A LIttle Bit of Heaven

  This is an article from the Daily Meditations written by Ken and Gloria Copeland that I wanted to share with everyone.
   It is especially at this time of year during the Christmas season that our thoughts turn to family and how we can all have a happy home.  But truly, this should be a priority for all year long.  Our homes need to be a haven and a fortress away from the secular world in which we live.
    True peace, harmony, and love inside of the home and expressed always to our loved ones, is not easy to achieve - as the below article will show.  But it is the goal!
  The family is God's plan for us.  It is our source of strength in a fallen world.  As such, it comes under the attack of our enemy - the evil one.  If you don't quite comprehend that, or maybe don't even believe in satan and that you have an enemy, then look around you at the destruction that is going on in families -and to familes- today.
  And have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!


   I believe this article maybe one the most important articles that we will ever read, and so I offer it here.
(copywrite: Copeland ministries)

A Little Bit of Heaven on Earth

"Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another...even as Christ forgave you."
(Colossians 3:12-13)

---

Living in a home filled with the love and the peace of God Himself is almost like living in heaven right here on earth. We all know that's true. And we long to live in such a home. Yet, time and time again, we shortchange our families. We spend our kindest words and our most winning smiles on those beyond our front door.

Have you ever wondered why?

The answer is simpler than you might suspect. Spiritually speaking, your family is under attack. You see, it is not only one of your most precious gifts, when it's operating in harmony, it's one of your most powerful resources. Satan knows that even if you don't--and he's out to destroy it.

His battle plan is simple. He will do everything he can to create strife in your home. He'll stir up feelings of self-pity and jealousy. He'll encourage you to nurse resentments and harbor bitterness. And through it all, his purpose remains the same, to divide and destroy your home.

When God's people get in harmony with each other, miracles start to happen. Their agreement creates an atmosphere in which God's supernatural, miracle-working power is free to flow! So Satan is constantly tempting us to spoil that atmosphere, to foul things up by being at odds with each other. All too often we fall prey to his tactics simply because we don't realize just how dangerous strife really is. One close look at the Word of God will solve that problem, however. James 3:16 says, "Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work."

Don't open the door of your home to Satan by allowing your family the "luxury" of a few quarrels.
Stop the destruction before it starts. Anchor yourself to God's Word. Find out what He has to say about the power of agreement. Stop looking at your family from your own limited perspective and start seeing it as God sees it--as a powerhouse! That way you won't drift helplessly into an argument every time a gust of emotion blows through your home.
Determine right now not to let the devil have your family. Instead, pray for them, support them and love them. Bring them together, so you can all enjoy a little bit of heaven on earth.

Scripture Study:  Colossians 3:12-25

Walk the Walk

Photo by

Rick Mortimer

   All things start with an action.   The journey starts with the first step.    The first step needs to be taken in faith.  Your faith is the [tangible] substance of the thing hoped for, the evidence [proof]of the thing not yet seen. That faith is based on a belief that all will follow as needed.   When you couple this with an attitude of  ‘doing whatever it takes’ with gratitude for knowing that you can  ‘do all things in Christ, which strengthen us,”  then you cannot fail.  Whatever  the mind of man can believe,  he can achieve.

   Fear begets fear.  ‘The thing I fear has come upon me.”  Fear is the opposite of faith.  Just as faith builds, so fear destroys.  Fear is Satan’s counterfeit of faith.  Fear is against God because God has said we can accomplish all things.  Fear says we can’t.  Fear says, ‘why even start.”  Fear shuts you down before you begin.  God says, ‘begin a thing, and trust in me."  Doubt is fear disguised, but fear nonetheless.  

Speak the thing into existence. What you say is what you get.  If you speak words of doubt and fear, you create an attitude of such.  Reverse that by speaking words of faith out loud to yourself.  Fearful [fear filled] words are satanic words.  Speak God’s words about a thing.  Our words create our attitudes and enforce our beliefs.  Are we speaking words of belief in God’s ability and promises to us, or are we speaking words of defeat from the enemy?  Are we hung by our tongue?  We create with our words, or we destroy with our words. 

   Don’t dither around in trying to control the circumstance necessary for you to create.  You do the work, don’t plan the results. The results are God’s part.  Your part is to do, and that means to get started from where you are – not from where you are going to be, or want to be – but from where you are right this moment.  Success is not built on convenience.  Don’t expect things to meet all of your expectations before you begin.  Begin NOW with what you have.  When you step out under adverse circumstance, it is an expression of your faith.  God honours faith – not hesitancy and fear.

    Would you doubt any project if you absolutely positively knew that you could not fail?    Then why do we allow doubt to enter into a thing? Did not God say that he has put all things under our feet?  In the original Greek, all meant all.   We are more than conquerors in Christ.  We cannot fail.  Failure is impossible if we have a consciousness of  the victory and power that was given us at the cross.  We have the mind of Christ within us.  We have the victory over powers and principalities that might oppose us. 
   How then, can we fail to do a thing?  If we walk the walk, we can't.

Truth must be sought after.

Photo

by Rick Mortimer

 

***T R U T H ***

Without effort, truth cannot be known at all.  It can’t be declared on T.V.,

nor set by type in articles, nor in any way sold and packaged “ready to eat.”

Truth must be sought after by every individual with such help as one may

discover.  It will never come without labor on the part of the seeker.  One of

the most striking contradictions of our times is the fundamental reverence for

truth which most profess and the total disregard for it which we practice.

Our actions should be as James Thurber wrote:

“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in Awareness.”

