Celebrate   

   The Coming Ruler    

  We're not just remembering the birth of our Savior.  

We celebrate the promise of a Leader from out of this world.

He will judge between the nations...  Isaiah 2:4

The government will be on his shoulders.  Isaiah 9:6

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him...  Isaiah 11:2

I will put my Spirit on him and he

will bring justice to the nations.  Isaiah 42:1

Bethlehem's story is wonderful, especially for youngsters.

That was then.

He is coming again.

Wise men still seek him, and men would be wise to get their hearts in order. 

The Spirit informed Isaiah 700 years before the birth,

and we're still waiting for the thousand-year reign of the Lord

on earth, leading to final judgment.

What's taking so long?

A thousand years is like a day, with God.

~ ~ ~

Note: We're having some difficulty with a wrinkle our "blogspot" friends introduced recently. So, we decided to have a Merry Christmas - and return in the Happy New Year, after we solve our technical issue. 

  Come January, look for Views By the Sea on Facebook, or search jxdonut.blogspot.com. We don't post all blogs on Facebook. 

   Lastly, we are working on a special series for January that should be more significant than anything we've published in four-plus years. Make a note. 

I appreciate you, and God bless you.     

         Jimmy

  

We the Tribal People    
    
   We aren't born with nuance.     

   My first years coincided with World War II. All Americans were good guys; all Germans and "Japs" were bad...with some justification.

   At the Saturday movies, all cowboys and cavalry were good guys; all "Injuns" (except Tonto) were bad. In sports, everyone on our team was good; all opponents were enemies. 

   When we became an adult, not much changed. If we knew about the Lord's command to "love your enemies," would we have heeded?

   Other people draw sharp lines between races and ethnicity. In Dad's house, Republicans were all good; all Democrats wrong. 

   In time, we've learned that in worldly terms good and not-good exist on all sides. If we personally knew the athletes, we might like some opponents better than some of "our guys." 

   Unfortunately, tribal Americans see no nuance in politics. Some liberals have nothing nice to say about the late President Bush. Some on the right see nothing good in former President Obama. He seems to be a faithful husband and devoted father, like former President Carter. 

   Many judged the judge - Brett Kavanaugh - before his hearing even began. Others deplore President Trump's immigration stance, without admitting that border security is a legitimate concern.

   Absent Biblical knowledge, we may not recognize that virtue and vice resides in most of us, including our leaders.
 

"We like our villains without redemption

and our heroes without blemish,

and we frequently assign those roles

in overly strict alignment with our ideology."

   Little Jimmy Donut understood this long before Frank Bruni wrote the above quote in the New York Times. 

   

   Singing to the Lord   

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness;

come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

It is He who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise;

give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Psalm 100

   

Just Doing It Right     

       Lock in. Stare straight. Heal first. Breathe only through the nose. Hut!   
  

   Just part of the job of a military body bearer. We watched them in lockstep this week: to and from the Capitol rotunda, national cathedral, Joint Base Andrews, St. Martin's church in Houston, special train 4141, and finally the grounds of the George Bush Library in College Station, Texas. 

   That's a lot of in and out, up and down for one funeral. Standing motionless for long minutes.   

   A humbling opportunity? An honor? A service? Yes. And physical pain.

   One of the Marines in the Washington, DC unit is from our county here in Florida, Cpl. Kevin Harris. His unit serves senior statesmen, heads of state and former presidents. Bearers from the Army, Navy and Air Force joined Marines for the various Bush ceremonies and services. 

   Cpl. Harris, 24, told the Tampa Bay Times he never thought he would be put in that situation. He knew he had to focus on his job, not on people like the Bush family and dignitaries.

   He and fellow Marines often participate in several funerals a day. "It's not about pain," he said. "You're doing service for members of the family. It's the least we can do to honor them in the best way possible...to give them a sense of dignity."

   Caskets typically weigh between 400 and 800 pounds, each man gripping with one arm. They train hard and practice carrying every kind of casket.

   "We're the last representation of something their family member was part of," Cpl. Harris said. "Just doing it right...just making sure I execute it perfectly."

   In and out of hearses, Air Force One and a special train. Hut! 

      Jimmy

Can We Emulate a U.S. President?    

   Not Abraham Lincoln: Four score and seven years ago...
   Not Franklin Roosevelt: December 7, 1941, is a date that will live in infamy.
   Not Ronald Reagan: Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.  

   We cannot be a Washington, Jefferson or any other commander in chief. These men all had special abilities, for better or worse, and they faced challenges that we the little people will never experience. 

   The same goes for the late George H.W. Bush.

   But we can. We can emulate our 41st president in certain respects.

   He followed Jesus' command: Love God and love your neighbor. We can do that. 

   He knew that of all ships, friendships are most important. We can do that.

   He learned from his mother, who learned it from the Holy Bible, don't brag on yourself. Let others praise you, if they choose. We can do that.

   He had time for common people, hurting people, discouraged people. We can do that.

   He hand-wrote letters of thanks and encouragement. We can do that.

   He was strong, yet kind and loving. We can do that. 

   He shared credit and accepted blame. We can do that. 

   He was loyal. We can do that. 
   
   He looked for good in people; he did not hate. We can do that.

   He was devoted to family, but not dictatorial. We can do that.

   When he alone survived the attack on his warplane, he wondered, "Why me?" 
What did God want him to do with his life? We can ask that also.
     Let presidents be presidents. And let God be God.  

      Jimmy

God's Man for Man's Time       

   We hope you followed the coverage of late President George H.W. Bush this week. We were moved by the music, scenes and heart-felt words Monday at the Capitol and again yesterday at the national cathedral. Excuse me while I wipe a few tears. 

