This blog deals with
Christian living, disability, ethics,
Life Issues, a wonderful miracle,
and faith in Jesus Christ.
“Our once great western Christian civilization is dying. If this matters to followers of Jesus Christ, then we must set aside our denominational differences and work together to strengthen the things that remain and reclaim what has been lost. Evangelicals and Catholics must stand together to re-establish that former Christian culture and moral consensus. We have the numbers and the organization but the question is this: Do we have the will to win this present spiritual battle for Jesus Christ against secularism? Will we prayerfully and cooperatively work toward a new Christian spiritual revival ― or will we choose to hunker down in our churches and denominationalisms and watch everything sink into the spiritual and moral abyss of a New Dark Age?” - Mark Davis Pickup
My wife, LaRee, has volunteered to help at a Christian orphanage in Haiti. During July, she will comfort, care, feed and tend to the needs of children who have nothing and nobody to care for them. LaRee is a skilled seamstress and sewing teacher so in addition to ongoing care of children she will be mending and making clothes and teaching orphans how to make their own clothing (an important 3rd World skill) that will serve them well to cloth and support themselves. The Edmonton store CENTRAL SEWING has donated sewing machines that must be shipped to the orphanage in Haiti prior to LaRee's arrival at the end on June (another cost). If you would like to help sponsor her mission trip by making a donation, click on the link above. Thank you for any support. Mark (Any unused funds will be given to Hands Across The Sea orphanage.)
I have been told these were Mother Teresa's last prayerful words:
"I worry some of you still have not met Jesus, one-to-one, you and Jesus alone. We have spent time in the chapel- but have you seen with the soul how much He looks at you with love? Do you really know the living Jesus - not from books but being with Him in your heart? Have you heard the loving words He speaks to you?
Ask for the grace; He is longing to give it. Until... you can hear Jesus in the silence of your own heart, you will never be able to hear Him saying, "I thirst" in the hearts of the poor. Never give up this daily intimate contact with Jesus as the real living person - not just the idea. How can we last even one day without hearing Jesus say ''I love you?'' Impossible. Our soul needs that as much as the body needs to breathe air. If not prayer is dead, meditation, only thinking.
Jesus wants you each to hear Him speaking in the silence of your heart. Be careful of all that can block that personal contact with the living Jesus. ''The devil may try to use the hurts of life, and sometimes or own mistakes - to make you feel it is impossible that Jesus really loves you, is really cleaving to you." This is a danger to all of us. And so sad, because it is completely the opposite of what Jesus is really wanting, waiting to tell you. Not only that He loves you, but even more. - He longs for you. He misses you when you don't come close. He thirsts for you. He loves you always, even when you don't feel worthy." When not accepted by others, even by yourself sometimes - He is the One who always accepts you.
Only believe - you are precious to Him. Bring all you are suffering to His feet - open your heart to be loved by Him as you are." He will do the rest." [Click on image below or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1-xRLmEwNQ for Shawna Edwards singing "Coming Home".]
In Canada ALL abortions are tax payer funded. Women can have abortions for any reason or no reason, and have as many abortions as they want. There's no legal protection for prenatal life at any point of pregnancy. Canada's Supreme Court made it so.
Now, thanks again to the Canadian Supreme Court, doctor assisted suicide will soon be legal across the land for any suicidal person with an "illness, disease or disability."[1] The gaping parameters of the high court's low ruling include either physical or psychological pain. The person's condition need not be terminal. [NB: Two years prior to the odious, unanimous 2015 ruling by Canada's Supreme Court favouring assisted suicide for sick, disabled and depressed Canadians (with much public support), the Canadian Parliament gave unanimous support for the concept of a national suicide prevention strategy (with much public support). Why the contradiction? I believe a suicide prevention strategy is intended for healthy and able-bodied suicidal Canadians. Physician assisted suicide is for sick and disabled suicidal Canadians. It boils down to anti-disability bigotry of a majority of Canadians that permeates even the media and highest levels of government and Judiciary.] Is this what we call a "civil society"? There's nothing civilized about it. It is moral darkness that will ravage the very soul of any remnants of our once civilized society, a put the lives of the most vulnerable humanity in great peril. THE FUTURE Leonard Cohen's 1992 album "The Future" carried a song of the same name. It is featured below. The vulgar words at the beginning have been removed, and I'm sorry to expose you to that even with the bleeps, but the rest of the song has an apocalyptic theme. The official video (below) removed Cohen's poignant, important lyrics, in the song:
"Destroy another fetus now,
We don't like children anyhow,
I've seen the future, baby,
It is murder."