A.A. Hodge once said:

“It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth, than to find

one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition, to stand up for it.”

Herbert Spencer said:

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments

and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation”

You will find this Blog to be a lot of articles about what I am excited about, what is of interest to me, or what I have learned in the Word.
If some of the things I say needle you, don’t just dismiss them, and don’t take my word for it. Search The WORD of God for yourself to see if they’re true.  If The WORD doesn’t confirm them, discard them. If it does, let them make you free.
  But don't ignore them just because you may not 'like' them.  Check them out. 
   I did.
 

You can't go with God, and yet remain where you are!

Planning your Work Future

Photo by   Rick Mortimer

Living the Dream - or the Job

   I remember –however vaguely- people asking me when I was maybe three or four years old, what I wanted to ‘be when I grew up.”   “Maybe a fireman?” they would ask.  “Perhaps a policeman?  Or a bus-driver like that guy driving that big bus?”   I’m sure it was all in the manner of being polite but was it?

    It started to plant in my young mind, the idea that I could only ‘be’ one thing.   I could only choose one ‘thing’ that I was to become, and that is what I would identify with for the rest of my life.

 Rick the fireman.

  Rick the policeman.

  Rick the bus driver.

  Rick the employee.

  

  Skip about a decade and now I’m in Jr. High School struggling to retain some interest in the banal courses they where teaching me and find my way through the minefield of disciplinary action for seemingly every move I made.  I remember in grade nine the guidance councillor calling me into his office and lecturing me severely about the fact that if I did not improve my grades I would never be accepted into University.  University?  I was how old?  Fourteen?  University?  I couldn’t plan beyond the next weekend coming up.  How was I supposed to think about ‘Higher Education’ and University?

    It wasn’t long after this episode with the guidance guy, that I was told I would need to plan which courses I would take next year in grade ten.  This, I was told, was so that I could direct my studies towards going either to a trade school or to a University.  Certain courses you took, laid the groundwork for the path you took, apparently.

   Again, I was lost.  I had no idea which path to take.  The reason for that being that at fifteen I still had no idea which occupation I would choose to work at the rest of my life.  In other words, I did not know which J-O-B I wanted to work at for the next forty years or so.

  Well, this caused some consternation amongst the teachers, and especially the guidance guy.  They acted as if I was slow-witted or something.  Who knows, maybe I was?  After all, everyone else seemed to know exactly which job they wanted to live their lives doing.  Some wanted to be heavy-duty mechanics, some wanted to be Doctors, some dentists, accountants, millwrights, etc…   No one seemed to want their own business though.  Of course, they all did want to be rich!   I wonder now, years later, how many of them are?

  The next move – since the educators had to move me along the assembly line of preparing me for the world – again came from the guidance guy.  “You’re pretty good at math,” he told me.  “You could be an accountant or an engineer maybe.”   I had no idea what these people did of course, they where just ‘vocations’ thrown out there at me.  ‘No,” I said, “I’m not interested.”   Another year went by and oh! Horrid young man that I was, I still did not know what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

    Somewhere along the line in grade ten, I heard about a job called ‘Game Biologist.”   This captured my young mind as I knew by then all I wanted was to be outdoors and not in a city.  So I started checking in to how you become a Game Biologist.  This seemed to be made for me!

    The next thing I discovered was that you needed about seven years of a University education to become one.  That ended that.  Back to the drawing board of indecision.  I no longer wanted anything to do with being a Game biologist and having my college certificate hanging on my wall to impress the world.

     Interestingly enough, as the guidance guy – and others – were showing me how to ‘research’ theses occupations, no one EVER sat my young butt down and asked me what kind of a lifestyle I wanted to live as an adult.  What kind of a house did I want to live in?  What kind of vehicles to drive?  Did I want to travel a lot or have a home in the country and raise animals maybe?  Did I want a big family or small?  Since money dictates how we live, how much money did I want to make each year? 

   No one pointed those things out to me.  They just kept asking which J-O-B I wanted to spend my life at.

     I dropped out of school in grade ten.  I just simply lost interest in the material they were teaching and the direction they were trying to push me into.  It all seemed totally irrelevant to me.  Besides, I’d discovered the pool hall and being able to work a job for the whopping sum of $1.25 per hour.  This was an incredible ten dollars a day and I could see myself buying that ranch I started to dream about.  I just knew one day I would have that big cattle ranch in the Cariboo of B.C. and raises horses and purebred Hereford cattle.  I just knew it!

  Well, I never got the ranch.  I did own a horse once.  But I never got the ranch.  I did what everyone else does.   I kept working one job after another.  Some paid more, some were more fun than others, but they where all jobs and they all had a ceiling on the earnings I could produce and the time I had leftover after work to have a life.

   I should say, I sort of did that.  In my case I heard of a great occupation in the Yukon as a Big Game Guide.  I went to the Yukon, found out who were the best guides, worked with them and learned from them,  and so was occupied successfully in that field for many years.  The problem was that it was seasonal employment, so along the way to fill in and to keep food on the table for the family I now had, I worked whatever jobs came my way.  Like everyone else, I took what was available to me and let it dictate my lifestyle and how I lived.   I did start my own business in the form of a trap-line though, and I ended up pretty much living a great lifestyle.   But!   Money dictates your choices in this life, and since my income was still based on my efforts to produce it, I was still very limited as to choices.  But the lifestyle was interesting and as a game-guide, I was around a lot of rich men who I learned a great deal from. The main one being that you had to have your own business if you ever wanted to gain control over your time and your income.  Ironically, during this time, even though I never even had my GED yet, the game biologists (remember the seven yeas of University?) were now asking me for information and about wildlife habits. 

