Green Pastures

Music

Ralph Stanley

Emmy Lou Harris

South Carolina Broadcasters

Iris Dement Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

Lyrics

Troubles and trials often betray those
Causing the weary body to stray.
But we shall walk beside the still water
With the good shepard leading the way.

Where we shall live and die never more.
Even the Lord will be in that number
When we have reached that heavenly shore.

Those who have strayed were sought by the master
He who once gave his life for the sheep.
Out on a mountain still He is searching
Bringing them in forever to keep.

Where we shall live and die never more.
Even the Lord will be in that number
When we have reached that heavenly shore.

We will not heed the voice of the stranger
For he would lead us home to despair.
Following home with Jesus our savior
We shall all reach that country so fair.

Where we shall live and die never more.
Even the Lord will be in that number
When we have reached that heavenly shore.


March 30, 2010

Scaret of Dying

Mary Trumbull Slosson, whose quaint and profound folktales give us a "glimpse of Joy beyond the walls of the world," writes about a little boy
that was "scaret of dying."

Once there was a boy that was dreadful scaret o' dyin'. Some folks is that way, you know; they ain't never done it to know how it feels, and they're scaret. And this boy was that way. He wa'n't very rugged, his health was sort o' slim, and mebbe that made him think about sech things more. "Tany rate, he was terr'ble scaret o' dyin'. "Twas a long time ago this was,—the times when posies and creaturs could talk so's folks could know what they was sayin'.

And one day, as this boy, his name was Reuben,—I forget his other name, —as Reuben was settin' under a tree, an ellum tree, cryin', he heerd a little, little bit of a voice,—not squeaky, you know, but small and thin and soft like, —and he see "t was a posy talkin'. "T was one o' them posies they call Benjamins, with three-cornered whitey blowths with a mite o' pink on "em, and it talked in a kind o' pinky-white voice, and it says, "What you cryin' for, Reuben? "And he says, ""Cause I'm scaret o' dyin'," says he; "I"m dreadful scaret o' dyin'." Well, what do you think? That posy jest laughed, the most cur'us little pinky-white laugh "t was,—and it says, the Benjamin says: "Dyin'! Scaret o' dyin'? Why, I die myself every single year o' my life." "Die yourself ! "says Reuben "You "re foolin'; you "re alive this minute." ""Course I be," says the Benjamin; "but that "s neither here nor there,—I've died every year sence I can remember." "Don't it hurt? "says the boy. "No, it don't," says the posy; "it "s real nice. You see, you get kind o' tired a-holdin' up your head straight and lookin' peart and wide awake, and tired o' the sun shinin' so hot, and the winds blowin' you to pieces, and the bees a-takin' your honey. So it's nice to feel sleepy and kind o' hang your head down, and get sleepier and sleepier, and then find you "re droppin' off. Then you wake up jest "t the nicest time o' year, and come up and look "round, and—why, I like to die, I do." But someways that didn't help Reuben much as you "d think. "I ain't a posy," he think to himself, "and mebbe I wouldn't come up."

April showers bring May flowers; they also bring us the stirring of hope. Spring "posies, trees and creaturs" are hints of heaven, for God has planned it that way. But spring alone is not enough. It may only leave us with Reuben's worry: "I ain't a posy and mebbe I wouldn't come up." Spring's hope could be an illusion, which is why T. S. Eliot, in his pre–Christian days, thought April was "the cruelest month."

There is a truer word than spring: Jesus said: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:25,26).Who said this? One who actually rose from the grave. It's one thing to make a bold assertion; it's another to back it up—and back it up Jesus did by rising from the dead, "the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20).

"If you believe that the Son of God died and rose again," writes George MacDonald, "your whole future is full of the dawn of eternal morning, coming up beyond the hills of life, and full of such hope as the highest imagination for the poet has not a glimmer yet."

The Son of God died and rose again, and his resurrection is the guarantee that God will bring us up and out of the ground: A thinking, feeling, remembering, recognizable part of us will live forever.

