The Bridge Builder

Sometime during the 1980's I attended an IBM conference. One of the speakers used the following to close his address.

An old man going a lone highway

Came at the evening, cold and gray,

To a chasm vast and wide and steep,

With waters rolling cold and deep.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim,

The sullen stream had no fears for him;

But he turned when safe on the other side

And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,

“You are wasting your strength with building here.

Your journey will end with the passing day,

You never again will pass this way.

You’ve crossed the chasm deep and wide,

Why build you this bridge at eventide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head,

“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said

“There followeth after me today

A youth whose feet must pass this way.

The chasm that was as nought to me

To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.

He too, must cross in the twilight dim – 

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”

As I read this I couldn't help think of another bridge builder who built a bridge from earth to heaven. God the Father sent his Son to earth to prepare people to cross with him the bridge he was going to build with his blood as he died on the cross for our sin. His death and resurrection established the bridge. It is now our job to guide people to the builder of this bridge so that he can take them across.

Hot Chocolate

A group of graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired.  During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives.  Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups - porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate.

When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said: 'Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones.  While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. The cup that you're drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate.  In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Now consider this: Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups.  They are just tools to hold and contain life.  The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have.  Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us.  God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups. The happiest people don't have the best of everything.  They just make the best of everything that they have.   Live simply.   Love generously.  Care deeply.   Speak kindly.   And enjoy your hot chocolate.

I Know Where You Have Been

Smart phones are very helpful little devices, but they also can remember many things like where you have been. I would like to show you how you can see this information on your smart phone if you have one. It is kinda cool to see this location information, but since others can also see it the day may come when it might be used against you. Look at the following pictures and see what you think.

The following apply to the iPhone. I don't have the screens for other smart phones.

Go to settings and scan down to select Privacy.

At the top of the Privacy screen select Location Services.

At the bottom of the Location Services screen select System Services.

On the System Services screen scan down and select Frequent Locations.

On the Frequent Locations screen you will find a list of where you have been. There are other screens you can go to and get actual times when you were at the different locations. If you don't like your smart phone collecting this information then select Clear History and turn off the Frequent Locations switch. 

Are You Ready To Be Micro-chipped?

A headline reads:

NBC Warns: All Americans Will Be Microchipped In Less Than 3 Years

Are you ready to allow the implant of the chip shown in the picture or one similar to it?

Link to Article

I thought I would share some thoughts on this. Is the microchip itself evil? Is it wrong to put one in your body? Does it require you to deny your faith in Jesus Christ?

Is the pacemaker itself evil? Is it wrong to put one in your body and have a doctor access it through your smartphone or some other device?

During the Bible time of Paul was the meat offered to idols contaminated? Was it wrong to eat it? That depends upon the conscience of the person eating it. For the stronger in faith it wasn't, but if the weaker in faith ate under pressure of the stronger against his own conscience then it was wrong and a sin. Based upon a level of understanding two people can have different views on something and establish a level of conscience concerning it. Either one who violates their conscience sins even though the thing was done in two different ways.

I have come to understand that through love I am to respect the conscience of the weaker and not cause that one to sin. God in time may bring the two of us onto the same page, but until that happens love implies we show tolerance

Back to the microchip. For me it is not a problem. All that information is on my smart phone in my back pocket. One day I may have it on my wrist. What is so sacred about which side of the skin the information is on? I carry a lot of important health information on my smart phone that I would much rather have on a chip under my skin. But I think we are back to a matter on conscience. For me it is ok because it has not affected my relation with the Lord as is the case in Revelation. But for some it is believed to be wrong. Out of love and respect I have to allow them their position. Likewise they must allow me my position. When the day comes that I would have to deny my Lord in order for the chip to work, then that is the day that I would have to stop using it and be marked as an enemy to be destroyed. To discontinue its use to track me at that time I could use a sharp knife and remove it.

Just some thoughts.

One Awesome Road Trip

The students I have been giving driving lessons to the past three years have covered many miles with me, both in driver training and driving me from Texas to New York summers. Three of them have posted on Facebook all the states they been in. I ran across this article showing how you can cover all 48 states and visit an important site in each. It is a trip of 13,699 miles and can be done in 224 hours if there is no traffic problems. Below is a map and also a link to the article I found.

Article

Chinese Fire Works

Sometimes things are done on a grand scale. These fireworks are on a grand scale. Take a look and see what you think.

Fireworks

Here Comes the Microchip Implant

With the use of smart bracelets and the coming iWatch on our wrists it appears we might be very close to accepting the implant. Here is a link to a video of a company using the implant as an employee ID. Are you ready for this?

Link to Video

Northern Lights

There are times when solar storms occur on the surface of the sun producing magnetic plasma radiation which travels to earth creating a beautiful display of light called the "Northern Lights." A severe solar storm occurred on the sun on Sunday, March 15, reaching the earth on Tuesday producing a spectacular show for those who saw it. I saw some amazing pictures that were presented in a news article. I have provided a link to that article for you to enjoy. A sample picture is shown below.