  But back to the topic at hand here, I realize now that the way in which we educate people kills their personal dreams.  Instead of ‘planting’ the idea in young people’s minds that they should choose a ‘career’ (fancy word for job) early, we should be asking them a totally different set of questions.

  We should be asking them what sort of lifestyle they will choose.  What are their dreams, goals, and ambitions for their life?  How do they see themselves living their lives?

   In other words, we should be asking them what kind of a life they want.  - not what kind of  J-O-B they want.  And in order to encourage that, we should be telling them that when they finally do pick an area of income production for themselves that they desire to pursue, then to find someone else who is creating their income that way and go interview him (or her.)  Find out what kind of a house he lives in, the car he drives, hours per week he has to sell to his occupation and how many hours a week he gets to spend as he wishes to.  In other words, is this man living the lifestyle the student would choose for himself?   If the answer is that this occupation, job, or career is not going to produce the style of living which the student is after, then he should reconsider pursuing it.  Does that not just make sense?  

     When I finally applied this method myself, I realized that the only choice I had which would produce the income I wanted which would allow me to have the choices I wanted in regards to my own lifestyle –and retirement-, I realized that I had to have my own business in order to achieve the things I dreamed of.  But what business?  Soon I discovered those who did have the lifestyle I wanted and started to associate with them and learn how I too, could get free of the wage-slave mentality of an employee.

  So yes, we are educating our children to fail.  In the school system today they are being taught that going to college or university is going to give them their “Dream job”  (I’ve yet to know what that is!) and so own a home and live happily ever after.

  Nothing could be farther from the truth in today’s world. 

    Education today has nothing to do with your income.

 We’ll study this more on a later post.

Like the Snow Geese, I am B-A-C-K

   

 All Photos 

by Rick Mortimer

 
   
    It is incredible to me that six months has passed by since I have written anything in my Blog.  Amazing how time does slip away if we don't prioritize what is important to us.  For one thing is sure: "Where you put your time and your money, is really where your heart is."
  Put another way, 'How you react to everyday circumstance, is who you really are inside."  WoW.  That's a big statement.  Our character will show itself in every decision and every choice we make - especially will it show itself in times of stress or tribulation.  How do you handle these things?  I know I sure get surprised by my own responses sometimes!

   I am currently living in Lafleche, Saskatchewan.  Lafleche is a small town in S.W. Saskatchewan that is pretty much a farming community comprised of mostly middle-aged to elderly people.  It seems that in most cases, the younger people have left the farms and moved to the cities.  Perhaps it is true that there are more 'opportunities' in the cities and that is what this generation needs to do to 'get ahead,' but at the same time, this movement is sure hurting the small rural communities of the prairies because of the loss of them.
  Farming has changed radically in the last few decades though, and the mind set of grain farmers today is that if they don't get bigger (meaning HUGE) they will not survive.  So now, instead of the 'family farm' we have these huge businesses that control untold sections of land, and it is all run by one or two people using huge modern machinery.  I'm not against that -or for it - I'm just saying that things have changed radically in this area over the past few decades, and it has meant big changes in the way people live.
    Recognizing where things are going and how that effects us, is important.  I love the line from Louis Caroll's "Alice in Wonderland' where he says: "If you don't know where you are going, then any road will take you there!"  So simple.  So true!
   So, where are these young people going?  Most of them are rushing off to the cities to take on jobs that they see as a road to the future.  But is it?
    When the industrial revolution started in the later part of the 18th century, people left the farms and headed for work in the factories in the cities.  Industry was changing and with what was then modern methods of manufacturing opening up new factories all over, jobs where available and opportunity was everywhere!  People left the 'old ways' and embraced the new.  And this is all good! We should embrace new technology and ways of doing things.  BUT... we still need to understand how -and why- things are changing, and use this knowledge to advance ourselves by getting on the right road to achieve our own personal goals.
  In other words, we need to educate ourselves in order to take control over our lives and get the results that we personally see as success.
   Success can be defined as "A progressive realization of a worthwhile dream or goal."   By using this definition, it is easier for me to see if I am, in fact, succeeding according to my own personal chosen path in life – and then readjust t my own course accordingly.
  The point I am striving at here in this seemingly rambling chat, is this;  The industrial revolution has passed.  It was over a long long time ago.  It ended 'back there' in the 19th Century.  And yet, we are still basing our way of producing income on those conditions and circumstances created during that revolution.  We still teach our young people to go out into the world and base their whole way of wealth creation, on a totally outdated method.  And then we wonder why those same young people seem so disillusioned and seem so unable to manage their finances to the extent that they are in debt up to their ears.

   The answer is pretty clear.  We are responding to creating wealth the same way we did over 200 years ago!  We keep trading hours for dollars, and yet, in this era of the Internet and with new technologies being discovered and utilized seemingly ever day,  our ways of production and distribution of goods and services have radically changed from what they used to be.  The old ways are not working so well anymore.

   I’d like to explore this more in future Blogs, so I promise to be back here a lot more regularly than once every six months! 

 Stick with me!

 Oh!  Before I go!  It is spring here on the prairies and the geese are heading north again!  The snow goose migration is on in full swing, and it is simply awesome to behold!  Hundreds of thousands –if not millions- of these beautiful noisy big white birds are all around me here, reminding me how plentiful our God really is!  He just does not do things by half-measures!

 AWESOME!