Living forever means living out the thought of eternity that God has placed in our hearts; meeting one's loved ones lost through separating death; living in a world without blood, sweat and tears; seeing our Lord who loves us and gave everything to unite us to him forever.

But there's another meaning I see: since we go around twice we can live in broken and ruined bodies for time; we can endure poverty and hardship for awhile; we can face loneliness, heartache and pain for a season. We don't have to have it all on this earth. There is a "second birth."

DHR
David Roper


The World Is Suffering From Mass Delusional Psychosis

By JOSEPH MERCOLA TIME MARCH 20, 2022 

The phrase ‘drink the Kool-Aid’ originates from events in Jonestown in 1978 in which over 900 people died for an extreme cause.

Originally published October 2021 on Mercola.com

A number of mental health experts have expressed concern over the blatant fear and panic mongering during the COVID-19 pandemic, warning about potential — and let’s face it, likely — psychiatric effects. In a December 22, 2020, article in Evie Magazine, S.G. Cheah discusses what may in fact be the real problem at hand: mass insanity caused by “delusional fear of COVID-19.”

Cheah refers to lectures and articles by psychiatrist and medical legal expert Dr. Mark McDonald, who believes “the true public health crisis lies in the widespread fear which morphed and evolved into a form of mass delusional psychosis.”

“Even when the statistics point to the extremely low fatality rate among children and young adults (measuring 0.002% at age 10 and 0.01% at 25), the young and the healthy are still terrorized by the chokehold of irrational fear when faced with the coronavirus,” Cheah writes.

Infectious Hysteria

Cheah goes on to review a number of irrational behaviors that have become all too commonplace, such as parents being kicked off planes because their young children refuse to wear a mask during the flight, or people having hysterical meltdowns when they see a person not wearing a mask.

The science is quite clear about the risk posed by asymptomatic individuals, meaning anyone who feels perfectly healthy yet may have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 with a PCR test set to an excessively high cycle threshold. They pose an exceptionally low risk to others, if any risk at all. Science is even clearer on healthy individuals who test negative for SARS-CoV-2. You simply cannot spread a virus you do not have.

The bulk of published science also shows that masks do not prevent the spread of viral infections, and this is particularly true if you’re wearing cloth masks, surgical masks or masks with vents.

Despite all of that, many still enter a state of hysteria when they see an unmasked person, even if they look perfectly healthy and clearly are not suffering from any kind of respiratory issue. This is a highly irrational state that has no basis in reality.

Indeed, according to McDonald, these people are suffering from delusional psychosis, and there are a lot of them. He goes so far as to refer to the outside of his home or office as the “outdoor insane asylum,” where he must assume “that any person that I run into is insane” unless they prove otherwise. As explained by Cheah:

“Instead of facing reality, the delusional person would rather live in their world of make-believe. But in order to keep faking reality, they’ll have to make sure that everyone else around them also pretends to live in their imaginary world.

In simpler words, the delusional person rejects reality. And in this rejection of reality, others have to play along with how they view the world, otherwise, their world will not make sense to them. It’s why the delusional person will get angry when they face someone who doesn’t conform to their world view …

It’s one of the reasons why you’re seeing so many people who’d happily approve the silencing of any medical experts whose views contradict the WHO or CDC guidelines. ‘Obey the rules!’ becomes more important than questioning if the rules were legitimate to begin with.”

In his interview with Jesse Lee Peterson (video above), McDonald explains his diagnosis this way:

“There was never a medical crisis. There were always enough resources to deal with the people who were sick … Many resources were in fact turned away … The question then, for me, became, ‘What’s the real crisis? What are people really suffering from?’

It became clear to me, very quickly, within the first two or three weeks in March [2020], that it was fear. Since then … the fear … has morphed and evolved, not just into a ‘I’m worried, I’m scared so I need to stay home,’ but an actual belief that is against reality — because the definition of delusion is something you believe that doesn’t conform with reality.

