Who Said We Ended Slavery?                                < ☺ >

   The potential value of slave-made laptops, computers and mobile phones imported into G20 countries is $200.1 billion. 

   The potential value of slave-made garments imported into G20 countries is $127.7 billion. 

   The number of slaves per 1,000 persons in North Korea is 104.6 (10 percent), highest of modern slavery. 

   The number of slaves per 1,000 persons in Eritrea is 93, second highest.

   The number of slaves in the world is 40.3 million, according to the Walk Free Foundation. This includes 24.9 million working in forced labor (including those trafficked for sex) and 15.4 million persons in forced marriages. 

   The United States is rated "low" in terms of numbers of slaves and "strong" in terms of government response. However, the U.S. ranked highest in imports of products at risk of being produced by slave labor, with $144 billion in such imports.

Maybe the computer we're using to write and

send this blog was made by slave labor in China. 

(?) 

___________________________________________________

Ready to go?           Not yet. Lucy has to put on her make up.

                   👴                                     👵             ☺

   

Citizenship in Heaven     
    
   Rain on earth. 

   If you are a Christian, or mystified by people called by that name, here's our view, based on the Word of God.

   Without question...God! There is no way infants develop, birds know to build nests, and short-lived butterflies go to the same unknown place every year, if all was chance. The several connections between our brains and our lenses could never appear all at once by destructive mutations, or survive one by one over indeterminable years until the eyesight chain was complete.  

   Still, we are to live by faith, and we do.

   God is God.

   He created earth, all that is in it and on it. Finally, God formed a man and his wife. The Garden of Eden was paradise, complete with a "tree of life." 

   The woman believed a voice that was not God, and both helped themselves to forbidden fruit and lost their innocence. He would not allow them access to the tree of life, so He banished them to the "cursed ground" outside the garden. 

   What is outside along with thorns and thistles? Viruses and other troubles.

   Jesus said, (God) causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matthew 5:45. What does "rain" include? COVID-19 and so much more. 

   We relate not only to God but God's earth, even if "earth is not our home."
Yes, there are miracles. Often, Christians suffer the rain. The larger issue is who ends up where...heaven or hell?   

   We are also related to neighbors (could be strangers), whom we're commanded to love.

   If you don't believe in God, or in God but not his Son who suffered the rain (judgment) you and I deserve...and rose again...today is the day to put your faith in the One who loves you and will save you. And follow him.

      Jimmy

PS. Is "mother earth" unfair? If you and I were the first humans, we would have done the same thing. 



   

Similarities, 2020 vs. 1945    
     

Following are expressions from author James Lee Burke,

whom we quoted yesterday in Differences.

   "We're faced now with a situation that bears many similarities to the war years in which I grew up. For that reason I think we need to remind ourselves of who we are. In 1945 we were the only country in the world in possession of atomic weapons. 

   "We could have turned the earth into a slave camp with barbed wire and machine gun towers. Instead, through the Marshall Plan, we rebuilt the countries of our enemies and turned them into democracies. No country in human history ever acted with such generosity. 

   "There is no mystery to who people are. They are what they do. We are the same people we were when I was pulling the red wagon with my friend.

    "We don't let fear into our hearts

     We do not turn on our brother or our sister

     We do not shirk sacrifice

     We do not compromise our role as the leader of the free world

      or as the country whose Constitution is a model for emerging democracies. 

   "This is still the greatest country in human history; it was, it is, and it will remain so, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

   "Keep the faith, and grin and walk through the cannon smoke. It drives the bad guys crazy. You're the best people in the world."  

   Views isn't sure Burke is exactly right on all points.

But we add, don't let politicians take us down the

road to ruin in the name of equal outcomes.

Jimmy

Differences: 2020 vs. 1941    
     
   Two wars: one military, one invisible. America wasn't fully prepared for either sneak attack. Both threatened our nation's well being, and both brought out the best in people. Both produced heroes. 

   One difference is our response. Author James Lee Burke was about 4, on December 7, 1941 he and his parents were eating in a cafe. At 1:15 p.m., the cafe's radio program was interrupted - the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. 

   "No one moved or spoke," he remembers. He saw fear in faces of adults. 