The Power to Achieve

Photographer:  Rick Mortimer

  A plant, however small, will split a rock or push it’s way through pavement and asphalt to grow upward as it seeks the sun – which is to say, to pursue the purpose for which it is made.  This purpose is in harmony with God’s order of things.  This is what it was made to do.

   The power behind this pursuit of purpose is Cosmic Habit Force.  We can see this law applied all around us in the natural world.  The planets are fixed in their orbit around the sun, particles of matter move in fixed patterns around the atom. The seasons are fixed and regular.  It is a power supplied by God for all living things with which they will pursue the creative image within their  essential being and so become what they are meant to be.  Man can plant a seed in the ground but he can not create life.  Nor can he create the habit force that will cause a plant to push aside rocks and split asphalt in its search for self.

   In all life-forms but man, we refer to this habit-force as instinct.  All things act out what they are ‘programmed’ to do and to be.  It is unchangeable in all life forms but man.  An acorn cannot become an apple tree, nor can a kernel of corn produce a tomato.  A seed will always produce in kind.

   In man, this same power that causes a small weed to push it’s way through the pavement to pursue it’s purpose, is expressed through the power of the Will.   Unlike all other forms of life, man does not act out of instinct.  Man has creative vision, which is the expression of his ego.  Because man has total control over his thoughts, hence over the ego, he can envision what he wills, and it have it come to pass.  What he creates is what he has programmed his ego to be.  What he determines his ego will be is dependant on his vision of what he desires in life.  That purpose to manifest his vision, will create in him the desire to remake his ego.

    Ego is the ‘ID’.  It is the “Who I am as a human being.”  Ego is the well from which spring your dreams, desire, aspirations, and goals.  Your own personal dreams or goals will therefore always be in harmony with who you are and what you think, for it is your thoughts which feed –or starve- your ego.  And so the aphorism  “As a Man Thinketh in His Heart so is He” proves to be true. We are what we think and we have the power to become that which we desire to be by controlling our thoughts until they are overtaken by habit force and direct us subconsciously.  Many a man has been forced by tribulation and adversity to examine himself and then go on to make great changes in himself, just as a river being blocked of it’s normal route of flow must find another way to proceed to it’s final goal.

  When you focus upon that purpose which is the expression of your ego [your dream, or vision], and back it with the life power that is behind your will to create it, then you will create your purpose in the physical realm just as surely as the weed will push through the asphalt in order to achieve it’s purpose.  It can do no less, because that is what it was created to do.   It has to produce the purpose it is programmed to do.  The plant can do no less than seek the sunlight, the beaver can do no less than build a dam, the geese can do no less than migrate south, and the acorn can do no less than become an oak tree.  Man, on the other hand is the only living thing that has been given the power over his own thoughts.  He may choose what he will and make it come to pass.  Man therefore, is in control of his own ego and can create the future as he chooses it to be.  Men do not attract to themselves that which they want, but that which they are.  How he thinks, is what he will become.  With men, this is a choice.

   The power in man behind this ‘becoming’ is the will.  When a man has a vision that he desires to fulfill with the same intensity as a drowning man seeks the next breath of air, the full power of his will comes to bear on the task of creating it.  Suddenly all his senses are attuned to ways and means of it’s achievement and things will be attracted to him that will help in the achievement of his goal.  Possibilities for it’s success will appear as if by magic by way of other people and events or circumstance.  It is a truism that the world will step aside for the man of purpose.

  There is one thing of note however, about the Will:

     The Will can not act upon that which it does not believe.

1. If you do not believe something is possible to complete, you will find yourself acting only half-heartedly in it’s accomplishment – if at all.  Thus, you will be unable to apply the will and so achieve it.
2. If you do not believe in your own ability to achieve the thing, you will not be able to use the full power of your will in achieving it.  You will be double-minded and unstable in all your ways of working towards the goal.  Again, success will elude you.

Doubt, fear, and disbelief in your own ability is weakness and cannot give strength to purpose.  These defects and faults can come about through lacking a strong self-image or from an ego which is out of harmony with the eternal laws of the Universe and the Creator’s principles of growth and balance.

  We have been given the power of control over our thoughts. Doubt, fear, and disbelief stem from thoughts.  Therefore they are under our control and so we are able to change them into Faith, courage, and belief.  These are strong traits and bring success within our reach if we persistently apply them and act from them.

    Our creative mind is a gift from God.  I also believe that God would never give us something as all-consuming as a big dream or vision for our life, without a way for us to accomplish it.  What a cruel act that would be!   That would certainly not be in keeping with the character of the God I know.

The Circle Fly

No Photo is known to exist of this insect.

   I guess I never really gave too much thought to bugs in my life until I got to the Yukon.  Once you get out into the Yukon bush, all of a sudden the endless variety of bugs really catches your attention!  The mosquito of course is king of them all, but there must be at least a bazillion -maybe even two bazillion- other types of bugs that are obviously put on this earth to help mankind remember to exercise properly, and that a nice comfy bed is no place to be laying during those long days of summer.  Much better you should be sitting in the dense smoke of a smudge-fire or buried in mud up to your hair as the insects play their delightful serenades of buzzing wings about your ears, give you close ups of their varied and intricate body designs as they fly into your eyes, and increase your nutritional intake as you inhale them with each breath you take.

   Now, I am no entomologist by a long shot, but there is a species of fly that always fascinated me of whom I first heard of in the Cariboo region of British Columbia back in the late 1960's.  I searched for them for years with no success, until sure enough one day in 1978, I discovered one in Dawson City, Yukon Territory.  Since that day I have been able to determine through various newspaper reports,UTUBE Videos, and first hand conversations that the Circle Fly does indeed exist in various places across Canada, and no doubt all of North America. So in the spirit of helping to advance scientific knowledge on this incredibly unsociable insect, I offer the following story in which I first learned of it's existence.