They believe that they are going to die — no matter what age, no matter what state of health they’re in — if they don’t leave their house with a mask and gloves on every day and run from [other] human beings. That’s delusional psychosis. It’s false, it’s wrong, it’s not backed up by evidence. And many, many Americans are living that and believing that.”

While there’s no data to back this up, McDonald says it appears women tend to be more prone to delusional psychosis than men. Part of it, he suggests, may be because when women get scared, they tend to become more hyperprotective than men under the same circumstances, likely because women — speaking in pure generalizing terms, of course — tend to be more emotionally driven.

Mass Delusional Psychosis Traumatizes Children

McDonald is particularly concerned with the lasting effects this widespread insanity will have on children as they grow up. As a psychiatrist specializing in the treatment of children and adolescents, he should know. Since the lockdowns began in the first quarter of 2020, he’s seen a massive increase in patients, and their mental states are far worse than what he’s used to seeing in these age groups.

One of the worst traumas children suffer as a result of all this fearmongering is the idea that they may kill their parents or grandparents simply by being around them. As noted by Cheah, they’re also being taught to feel guilty about behaviors that would normally be completely, well, normal.

Just one example is hysterical adults calling a toddler who refuses to wear a mask a “brat,” when in fact resisting having a restrictive mask put across your face is perfectly normal at that age.

“It’s not normal for children to grow up thinking that everyone is a danger to everyone else,” Cheah says, and rightly so. It’s not normal at all, and hysterical adults are mindlessly inflicting severe emotional trauma on an entire generation.

As noted by McDonald in his interview with Peterson above, a primary cause of depression, especially among youngsters, is disconnection from others. We need face-to-face contact, we need physical contact as well as emotional intimacy. We need these things to feel safe around others and within our own selves. Digital interactions simply cannot replace these most basic human needs, and are inherently separating rather than connective.

McDonald cites recent CDC statistics showing there’s been a 400% increase in adolescent depression compared to one year ago, and in 25% of cases, they’ve contemplated suicide. These are unheard of statistics, he says. Never before have so many teenagers considered committing suicide.

“This is a mass-casualty event,” McDonald says, and parents — adults — are to blame, because they are the ones scaring them to the point they don’t feel life is worth living anymore.

This is also why just treating the children is not going to be effective enough. We have to address the psychosis of the adult population. “It’s up to us adults to fix this,” McDonald says, “because children are not going to be able to fix this themselves.”

Delusional People Ultimately Require Controlled Environments

We must also address the mass delusion for another reason, and that is because it’s driving us all, sane and insane alike, toward a society devoid of all previous freedoms and civil liberties, and the corrupt individuals in charge will not voluntarily relinquish power once we’ve given it to them.

A totalitarian society, McDonald believes, is the ultimate end of this societal psychosis unless we do something about it and realize that “we’re fine, we’re perfectly safe.” Indeed, we’re in no more danger now than we were pre-COVID. We must not allow our freedoms to be taken from us due to delusional fears. As noted by Cheah in her article:

“It’s not unthinkable that the final outcome would be total societal control on every aspect of your life. Consider this — the endpoint of a mentally ill person is for them to be put under a controlled environment (institutionalized like an asylum) where all freedoms are restricted. And it’s looking more and more like that’s the endpoint of where this mass psychosis is heading.”

A December 18, 2020, Tweet by political commentator Candace Owens also sums up how irrational fear and panic have figuratively lobotomized a significant portion of the public:

McDonald points out that many of our leaders obviously do not suffer these same delusional fears. They issue stay-at-home orders from their vacation homes in the Caribbean and repeatedly break their own mask and lockdown mandates. They ride their bikes, stroll through the park, have family gatherings and dine out without a care. They know COVID-19 isn’t the deadly plague it’s been made out to be, but they’re playing the game because it benefits them.

Fear Is Never Virtuous

The video above features a short lecture McDonald gave during America’s Frontline Doctors’ White Coat Summit 2 in mid-October 2020, titled “The Way Forward: Overcoming Fear.”

