Devotions

When we are told about collateral damage, acceptable losses, friendly fire, lifes of diminished value as human shields, or some other excuse for bombings never forget God even in Old Testament anger is far, far more merciful. Further more all followers of Jesus are rebuked by Him if they call down fire on enemies. Surely this includes both the desire for cosmic vengeance and the desire to drop bombs on the children of your enemies. God is willing to spare the righteous even if few in number: 22 And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the Lord. 23 And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24 Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? 25 That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from the...

Second draft of a sermon I am working on: Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer. Righteousness of the Kingdom READ: Matthew 5:17-32 (NKJV) 17 "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. 21 "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the ...

Governments, armies, Terrorists and arms dealers all claim to be serving the greater good in eliminating threats. They claim to protect us from enemies (while clearly swimming in a sea of money like Scrooge McDuck). But, the question is, who will protect us from them? It is the age-old "Who Will Watch the Watchmen?"

So today I attended another support group session. Todays topic was on anxiety and burnout. As I knew about social anxiety already, from being diagnosed with it longer, the session confirmed lots of previous knowledge. What was particularly interesting was information and discussion about burnout and fatigue. I discovered many traits in my own life I hadn't seen before. Once back home I found a little guide for adults with autistic fatigue on The National Autistic Society website  which may be an interesting read for some. You are invited to the Inlinkz link party! Click here to enter

For the preservation of our species and to stop bombs being dropped on families and communities it seems sensible we remove the problem. Particularly when said bombs target civilians, journalists, aid and medical personnel.  Either we remove from the equation governments who support this practice, those willing to use said weapons, or those who make such weapons. Or all the above. Or we sit back and allow, as we have for generations, them to terrorise the people. To kill and mame the elderly, men, women, children and innocent babies. To destroy schools, hospitals, and places of worship or community. To destroy entire families and communities. To obliterate nations.  If they do it under the pretenses of just war or open terrorism is of no import to those who suffer under the reign of fire.  My personal vendetta is against the arms trade and governments who sit in the pockets of these violators of humanity. These death peddlers need to be stopped. They are enemies of the pe...

So I started my late diagnosis autism group yesterday. It was lots to take in. Some topics I knew about a bit. Some was a bit new. One thing I liked was the term Spiky profile. I can definitely relate to this concept. It is the idea that an autistic person can be great at some things and not so good at some day to day stuff. The first three paragraphs in this article on Medium explain it better.  The article defines it as follows, "A  spiky profile : a phenomenon whereby the disparity between strengths and weaknesses is more pronounced than for the average person."

This is the first draft of a sermon I am working on:  Righteousness of the Kingdom Matthew 5:17-32 In the words of brother Anthony to St Francis on the way to his brothers in Umbria, Good Morning! A Sunday school class was once concerned for an unwell mother in the congregation, who was in hospital, so the teacher asked them to look up verses of encouragement to put on a card. One little boy opened his Bible at Matthew 5:26: "Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny!" That is a rather humorous way of simply saying that context is important. Background To that end, we will start with some background work. As this is a sermon series you will probably have heard some of this already, so consider this a practical recap. The gospel of Matthew is the first book of the Christian New Testament, though some argue Mark was written first. It is proposed that it was written in the context of second generation Christians around the time of the destruc...