   I hope you enjoy the story, and if you have any direct personal experience with this critter, feel free to leave a comment here on my site.

  Enjoy  the story!

  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE CIRCLE  FLY

by

 Rick Mortimer

                                      

     My dad didn't like cops.  So I knew that when Leroy McRobb showed up at the porch door of our farm house wearing his Stetson and his badge, there was going to be some fireworks.

        Leroy wasn't much of a cop really, just the local excuse for law and order around our neighborhood of quiet farms and orchards. The local women felt better if there was some kind of law around, and somehow Leroy got the job.  Well, I guess they got their wish anyway, 'cause Leroy was some kind of cop.

       But now he was standing on our porch and Dad was looking at him with that look he usually reserved for Hitch, our mule.  Or, sometimes, even  for Grandpa.  But usually he had a little more understanding in his eyes when he looked at Grandpa, because Grandpa had an excuse of sorts for doing the things he did. He'd fallen down the back stairs three years ago, when I was seven, and walloped his head.  My Dad had found him laying in a heap, and, thinking Grandpa had killed himself this time (he was always falling off the steps), dragged him inside to the couch and then went out to the wood shop in back and built the old man a nice pine box to lay him out in.  It was a beauty too, and took a piece of work to build, so when Dad came back in the house and found Grandpa sitting on the couch teasing the cat - well, he  was some ticked off.  I guess Grandpa had only been in a coma or something  'cause he was now lively as ever.  Only trouble was, although everything about him seemed to work OK, something funny  had happened to his head.  He was never quite the same after that fall, and sometimes he'd even think my mom was my grandmother, who was dead,  and he'd all of a sudden reach out and pinch her behind or jump up, throw his arms around her, and start gumming her neck.  I used to figure Grandpa must be getting pretty lonely, what with grandma being long gone; but I remember the look Dad used to give him as he'd wrestle the old guy back to the couch.  Just like he was looking at Leroy now.

     "Mr. Harding", said Leroy, "I've got to take your boy into town and charge him with disturbing the peace".

      "You do eh?"

      "Yep," says Leroy getting all puffed up like, and hooking his thumbs on his belt, "He's been fighting with the Johnson kid again, and this time Mary Johnson's laying a complaint against him, so's I've got to take your son down to the station and write him up."

     Now, my dad was a busy man what with a farm to handle, us kids to feed, and a crazy old man chasing his wife half the time, so I had the feeling he'd be putting the run on old Leroy one way or the other.  I just hadn't figured out how yet.

    I stood there, all innocent like, and waited to see what was going to happen as I watched Leroy getting himself worked up into what he thought was a display of officialdom or whatever he called it when he felt important.

 

  I also notice my dad's eyes.  They were staring over the top of Leroy's head and going in these crazy circles.

     "Anyhow, Mr. Harding", says the local protector of our rights, "the thing is, I don't like to be hauling your boy off like this, but I got no real choice.  Me being the only lawman around and all."

     My dad's eyes hadn't missed a beat, and  they were still circling Leroy's sweat stained Stetson hat.  By this time, Leroy had finally noticed them too, and  he sort of glanced up over his head, like he thought there might be something flying around him.

      "Leroy", says my dad. "You know as well as I do that my son is only ten years old, and that's what ten year old boys do.  They fight with their neighbor's kids.  So why don't we just stop all this time wasting and you go on back into town and I'll get some work done."

And all the time his eyes haven't slowed a bit from going 'round and 'round above ol' Leroy's head.

      Our local hero by now was getting nervous.  He not only didn't know what  kind of trouble he was going to have with my dad, but I could see  that those eyes doing circles over his lawman's hat had him thinking for sure something was about to dive-bomb him.

     "Now dang it , Mr. Harding, I'm just trying to do my job here", Leroy whined, "You know I've got to uphold the law around here and.....what the heck are you looking at over my head anyway?"  says Leroy, as he whips off his Stetson and takes a swat in the vicinity of his bald crown.

     Dad never even slowed his eyes down.  In fact, I swear they started going faster yet as he calmly replied, "Oh, don't worry about it any Leroy, it's only one of those circle flies."

     "Circle fly?" Hollers Leroy, now swatting furiously at thin air over his head.  "What in the heck is a circle fly?  Do they bite?  Do they sting?  What do circle flies do?  I ain't never heard of them before!  Do they hurt you much when they get you?"

      "Well", says Dad, in that voice he uses when he's talking to Mr. James, the preacher in town,  "If you spent more time outside doing some honest work, instead of hiding in that office of yours, or riding around in that air conditioned car the taxpayer's bought you,  then you'd know what they are.  But you don't need to be too concerned about circle flies, Leroy.  Mostly they just fly around the back end of old Hitch, and don't do a darn thing."

      Now, as I've said, Leroy might have been a bit dense. But he wasn't dumb.  He just kind of looked at Dad,  and with a sort of sad voice said, "Mr. Harding."  "Are you calling me a horses ass?"

     "Why Leroy!", says dad, with a look of utmost piety.  "Of course not.  I'd never call an officer of the law a horses ass!"

       Leroy started to look a bit relieved.

     "But, on the other hand", Dad continued,  "It  sure as heck is hard to fool one of them circle flies!"

     

  

                              

What's next?

