"This is the end of the third temple."

“THIS IS THE END OF THE THIRD TEMPLE.”

A lone Israeli Lockheed Martin F-35A Adir fighter darts briefly to the south as it speeds eastward though the early morning chill across the Jordan Valley towards Iran. This particular plane is one of the same fighters that attacked a Houthi fuel depot in Yemen on September 29, 2024. The Adir, which means “Strong One” in Hebrew and is one of the sobriquets of Yahweh, is headed 2,020 km towards Natanz, Iran where there is a Iranian nuclear facility. Today,...

Diamonds

DIAMONDS

There have been several important men as far as my faith is concerned.  One was Chaplain Carl T. Hawkins who mentored me when the “scales dropped from my eyes” as St. Luke describes the conversion of St. Paul. Another was also a Baptist minister, Arthur Blessitt, best known for dragging a twelve-foot cross around the planet.  That sounds extreme, especially to my liturgical friends, yet alone people who have not yet come to faith.  It is sort of like the seemingly odd prophets of...

Have faith in our institutions

HAVE FAITH IN OUR INSTITUTIONS

Only two countries in the modern world have a founding document older than the U.S. Constitution. The oldest is England, if you count the Magna Carta of 1215, and secondly the tiny republic of San Marino (1600), nestled snugly within the Italian peninsula.  Other countries such as the Dominican Republic have had 32 constitutions altogether, and a number of other countries from Ecuador to Thailand have had 20 or more constitutions.  Israel, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia are several of the few...

The SARS-CoV-2 virus

INFLUENZA AND COVID UPDATE

This is a good time to mention the flu and COVID, both of which are filling up emergency rooms across the country.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention anticipates that the avian influenza A (H5N1) virus, or “H5N1 bird flu,” in dairy cows, poultry and other animals will be the chief flu strain in the U.S. this coming winter. September is approximately the month that seasonal vaccines come out, and I encourage everyone who reads my blog who can be...

Stop the Steal!

STOP THE STEAL!

It’s Tuesday, November 5th at 7:30 p.m., and more polls are expected to close in the Midwest at the top of the hour.  Vice-Presidential Harris has 89 elector votes based on winning New England (minus one elector in Maine) and the mid-Atlantic States (New York, New Jersey, Maeryland, etc.) she was expected to win.  The Southeast (including the battleground states of Georgia and North Carolina) have to gone ex-President Donald Trump who now has 135 electoral votes, temporarily putting him in the lead...

God is my refuge

GOD IS MY REFUGE

The word “refuge” is a very interesting word.  It is basically a hiding place. Most people have their own informal refuge or secret place they go to when they are super stressed or need to think through a problem.  For a teenager, it might be their room or a friend’s house where they can just chill. To others, a favorite place that serves comfort food.  Some adults might go to a vista where they feel a communion with nature.  Others a movie. Still...

NIGHTMARE

I remember how as a child my mother would say to me “Pleasant dreams” when she wished me good night. Mercifully, when we close our eyes, we often have just that.  But what if our dreams are not pleasant?  What then? Then, we have what is called a nightmare, which is a most unpleasant dream. I’ve had them and likely so have you. If you look up the etymology of “nightmare,” you’ll learn that the term goes back to the twelfth century...

As you heal from your aneurysm repair

AS YOU HEAL FROM YOUR ANEURYSM REPAIR

This post is a continuation of a previous post titled Omi’s Aneurysm. In this post, I plan to journal what I hope will be a very uneventful recovery in the days and months ahead following my dear wife’s surgery, which occurred on August 9, 2024 for a 7 mm saccular, intracranial aneurysm. The word “intracranial” means within the cranium, or inside the bones that form the head. More than likely in this context, it refers to the largest of the...

October surprise?

OCTOBER SURPRISE?

An October surprise is often an unplanned event the month before the general election (though, it could conceivably be a staged event as well.) An example of what many see as a staged event is when, in 1968 with the unpopular bombing of North Vietnam in full swing, President Johnson (D) announced the weekend before the election, that there would be a halt to the bombing and he held out the suggestion of peace talks. This was an initiative that...

Apartheid by any other name

APARTHEID BY ANY OTHER NAME

The term Apartheid was first used in 1948 in South Africa to describe a separate, if not equal, segregation of the races, including these four categories: Whites, Bantu (black African), Mixed races and Asian.  The term was a new compound of words from different languages.  The first segment of the word (“apart”) is clear enough in its meaning.  It refers to some sort of collection “by itself, away from others.”  From the word “hood” which refers to “head,” “manner,” “state” or “condition,” we get the “heid.” The Whites...

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