The future is now. Good people must stand up for the ancient western code Cohen mentioned -- a code of western Christian civilization that held dear the sacredness of human life.*[See foot note below] Our society is coming apart!
__________________________ [*] The last major defense of that western moral code was World War II. The Allies fought against Nazism that directly threatened western Christian civilization. In fact, on the eve of the Battle of Britain, Prime Minister Winston Churchill stood in the British House of Commons and said, "I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned upon us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.
If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science."
The great man referred to "Christian civilization" that was eventually saved and paid for with blood and sacrifice.
They did not fail. Subsequent generations did. We squandered and rejected western Christian civilization and the ancient Common Law that it created and on which our legal system is based. As a result, we are entering the sinister new Dark Age Churchill mentioned.
Just over a week ago, I wrote a post under the title "A Child, A Song, And The Weight Of Glory".[1] It featured Jackie Evancho singing Nella Fantasia. The evening of the concert where she sang that song, back in 2012, at the age of twelve years, she sang another song called To Believe. It had the vocal accompaniment of other children. I want you to listen to it because it speaks to the important truth of living for something larger than self-interest.
To teach our children the ways of God, and to love God -- through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ -- is the most important truth you can impart to your children. Fathers, take a leadership role in the spiritual development of your children. Lovingly teach them the word of God and to love the Word of God.[2]
We are approaching Father's Day. Below is a video made by a wonderful dad who really loves his family. The six minute informative video is called We Had a Baby. Hope you enjoy it. There's nothing like family life. [Click on image below orhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aS45u_K_T8 ]
[Peter Robinson host of Uncommon Knowledge, in association with the Hoover Institution, PJMedia and PJTV, 2012, interviewed Pat Buchanan about his book SUICIDE OF A SUPERPOWER. Click on image below or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GG1rFA_QEk , 1hour. Interesting.]
Every child has a right to be. Every child has a right to thrive
and reach their full potential, whatever that may be. Adults in their world have a responsibility to make sure every opportunity is available to them to reach their potential. But this responsibility falls primary with their mother and father. It begins at the beginning, with good prenatal and post-natal care. Every child deserves good nutrition and clean air, decent housing and education. Every child deserves access to quality medical care that includes preventive measures such as immunization. Every child deserves encouragement, and nurture and, ideally, a family with a loving mother and father to guide them. They have a right to be included, and experience love, friendship and kinship.
Every child has a right to know the feeling of warm summer sun, to experience the smell and fresh cut grass and flowers, to breathe in fresh, crisp autumn air and see trees turning colors, and the changing seasons. Every child has a right to life ... a right to be, to experience, to know and to grow. Fathers have a critical role to play in his child's life. It begins with love and care in utero. The highest complement a man can give to his offspring is to love their mother. If you are a man who is unexpectedly expecting a child, then support and help your baby's mother to make the right choice. The right choice is never abortion. Real men care for their children. Rise to the call of fatherhood. If you are not willing or unable then let an adoptive couple parent your child. A little life depends upon it. Support a decision for life and let your child live and thrive. Every child has a right to be -- Mark [Click on image below or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALrJ17qKpHg for the song "A Father's Love" by Gary Valenciano.]
My wife, LaRee, has volunteered to help at a Christian orphanage in Haiti. During July, she will comfort, care, feed and tend to the needs of children who have nothing and nobody to care for them. 
