest rendition, released in theaters this past weekend, tells the story with delightful charm, breathtaking beauty, squeaky-clean morality and — most surprising in this age of sly sarcasm — “without a hint of irony.”

That last phrase I stole from another princess film — Enchanted — which was, phrase notwithstanding, rich in irony (as well as terrific humor and great music).

With Cinderella (2015), director Kenneth Branagh and screenwriter Chris Weitz have done the almost unimaginable. They’ve displayed sincere affection between a prince and a servant girl, without post-modern angst or politically correct messaging. In a word, they made a “Disney movie” the likes of which I feared had faded to black with each year since Walt’s passing.

If there is any seemingly obligatory commentary about the role of women, gender equality, and the impossible dream of true love, it’s among the bitter on Twitter, not in the film. Perhaps more shocking than the genuine and chaste love between the prince and Cinderella is the sincere respect, love and admiration between the prince and his father, the king, as the son struggles to balance his love for the mysterious maiden, with his desire to honor his father. Most men yearn for a such a relationship with their boys.

Fairy tales were meant to sweep us from our mundane lives, captivate our hearts, lift our spirits and make us dream again. This Cinderella does all of that better than anything I’ve seen since Beauty and the Beast (1991). Read more: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2015/03/16/shocker-how-the-cinderella-re-make-does-something-almost-unthinkable-since-walt-disneys-death/#ixzz3UbAJv9Vo

Sunday---Prayer

WHAT A GORGEOUS SUNNY DAY! AFTER ALL THE BAD WEATHER WE'VE HAD RECENTLY.  It's hard to come inside to the computer, even late in the day.

This year,  one of the things I'm dedicating my life to is improving my prayer life.  I can tell you,  I have a long way to go. But for me,  books by wise spiritual fathers help me along tremendously.  To that end,  I've just completed Elmer Towns brilliant, edifying work Praying the Lord's Prayer for Spiritual Breakthrough. Can't tell you how helpful it is to have this amazing book.  I recommend it highly and will go back and review it often. It's so good, in fact,  that if it were the only book I ever read on prayer,  I could progress a long, long way and have plenty of insights to work with.

This week I began another book on prayer by spiritual author Peter Kreeft called Prayer for Beginners. That would be me! I love, love, love the simplicity and insight in this mighty little classic and am now carrying it around in my purse so I can ponder its wisdom at quick moments during my busy day.

Want to take a few of Kreeft's excerpts on the Jesus Prayer.  And by the way,  Kreeft calls himself a beginner in praying. I can't over-estimate the joy I find in reading this book:

"JESUS," The Shortest, Simplest and Most Powerful Prayer in the World

The Jesus Prayer consists simply in uttering the single word 'Jesus' (or Lord Jesus, or Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner) in any situation, at any time and place, either aloud or silently.

There is only one prerequisite, one presupposition:  that you are a Christian or follower of Christ.  If you have faith in Christ, hope in Christ, and love of Christ, you can pray the most powerful prayer in the world....

It is  the simplest of all prayers.  It is not one of the many 'methods', because it bypasses methods and cuts right to the heart of practicing God's presence, which is the essence of prayer, the secret of which has been given to us by God the Father.  The secret is simply God the Son, God incarnate, the Lord Jesus....

It is so simple that it is like the center point of a circle.  It is the whole circle.  It contains in itself the whole gospel.....

Like any prayer, it  'works' not by the power of some impersonal magic, but by the power of personal faith and hope and love.  It is like a sacrament in that way:  it 'works' objectively by the power of God's action, not ours...

This prayer is not a sort of Christian yoga.  It is not meditation.  Its purpose is not to transform our consciousness and make us mystics or to bring inner peace, or to center on our on hearts...

For all these things are subjective, inside the human soul; but this prayer is dialogue, relationship, reaching out to another person, to Jesus, God made man, invoking him as yous savior, lover, lord and God....

In this prayer our attention is not directed inward, into our own consciousness, but only out onto Jesus....he is not self but other; he is Lord of the self.

Yet, although our intention in this prayer is not to transform our consciousness, this prayer does transform our consciousness.  How? It unifies it.  Out usual consciousness is like an unruly, stormy sea, or like a flock of chattering monkeys, or a cage of butterflies, or a hundred little bouncing balls of mercury spilled from a fever thermometer.  We cannot gather it together.  Only God can, for God is the Logos....gathering into one.  This unification  happens in us (slowly and subtly and sweetly) only when we forget ourselves in him.  This is one of the ways 'he who loses his self shall find it.'

Will continue on this next week.

Nashville Lawyer Wins Big Settlement For Marvin Gaye's Family In Federal Court In LA For Copyright Infringement

UNBLURRING THE LINES: VERDICT COULD ALTER MUSIC BUSINESS

ATTORNEY RICHARD BUSCH:  HOW I WON THE BLURRED LINES TRIAL

ROBIN THICKE AND PHARRELL WILLIAMS ORDERED BY FEDERAL JURY TO PAY $7.4 MILLION TO GAYE'S FAMILY

MONUMENTAL WIN FOR NASHVILLE MUSIC ATTORNEY RICHARD BUSCH

A jury found “Blurred Lines” co-creators Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams copied parts of Marvin Gaye’s 1977 hit “Got To Give it Up” for their 2012 song, and awarded $7.3 million to the late soul-singer’s estate.

Thicke and Williams have been battling Gaye’s children for a year over whether or not their bass-driven, Grammy-nominated smash hit took too liberally from Gaye’s song. “Blurred Lines” raked in about $16 million in profits for its creators and record labels; Thicke and Williams, who is also a judge on “The Voice,” made about $5 million each.