In it, he points out that not only has fear morphed into a delusional belief that masks, gloves and physical separation are required to stay alive, but fear has also been turned into a virtue, which is doubly tragic and wrong.

Wearing a mask has become a way to demonstrate that you’re a “good person,” someone who obviously cares about others, whereas not wearing a mask brands you as an inconsiderate lout, if not a prospective mass murderer, simply by breathing.

“Healthy people should never wear masks, social distance or self-isolate. Not only are these strategies unhealthy from a physical standpoint, they also perpetuate the delusional psychosis gripping the nation and therefore must end.”

By encouraging us to remain in fear, to burrow and settle into it and allow it to control and constrain our lives, the fear has become so entrenched that anyone who says we need to be fearless and fight for our freedoms is attacked for being not only stupid but also dangerous. “I would argue that it’s the opposite,” McDonald says.

The problem we now face is that the delusion has taken such hold that even if the mask mandates ended nationwide today, many would refuse to give up their masks, and they would not stop chastising those who don’t wear them, either. What’s more, we now have private companies pushing these freedom-robbing edicts, refusing services to those who don’t wear masks.

Already, certain venues across the U.S. and around the world won’t allow you in if you don’t have the COVID-19 vaccine, and private corporations are the ones instigating those unconstitutional rules. Even U.S. President Joe Biden is pushing vaccine mandates for admission to entertainment venues.

If you understand the technocratic agenda, then you know why that is. It’s because many private companies are part of the global technocratic alliance that is trying to eliminate our freedoms in order to enrich themselves.

“We started out with fear and hysteria. We moved to delusional psychosis, and now we have group control,” McDonald says. “Now we don’t have police officers and government coming after us. What we have more of is our fellow citizens now castigating us, legally limiting us from getting into vehicles [such as Uber or plane], going into businesses [and] getting jobs.”

Restoring Sanity as We Move Forward

Essentially, citizens are now acting as a de facto “police force” to suppress other people’s freedom, and this has a terribly harmful effect on society. So, how do we get out of the proverbial insane asylum? How do we restore sanity to our society while still helping those who are at greatest risk for complications and death from COVID-19? McDonald offers the following suggestions in his lecture and the featured interview:

Resolution

Pay Attention

Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. 
For if the message declared through angels was valid, and every transgression or disobedience received a just penalty, 
how can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

It was declared at first through the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, 
while God added his testimony by signs and wonders and various miracles,
and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to his will.

Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. 

But someone has testified somewhere,
‘What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
   or mortals, that you care for them? 
You have made them for a little while lower than the angels;
   you have crowned them with glory and honour, 
   subjecting all things under their feet.’

Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control.
As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus,
who for a little while was made lower than the angels,
now crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death,
so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory,
should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 

For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. 
For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying,

‘I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters,
   in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.’ 
And again,
‘I will put my trust in him.’
And again,
‘Here am I and the children whom God has given me.’
<
Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood,
he himself likewise shared the same things,
so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 
and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. 
For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. 

Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect,
so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God,
to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.
 Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.  (Hebrews 2)

This Old House

Music

Stuart Hamblin

Loretta Lynn

Johnny Cash


"For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, 
[Greek: skenos, a tent] is destroyed,
we have 
[present tense] a building [Greek: oikos, a permanent building] from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven,
if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked.

For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed,
but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.
Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.

For we walk by faith, not by sight.
We are confident, yes, well please|d rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him."

(2 Corinthians 5:1-5)

Leisure Reading

Denial is not a River in Egypt

Jesus, Judge of All

The Last Judgment

The Judgment Seat of Christ

The Books are Opened

The Grass is Always Greener...

Near Death Experiences

The Call of Heaven

Behold the Messiah

Jesus, Our Great High Priest

Jesus, our Trailblazer

Seek the Things that Are Above

Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely. I do not suppose you and I would have though much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else--something it never entered your head to conceive--comes crasing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.
--C.S. Lewis,  The Case for Christianity





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March 22, 2022