   Our 2020 crisis arose gradually, but but quickly enough to catch us off guard. 
A couple mayors and governors and a U.S. House leader initially did their best FDR impressions: Like, there's nothing to fear. 

   Shocked by Pearl Harbor, angry Americans lined up to volunteer. Industries switched to wartime products. Today some companies and even individuals make face masks and other personal protective equipment. 

   In 1941, we were still in the Great Depression. People not in the military sprang into action, many homeowners planting "victory gardens." Today - a great economy now interrupted - most people stay home and avoid catching or spreading the enemy virus. The fight mainly belongs to brave medical people, including retirees and military medics.

   Burke remembers that food and gasoline were rationed, and tires were simply unavailable, as was sugar or butter. (Today, it's toilet paper!) At age 8 he spent almost a year in bed with either polio or rheumatic fever, or both. There was little diagnosis as we have today.

   He survived, and with a friend took a red wagon from house to house, collecting old newspapers, coat hangers, rubber bands and bacon grease. The latter was used to make nitroglycerin. Individuals voluntarily sent their guns to England for the expected Nazi invasion.

   People learned names like Guadalcanal, Midway, Corregidor, Normandy and Ardennes. Today, the name is Wuhan. 

     Jimmy


   


   

Driving Drowsy or Drunk_______ 

Same Thing?          

     

   While most of our vehicles are sitting idle, this may be a good time to consider our fitness to drive before the rat race resumes. And we don't mean going to the gym.

   Drowsy driving is responsible for tens of thousands of injuries and hundreds of deaths every year. One agency believes drowsy-related fatalities may be closer to 6,000/year.

   Get this: About half of adult drivers in the U.S. admit to consistently getting behind the wheel while feeling drowsy. Some 20 percent admit to falling asleep (!) over the past year. (We share the road with them every day.)  

   Like drugs, alcohol, eating or texting while driving, drowsy drivers have less ability to recognize and avoid hazards. Driving after being without sleep for 20 hours is equivalent to driving with a blood-alcohol reading of 0.08 percent. 

   Experts advise reading medication labels, looking for side effects.

   If we drift out of lane, miss road signs or turns or have trouble maintaining speed, we could pull over and take a break.

   Most of us consider ourselves to be "good drivers." But............  

Sources:

National Highway Traffic Safety Admin.

National Institute of Medicine 

National Sleep Foundation

AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety

      Jimmy

Not the Sacrificial Lamb    
Your Lamb, My Lamb    

Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 

Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days.  

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

And Our Shepherd   

I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

And I lay down my life for the sheep and take it up again; 
no one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord. 

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies...
but if it dies it produces many seeds. 

He gave up his own Spirit, in triumph 

at the time of the evening sacrifice.

Finally the other disciple...also went inside. He saw and believed.

John 1:29;  2:19;  3:14;  10:11,15,17;  12:24;  20:8 

Hot Tempers; Cold Temps      
    
   Scolded by Jesus for their hypocrisy, religious figures wanted to kill him. All that stopped them were crowds of people who flocked to him. 

   Caiaphas, the high priest, solved a debate by declaring that one should die for the people and the nation. John 11:49-52; 18:14. 

   Judas the disciple solved the problem of crowds. He knew where Jesus would be at night.

   Jesus took a beating under the direction of the conflicted governor, Pilate, who thought that would satisfy the mob. It's been said that ordinary men would not have survived such punishment. Who knows? 

   To mock their victim, they removed his clothes and covered him with a purple (royal) robe and a crown of thorns. According to Mark 15:20, they put his clothes back on. 

   We don't know how much time elapsed between the beating and the cross. But his warm clothes were removed once again.

   All this winter and spring we have checked Jerusalem's weather out of curiosity. Daytime highs may have been in the mid-50s (or lower; there was no sun for three hours) and nighttime lows in the mid-40s. That's why Peter was warming himself by a fire. John 18:18. 

   How did two "criminals" manage to share the occasion? Mocking continued. But one, perhaps hearing Jesus' last words, got the message. 
No confession. No repentance. No baptism. No sanctification. No good deeds.

   At his "eleventh hour" he asked and received.

       Jimmy

The last 33 words summarized from WORLD magazine.

We're not suggesting it's that easy for everyone.
But neither do we put the Lord in a box of rules.