 Rapper T.I. also raps on “Blurred Lines,” but reportedly made about $700,000 from it. Thicke and Williams denied ripping off the Gaye work for “Blurred Lines.”

Both are listed as songwriters on the credits, but Thicke said Williams wrote it on his own.

Thicke also testified in a deposition he was “drunk and high on drugs” at the time. He claimed he was “mentally absent” from the process, adding he was “lucky enough to be in the room.”

Williams testified he wrote “Blurred Lines” in an hour in 2012, and the pair recorded it in one night. Gaye’s daughter Nona Gaye said she felt “free” after the verdict — “free from . . . Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke’s chains and what they tried to keep on us and the lies that were told.”

As seems to be the case far too often these days, I have far too many balls in the air at once to write much more right now. Will attempt to get back later today. In any event, thank you for coming by.

Sunday, For This Purpose and A Psalm for Lent

A PSALM OF REPENTANCE, A WONDERFUL PSALM LEADING UP TO EASTER

PSALM 51[a] For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. 5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.

10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you. 14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. 15 Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 My sacrifice, O God, is[b] a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.

A Real Man and Leader Speaks in 'I' Statements And Never You, You, You's Others

 VICTORY OR DEATH: WILLIAM BARRET TRAVIS AT THE ALAMO
 
WHEN ANYONE YOU, YOU, YOU'S ME RATHER THAN I THIS AND I THAT, I KNOW THEY'VE NEVER REACHED FULL MATURITY AND DIFFERENTIATED INTO THEIR TRUEST AUTHENTIC SELVES.

 A real man can take a stand and let the chips fall where they may---even if it's death. And Travis did courageously die at the Alamo.

The above speech, read by Senator Ted Cruz, is the ultimate declaration of a real leader and manly man.

More @ PJMEDIA

Grinch That I Am---Several Things I Can Barely Stand to Think About Right Now

UPDATE: THIS IN-DEPTH STORY ON THE DEBACLE AT NBC NEWS IS FASCINATING
FRIDAY UPDATE:  HILLARY'S EMAIL SCANDAL MULTIPLES BY TEN

I'M CURRENTLY GOING THROUGH A SPELL WHERE I HATE TO READ  OR WRITE ABOUT ALMOST ANYTHING IN THE CURRENT NEWS CYCLES.  I come to the computer, make the rounds and see what's going on, then start to post.  But nothing comes out of my brain that I'm willing to convey to my keyboard, let alone to the computer screen for publishing.

I stop and realize I simply don't want to think about a growing host of subjects, let along write about them.  Surely this writer's block will pass, I assure myself.  Or will it?  Maybe this will straighten up when things  finally thaw out and we get back on Daylight Savings Time Sunday.

Sunshine might do wonders for my grumpiness. But until that happens,  here are a few things I don't want to think about right now:

1.  Many more weeks of  rain and cloudy weather.  In the last five years--since before Nashville's massive May 1 flood in 2010, it seems Middle Tennessee has had more long periods of rain and dreariness than in the past 50 years. Day in and day out, month after month and year after year.  There's no question that our part of the country is getting a double dose of our own and poor drought-ravaged California's annual rainfall.  I mean,  how much longer can this dreariness go on? We are getting sun tomorrow and it's not a minute too soon. All my favorite hiking trails are drenched and almost too waterlogged to walk on for days and weeks at a time.

2.  Hillary Clinton being elected co-president with Bill in 2016.   I mean, after 8 years of Mr. Obama, the thought of even four years---let along eight---of this woman almost makes me want to go permanently offline.  If our country elects her, we will most certainly get what we deserve:  years of secret deals and hidden email accounts, mysterious scandals involving major foreign policy decisions and donations made through the Clintons'  gargantuan global foundation, womanizing scandals involving Bill that could easily rival those of the other Bill---as in Cosby. The thought of Hillary and Bill in the White House---with all the drama and scandal it would involve---is almost too much to bear.

3. The Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran.  Words fail me as I think of our feckless president making this enemy Islamic state into a make-believe U.S. ally in the Middle East as Israel and Mr. Netanyahu scramble to avert this administration's latest foreign policy disaster-in-the-making.  Obama is so out of his league with Netanyahu that it defies belief. And yet,  Obama can still do incalculable damage to the world.

4. Any news story that has the word Pelosi in it.  

5. How Apple Computer is chomping at the bit for Obama to befriend Iran with nuclear indulgences so it can get its corporate foot in the door in Tehran.

6.  The Fed's Zero Interest Policy (ZIRP) that falsely props up the gargantuan U. S. spending spree/deficit and stock markets everywhere.

7. Bruce Jenner becoming a woman.  What a sad story.  What a lost and sad human being.   And does anyone really want to have a blow-by-blow of how he goes about the sordid task of doing this?  More boring than anything I can imagine.

Which brings me to my last item for now....

8.  Anything about the Kardashians.  All I can say is the end must be near.

No really.

That's enough grinchiness for me for one night....Carry on.

Back Online---On PM Benjamen Netanyahu's Brilliant Speech Before Congress Today

LINK:  ROGER SIMON ON THE REAL FALLOUT OF BIBI'S SPEECH AND PELOSI GETTING THE VAPORS 

NEO WEIGHS IN WITH THE CHURCHILL CONNECTION

JAZZ SHAW @ HOTAIR APOLOGIZES 

JUST NOW GETTING BACK TO POSTING AFTER SEVERAL DAYS OFF....not a minute too soon.  Seeing Nancy Pelosi play the drama queen during Netanyahu's brilliant speech today before Congress tells me only one thing---he must be doing something right.

Hope to be back early in the morning after a good night's sleep, after a very long,  rainy drive back from Houston.

Thank you for coming by.