We miss you Dad 

     My goodness how the time goes rushing by!  I've been calling myself a 'blogger' as if I really was one, and here a whole month has gone by since I dripped a single drop on here.  This is a strange thing since I enjoy writing.

   I think sometimes, we just turn fun things into projects somehow.  Instead of just writing for the fun of it, I get to thinking I must have some great, long, and wise sounded statements going here.  Why this is I don't know.  I mean, the Prime Minister does not read my Blog I'm pretty sure.  (why would he? After all, he phones for advice everyday anyway!).

   So, I'm back. I want to say that much has changed since I was last here. First of all, my Father died on June 11th.  Dad had put up a strong and courageous fight against Lymphoma -which he was winning!- and then caught a lung infection in the hospital that he just could not fight off due his being so 'low' from the Chemo-Therapy.  He never came back home.

    We held a ceremony of his life on July 7th -just two days ago now - and I was happy to see so many of his old friends and so many relatives there to honour him.  And much honour they gave him!  Dad was a well liked and respected man, who went through life making friends and spreading a lot of happiness around.  

  Many of the people who came to celebrate his life had known Dad since his early boyhood years.  Dad made many lifelong friends.  I was proud to see my grandson Glen Skookum come down from Whitehorse to pay his respects to Dad also.

   I was blessed to be able to spend the last year here living with him, and we grew to be good friends.  I had been away for a lot of his later years, so it was a true gift for me to have this time with him.

  Hugh Mortimer.  Father.  Friend.  I miss you.   

   Life moves on.   I am now onto the next adventure myself.  I need to find work and a place to live.  The house here has been sold, and renovations will have to happen in this basement suite, and so it's time to move on.   I don't have too many prospects open for work here right now, but now is the time of testing for my own Faith.  I don't believe the Lord brought me this far to desert me now!  In fact, He said He would not.   So I'm walking in His Words..."I will never leave you, nor forsake you."   I know that God feeds His sparrows....Ive always been one of them!  I also know, that I see the sparrows out in the back 'forty' scratching around looking too, and that is what I must do now.

  So the job search has begun now in earnest (dire earnest you might well say! lol ) and I'm accepting all prayers, believe me!

  But I am continuing to Walk by Faith and not by sight as 2 Cor 5:7 admonishes us to do.   The situation may look daunting - in fact, hopeless even!- but my God is much bigger than hopelessness.  It's amazing how praise combined with speaking words of faith, will activate those Words to become creative power.   We create by speaking God's Word.  Just as He did in the first Chapter of Genesis.  "And God said....."

   Hope is nothing more than a wish for the future.  Faith is an action word for today.

  Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not yet seen."

    I like that definition of Faith.  NOW faith...why, that must mean right this moment...

           Praise God!

Your Inherent Rights

Your Inherent Rights

By

Rick Mortimer

" In talking about 'rights', I'm inclined to define and separate them into

two categories; human rights (the God given right to life) and the civil

rights, which are legislated by the political systems we call our country,

democracy or whatever. "

(quoted from a letter by a Canadian to his local paper).

Yes, these are the two categories all right. And the ones you call civil rights are of course subject to the whim of the 51% in a democracy. That is why those rights fall under regulatory laws.

The others, though, (the HUMAN RIGHTS) are indeed GOD given. That is G-O-D and not g-o-v. These rights should be protected in perpetuity and guarded with your life. After all, this is what wars are fought over, The soldiers of the first and second world wars, protected them for us with THEIR lives so that we would be able to enjoy them in the future also.

But now, it is these very rights which are severely under attack in Canada. I don't think it's by any great 'conspiracy' or a trilateral commission or whatever, (although many people do so think), but I do believe they are being attacked by people in power, who have the mentality that they know what is best for the rest of us. This is what I call the Liberal left, or socialist people. They do it with all good intentions, and you can't fault them for their intentions. You can fault them greatly, however, for thier thinking that they, and they alone, are the only ones who have the 'key' to what is good for "us". This line of thinking is much like the belief in the divine right of Kings which was firmly entrenched in people's minds, until the 56 men set up the declaration of Independence in what was to become the USA. Until then, the idea that your inherent rights, came from God, was unheard of. You can bet the British Royalty did not want their subjects knowing that truth!

These are the rights that we refer to as ‘human rights.” These are the rights that I am referring to when I mention 'gun-laws", the National Firearms Act, etc..

...because it is these rights which are under attack by these Acts of parliament, under the guise of regulatory law.

Regulatory law: an example of which could be a tax on owning a certain piece of property, should not be used to interfere with your right to own that which is your inherent right to own. A firearm for protection is one example, the fruit of your labour is another example: the wheat that grows on your farm, or the things that you buy with the money you earned by being productive or expending your labour. When you put a tax on something that a poor man can not pay, and then imprison him for not paying it, it is the same as banning him from having it in the first place. That is an example of misused regulatory law if it is blocking him from that which is inherently his.

The taking away of your right to own private property is an attack on your inherent right to own the fruit of your labour, which, by the way, is the cornerstone of our capitalist system.

Another way to look at it is this: Government has no right to take from you that which it never gave you in the first place, because your inherent rights do not come from Government; they come from God.

When regulatory law is used to control your inherent rights, (as per the above example) then the powers that are using those laws in that way, are abusing not only the very justice system itself, but also their power that the people gave them in the first place. They were not put into office, whether voted or appointed in, to do any such thing as to use regulatory laws to infringe on your inherent rights.