Link to Article

Speed of Passing Years

For a very long time I have heard people say as they got older the years seem to pass by faster. As I thought about that I realized there was a simple answer and began to share it when opportunity presented itself. I would generally explain using two examples. The first example is straight forward. Each older year you live is always measured against a longer life lived and thus seems shorter. The second example I give always gets their attention because I compare life lived against a roll of toilet paper being used. As you use paper (each year lived) the roll spins faster because the paper used unwraps from around the core farther. The faster spin with use compares to faster years as you age. I decided to do the mathematics for each example and graph the results and see how my idea compares. The results are shown below.

Year Lived Compared to Life Lived

Year Lived Compared to Cylinder Rotation Speed

I am one of those people with a visual mind and have to draw pictures of my thoughts. I think it is kinda fun. The application is, "Brace yourself because life is going to accelerate you right into eternity." The big question is, "Which path are you on?"

Anti-Pollution Documentary

I did ministry work over an eight year period in China and watched the air quality deteriorate and its affect on my health worsen. It finally became one of several reasons for not going back. The picture shows one of those days when the air quality did not encourage any deep refreshing breaths. But there are a few days each year when weather conditions are just right and the sky turns blue and the sun shines clear, but as the day passes so does the clean air.


On March 4, 2015, a story titled "The Anti-Pollution Documentary That's Taken China By Storm" was posted on the internet, describing a documentary film about pollution in China. The documentary titled "Under The Dome" was produced by Chai Jing, who was an investigative reporter and anchor at China Central Television, Chai used $160,000 of her own money and one year to make the film.


"The filmmaker, Chai Jing, was an investigative reporter and anchor at state broadcaster China Central Television. She quit her job last year to take care of her daughter, who was successfully treated for a benign tumor.

The film Under the Dome was very moving for me because it brought back so many memories of when I lived there. I used to watch Chai report the news when I had my own apartment. Seeing her and hearing her voice was like meeting an old acquaintance again. Her story about leaving a status job to care for her daughter spoke volumes to people who place greater value on boys and in many cases discard girls, especially girls with health issues. This section was moving for me because of my experience with several young Chinese girls when I lived there.

Her research and reporting on this topic of pollution clarified many things and placed the problem with clarity before the people and their government. It will be interesting to see what affect this will have because currently it is more important to make money than it is to protect the health of citizens.

Below are several links for those interested in more information. The first link covers the first six minutes of the film. It has good English subtitles. You should at least watch this much.

FIRST SIX MINUTES

In the next link is sixteen minutes in length and reveals some of her information about pollution.

POLLUTION

The next link is the last eight minutes of the film and is very informative.

LAST EIGHT MINUTES

The last link provides access to the entire film. It does not have subtitles and is primarily for my Chinese friends.

FULL LENGTH FILM

If only for myself, I wanted to document this information and put it to where I could quickly find it.

Possible Data Tampering

On January 4, 2015, I posted a graph (see previous blog posting) indicating the possibility of a severe climate cool down in the future. On the graph the climate warming supporters projected a continue rise in temperatures which would severely effect life as we know it on earth. The graph also showed another possible side to the story. Some scientist saw, based on historical data, that we are in for a serious cool down like we had with the low sunspot activity of AD 1645 - 1715 or AD 1795 - 1825. This sunspot activity is shown in the following graph.

The associated temperatures to this sunspot activity is shown in the next graph.

Some scientist are using data like shown above to suggest a cool down is coming making winters much more severe than we have had during the last two winters. Will it get colder or warmer as shown in the next graph?

The global warming people say we must believe the graph on the left, not the one on the right based on raw data. This raw data shows temperature going down as the above historical data suggest.

It seems that our global warming people have been adjusting the data to show global warming because that meant billions of dollars could be spent trying to cool things off. This finally has gotten so bad that the following quote showed up in the news this morning.

Republicans To Investigate Climate Data Tampering By NASA

"Are government climate agencies tampering with climate data to show warming? Some Republicans think so. California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher says to expect congressional hearings on climate data tampering."

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION

I just found the main news link to this information. NEWS LINK

Introduction to Blog

I may not post to this blog very often but when I do I will link it to Facebook. I will use this blog as a place to store things of interest to me that might be of interest to others also.

A topic that has peaked my interest at this time is a possible correlation to sunspot activity and our climate. If what I am finding is correct then the claims of a warming climate is one of the biggest frauds of our time because the data seems to indicate that we are entering into a long period of growing cold. Consider the following graph.

The line rising to the right shows a projected warming trend to continue, which would probably cause environments problems. The graph shows the actual temperature data to be decreasing, not increasing as was projected. Some scientist believe it will continue to get colder. The question is, "How cold?"

As I continue to research this, as time allows, I will document what I find and post it here.