   Singers, musicians and the military reminded us something is still right in the USA. This week they honored an honorable president. Inaugurations are special; memorial services touch heaven. 

   Nobody's perfect, but President Bush 41 deserved his long list of accolades. Our favorite description is his humility. This man knew the office was greater than himself, and his God is still greater.

   Of several things he accomplished (with a Democratic Congress during his term, 1989-1993), many of us remember how he rallied to force Iraq out of Kuwait. After 100 days of war, Hussein's famed army was in full retreat. The president could have changed the regime, but he chose to stop the killing. Oil fields were safe again.

   Later that year, finishing President Reagan's work, Bush quietly managed the end of the Cold War. Soviet hardliners could have gone "scorched earth" like Hitler, only with nukes. He also convinced Western Europeans to allow Germany - bitter enemy twice over - to reunite. 

   That June, in 1991, I took an office job at a Department of Energy nuclear site in South Carolina. They were restarting a nuclear reactor to resume production of weapons-grade uranium. 

   In September, they shut it down. There was no speech in Washington, no rally, no parade, no bragging, no fireworks, no surrender ceremony, no end-of-war date for history books. 

   Credit President Bush. I believe God provided the right man for the times. A year later, "the times" ended. Credit 19 percent of voters swayed by rogue candidate Ross Perot. How quickly some chase the next shiny object. 

   Bush was the last president from our "greatest generation." A terrible depression followed by terrible world war produced strong people who valued freedom, the flag and human initiative. 

   Tomorrow: reflections   

      Jimmy

Am I Still With It?     
My Dementia Test      

   Rather than endure a tedious, expensive medical exam, I designed my own mental check up. 

   As we all know the names of our 50 U.S. states, it should be revealing to list them from memory, alphabetically, and score the results for our self. So, here goes:

Alabama, Alaska, California, Canada, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Guam, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mexico, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New England...

   How am I doing?

Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Toronto, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington DC, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Arizona.

   Ut oh. I count 38. I remember only 76 percent of the 48 states. Well, at least I didn't waste any money on a professional exam.

Twinkle, Twinkle Trillions of Stars 

   Stargazers say the universe offers light from a billion trillion stars. Astrophysicists used a satellite to sum up all this light, measured in particles called photons. 

   By their estimate, over history, stars have emitted 4 times 10-to-the-84th-power photons into the visible universe.  

   Let's make this simple for you. 

   That's 4,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 photons. 

   You're welcome.

       Jimmy

Swim Free

   Okay, my fellow sea creatures, let's not swallow hook, line and sinker. 

   Saturday we wrote about some people in a town of 10,000 believing an April Fools' article about plans for a 35,000 seat baseball stadium.

   Monday we wrote about a blogger who makes good money on a Facebook website with made-up cultural and political stories that millions of readers swallow whole.

   Many consumers of news, commentary and supermarket tabloids aren't real adept at discerning truth. 

   Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

   Would you believe, man never landed on the moon? The 9/11 attack was an inside job? We evolved from monkeys? The man is guilty because the woman says so? 

   How do we know anything for sure? Here are a few thoughts from Views By the Sea:

1. Question what you read or hear, especially things you want to believe. 

2. Consider more than one newspaper, one TV channel, one radio personality or one friend. And more than one member of the clergy. 

3. Every speaker/writer has a point of view. He or she may have your best interests in mind. Or your vote. Or your money. Consider what was not said. 

4. Grasping the truth, if that's possible, requires background. We can't fit a piece into a puzzle unless one or more surrounding pieces already are in place. 

5. It's healthy to admit that what we don't know far exceeds what we do.

6. If you know yourself well, congratulations.

7. There is one source we've learned to fully trust: the Holy Bible. Jesus said that He is the truth. He expects faith, but He also provides ample evidence of what is not seen by that which is.  

      Jimmy

     

   Praise and Thanksgiving   

It is good to praise the Lord

and make music to your name, O Most High,

to proclaim your love in the morning

and your faithfulness at night.

For you make me glad by your deeds, O Lord;

I sing for joy at the works of your hands. 

How great are your works, O Lord,

how profound your thoughts.

Psalm 92:1-5 

   We thank the Lord for salvation, for his love and grace and his faithful guidance and care. We are grateful for the Word of God and for his spiritual gifts.

You Can Fool Some 
People All the Time      

   Eight years before Christopher Blair was born, yours truly, a small-town sports editor, slipped an April Fools article into our daily paper.

   The story: Town fathers secretly planned to build a baseball stadium in hopes of attracting a major league team. We blogged about this in detail some time ago, if you happened to see it. 

   My readers knew all the streets by name. They should have known our imaginary stadium footprint would obliterate downtown. 

   Surely they knew that politicians can't tax churches to raise funds. Most of them should have recognized that my "sketch" of the proposed stadium was really a real photo of old Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. 

   All else failing, they might have noticed my last line, The stadium is expected to be finished by next APRIL FOOLS DAY.

   This sports editor was perhaps the most fooled of all. It never occurred to me that anyone would miss my obvious curve balls. Even Mom believed it. That was April 1, 1964.  

   Journalism professors never told us that some readers believe whatever we write - truth, falsehood or satire.

   So, who is Christopher Blair? Just for fun he takes the art of fake news to a new level - daily on Facebook - reaching millions of biased readers who get suckered and keep coming back for more.

   Lincoln was right: You can fool some people all the time. We'll pick up Blair's story next week, probably Monday. 

        Jimmy