The National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1995, (and many 'gun-control' laws before this) do exactly that. And what makes it especially galling, is that the act set it up so that the politician in charge of the Justice Department, can enact whatever new regulations he feels disposed to enact on any particular day, simply by making an order in council. HE NEED ASK NO ONE ELSE AND CAN TOTALLY CIRCUMVENT THE WHOLE SYTEM OF PARLIAMENT (and therefore the Democratic process) BY DOING SO.

Further: the NFA allows the principles set down in the act to be used in 'ANY OTHER ACT OF PARLIAMENT".

So, you now have a 'regulatory act' which clearly sets up a condition where your inherent rights can be snatched away by whatever powers that be in Ottawa. That group was put in power by 51% of the voters of course, but the use of those powers is not voted on in each case –we, the voters, assume that whom we elect will operate by principles which we vote for. Unfortunately, in today’s world, both you and I know that the parliament does not show nor give heed to "The will of the people". In today’s Parliament, if our elected representatives vote against the party leader, they are back-benched and threatened with political suicide. Hence they either oppose the vote at their own peril, or they simply do not show up to vote and by so doing do not give us –the people- the representation that we want and need to have.

To make matters worse, it no longer matters what or how the Senate votes anyway, because now the Federal Justice Minister can bring in any new laws or rules he wants to, and completely avoid having to go through the Senate and the democratic process by issuing an "Order in Council". (Let us not forget, that Justice Minister, Allan Rock, who was the minister at the time of the writing and passing through Parliament of Bill C-68 which would become this National Firearms Act, is on record as stating that it is his belief that only the military and the police should have firearms in Canada.)

We now live in a Police State because:

· you do not have the inherent right anymore to own the fruit of your own labour (Private property), and your private property can be outlawed and confiscated at any time the government wants it to be. (firearms, for one example.)

· You do not have the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

· You do not have the right to council.

· You do not have the right to silence.

· You do not have the right to protect yourself or your property.

You do not...........you get the picture.

(….and you certainly do not have any representation in the political system anymore)

Right there, go your inherent rights. Period.

This has come about because some people believe that they know what is best for the others, and they are not about to run it by you first to see what you think of their wonderful ideas.

This is simply a pattern of history. It is being repeated over and over again all around the world. Hence the saying " Those that don't study the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it."

· Joseph Stalin said he knew what was best for his people. So he murdered 20 million of them to make them fall in line with his thinking.

· Mao killed , I believe, 30 million, for the same reason.

· Hitler killed 6 million for the same reasons.

there's more.......

How many have been killed in Rwanda now, and 'socialist' African countries for the same reason that SOMEONE just knew that he had the key for a better way of life that the common fellow had to be force fed? These people are referred to as social architects or social engineers, and when they use the regulatory laws to infringe on your inherent rights, it creates noncompliance with the laws of the land and can escalate from there into open rebellion, because people will fight, as a last recourse to keep their inherent rights intact.

Problem is, without small arms, the population has no way to protect itself from these dictators. None at all. That is historic fact.

So then, when your rights come from Government, they can be taken away by Government. When you have no means to resist, you will have these rights taken away from you by people "who know what is better for you than you do." (in Canada we call it 'social engineering' to quote the liberal party.) It is important to note here, that for anything to be forced upon you, you must have no 'means to resist' it. Nothing can be imposed upon you if you have the means to resist it. (This is the whole point of the second amendment in the USA constitution)

This is historic fact.

All of this does not point to some conspiracy theory of world control. (although there are many who believe it does, and it can sure appear that way.) It does however point to people who have not studied the lessons of history, when they let it happen to themselves. Who was it that said, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." I think it was Thomas Paine, or perhaps it was Benjamin Franklin?

This is why the whole argument is not about 'gun control'. It is not even about guns. It is not about 'men and their toys' or a bunch of people who simply don't want to be in the powerless 49% in a democracy, and are whining about it.

It is about your freedom. It is about your inherent right to live in society as an honest member of that society who recognizes that he/she has the right to better themselves through their own labour, and personal achievements, and to protect their own life and the lives of their families. It is about your right to not be threatened with violence nor with long term imprisonment by your government, because you believe in owning the one tool that will guarantee these rights are not infringed upon by men who would have you doing what they desire you to do.

That is what it is all about.

There is a whole culture in Canadian society who believe that their inherent rights are now seriously under attack in Canada. They are starting to believe that nothing short of civil disruption will stop the attack on our inherent rights, by the 'social engineers.' Whether you believe that the agenda of the engineers is global, or simply more personal, bears not one whit of difference as to the result of the actions of these social engineers.

The whole point in trying to educate oneself, and other people, to the lessons of history, is to try and avert that battle, isn't it? To be able to help other people see what is going on so that the 51% can decide on what to do? Since Canada is a democracy and not a republic (in a Republic, inherent rights are protected by law under a constitution), the only tool that the people can use to attempt to retain their rights is to educate themselves and so protect themselves from the grief of repeating bad history. The question in a Democracy then, becomes: “Who is doing the educating?|

Many Canadians believe that the need for protection is here in our society now - today. Many believe that at this time in Canada, our inherent rights are under attack as never before in the history of this country. This is why the rate of noncompliance with the National Firearms Act of 1995 (Bill C-68) is so high across the country.

This is a cultural thing. It is not about a bunch of 'gun nuts' wanting to play Daniel Boone or 'little boys who want-to-be cops.” It is about your neighbours and your children and your countrymen who believe that they are doing no wrong, that they have the inherent right to posses the one thing that will guarantee that no government men will come and bust their door down in the middle of the night and drag them and their families off to the gulag.

History has shown that men who believe themselves to be in the right, and who feel that their freedom is being taken away, will fight.

He found the Secret to Success

 It is said that the biggest fear man has is fear of change.  This leads to complacency. Nothing changes until you change it.  Unfortunately, we get 'set in our ways' - which simply means that we develop habits that imprison us in jails of our own making.  And there we remain until forced by outside circumstance to reach for higher ground and to develop the required new habits that will keep us there or move us even higher.

 Here's a little story about someone who started on the right path and then allowed himself to be immobilized by the sometimes very subtle fear of change.

Photographer: Rick Mortimer

The Secret to All Success

I sat in my room and I studied about success and all that it means

I read book after book on successful folks, and how they attained their dreams.

I spent a fortune in book stores; I listened to CD’s and tapes

I spent countless hours upon my bed, just pondering what it would take.

I read interviews with the rich folk, and the ranting of the poor

I studied until I was cross-eyed; and then reached for ‘just one more.’

One more book to help me, just one more tape or two

One more dose of the truth I need to be successful too.

As I stayed at home and studied, and time slowly slipped away

I saw other folks attain the success that I read about each day.

And as the time went passing by and my knowledge of principles grew

The more successful the other folks got – the ones that went out to do.

I quote these words of a very wise man, who’s wisdom I hoped to attain:

 “The living is in the doing, and the knowing is in the pain.”

And although I have read that often, and memorized it too,

I never did apply it – nor make myself go out and do.

I never did go act upon the knowledge that I’d gleaned

I never did apply it and so wrest from life my dreams.

And now that I am old and poor, with eyesight growing dim

I’ve found the key to success at last:  You simply just begin!

©

Rick Mortimer

May 2010

New Westminster

British Columbia

How to have J-O-Y

Some people just seem to be happy and peaceful all the time!  It used to make me wonder what was wrong with them.  I thought that if you where going through hard times, and you appeared joyful -even somewhat happy - you where just being hypocritical.
   Not so, says the Word...

Hebrews 12:3  “For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.”

 This verse says it all to me.  Consider Him [Jesus]..... lest I be weary [worn and dull of mind] and faint [grow weak in my Faith].
    In other words,  I need to keep my mind on Jesus ALL THROUGH THE DAY so that my Faith will be strong to accomplish what needs to be done.  What needs to be done?  I need to live for Christ and through obedience to Him [action Faith] do the work the Father has chosen me to do.  I will know when the time comes what that is in it's totality.  In the meantime, obedience is the job.
  The key I'm seeing with this verse is this:  Keep your mind on Him.

Chapter 12 of Hebrews starts with the word (KJV)  Wherefore.... that means that the verses leading up to it have led us to a point being made  ..and so we need to know what led us up to this point:
   Leading up is Heb 11 and a message about people of Faith and their accomplishments.. vs 33-40 in particular, is talking about the early Christian's who where martyred for their Faith, mostly in the Roman Coliseum.  They were fed to lions, spitted on stakes and set afire, sawn in two, boiled alive in oil, and a hundred other obscenities.   These people, when they where being tortured in the Coliseum sang and Praised God in their martyrdom to the effect that Nero (Emperor of Rome) would plug his ears and cry out "Why are these Christians so eager to die?"  
 The early Christians were eager to follow Jesus.  They KNEW that with Jesus was the place to be!  I'm not talking suicidal...I'm talking of a total lack of fear of death.  Jesus had just given us power over the fear of death, remember?  These people lived such fear free lives that they went to the Coliseum singing and praising God!  Even some of the soldiers quit their posts and ran to take the place of those being martyred because these people had 'something' that others had never seen before.  Jesus! 
  Listen to this truth and reflect on it ---within 30 yrs of this, the most powerful nation that had ever existed in the known world, fell.  It disintegrated  - imploded- because of the Christian Faith.
     Oh how we have fallen away!  Today, we are scared to even mention His name in places!

This then all leads into Hebrews 12 and now we need to pay attention, for the point leads us to what we need to do:
    

1 Wherefore seeing [by the preceding verses] we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, [of bearing any sin] and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

  Paul is telling me to remember those that have gone before and how their walk with Jesus was.  To lay aside everything I am going through at present and to focus on Jesus.  By doing so, even during these afflictions [persecutions] my Faith will enable me to persevere with patience the trials before me.

 How could Jesus, knowing and aware that the torture, brutality, and cruelty of the cross was directly before Him, possibly walk toward it in Joy?  did you ever wonder about that?
Joy?  ???

  Jesus had joy because He kept His mind on the Father.  He had Joy because He knew He was doing what the Father wanted Him to do .  The assignment did not matter - obedience was the issue.  The fact that it was going to kill Him and cause him untold pain and undeserved horror and shame-did not steal His Joy!  He did not endure the trek to the cross with a sulky self-pitying attitude.  His mind was fixed on the prize He was to attain over his victory and he was flooded with joy because of it.  Even in the midst of His worst earthly moments, He had joy.

   That sure takes away any excuse I have for my next pity party!
  This teaches me that JOY is under our control. It is an emotion and so subject to our control.  Your emotions follow upon your actions.  Actions follow your thoughts.  You can stir yourself up to feel any emotion you desire to have. What are you focusing your mind on?  What emotions are your thoughts creating for you? 

How then can we possibly allow ourselves to be depressed, discouraged, sad, etc...?  We can stir ourselves up through remembering what Jesus did and by doing the same.  He stayed focused on the joy of serving His Father.
  This is an incredible teaching. 

    There are some hard things coming in the near future.  I for one, and keeping my mind on Jesus. Otherwise, I will be too weak to endure my own race.