Turn About

Last Wednesday, the Bush 43 executive order prohibiting fetal stem cell research with federal money. On Friday, the Ominbus bill was signed by the President who evidently had not noticed that the perennially offered Dicky - Wicker amendment which prohibits federal funding of fetal stem cell research.

Shows what happens when people do not have the habit of reading things carefully before signing 8)

SOAP 3/16/2009

Mat 25:31-46 KJV When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: (32) And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: (33) And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. (34) Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: (35) For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: (36) Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

(37) Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? (38) When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? (39) Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

(40) And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. (41) Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: (42) For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: (43) I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

(44) Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? (45) Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. (46) And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Scripture Paraphrase: What? When did we feed you?

Observation: We often pass by opportunities for witness and aid with the excuse that it is inconvenient.

Application: How can we afford to pass up any opportunities when we do not know when we will be called to account?

Prayer: Father help me to see and act on the opportunities that you give me.

SOAP for the Soul

I put this together a while ago for a sermon that I haven't preached yet.

As a starter here is mine from yesterday.

Reading Matt. 24:15-35
(S) v24 False prophets and messiahs will arise doing signs and wonders, to the point of deceiving the elect.

(O) We like to think that we are two smart to be gulled. The smart people are at a greater risk.

(A) We are to be on guard, testing the spirits to prevent being taken

(P) Father, help us to be diligent in testing what we hear and read
1) Soap

We all know that Bible study is important, but often we are not sure how to do it. There are lots and lots of books that get used in Bible Study groups. Sadly often what happens is that the book is studied, not the Bible. We wouldn't go to the grocery store and expect to find lumber or building supplies. So why do we accept Bible studies that don't study the Bible.

We all use soap to clean our selves and other things. There are all kinds of soap, this is an incomplete list

• Murphy's Oil Soap

• Fels Naptha Soap

• Ivory Soap

• Quilt Soap

• even home made lye soap.

{Poll congregation for more kinds of soap.}

But what do we use to clean a soul? Ivory soap won't work there, scrubbing bubbles won't work either. We need a different cleaner. Like most questions, this one isn't new, and the best answer is in Psalms.

BETH.

* 9. * How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.
* 10. * I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.
* 11. * I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
* 12. * Praise be to you, O Lord; teach me your decrees.
* 13. * With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.
* 14. * I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.
* 15. * I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.
* 16. * I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.

Ps. 119:9 - 16 NIV

So what we need to clean our soul is scripture, but it is not enough just to read it. If that is all we do we run the risk of forgetting what we read, when we need it most. Here is another piece of good news, you don't have to be a Christian for this to do you some good. When I was 16 I read through the Bible. It was another two years before I became a Christian, but the Bible reading didn't hurt me a bit.

However, it works even better if you are a Christian.

A great Bible teacher, Dawson Trotman, once asked the question what made the difference between Bible reading and Bible Study. Trotman claimed that the difference was pencil and paper. He went on to say that the act of writing, helped organize the thoughts of the mind.

2) S. O. A. P.

That brings us to SOAP.

2.1 Tools

First, what do we need for this Bible study method:

1. You will need a Bible.

2. You will need a reading plan.

3. You will need paper and a pen or pencil.

4. You will need to set aside some time.

Everything except the time you can get at Dollar Tree for about $3.00.

2.2 The way that it works is this.

2.2.1 Prayer

Beginning with prayer we ask God to be with us as we study the Bible. The following prayers are suggested as examples.

1. The Prayer for Illumination

Almighty God, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that, as the Scriptures are read and your Word proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today, Amen.

2. The Covenant Prayer

I give myself completely to you, God. Assign me to my place in your creation. Let me suffer for you. Give me the work you would have me do. Give me many tasks, or have me step aside while you call others. Put me forward or humble me. Give me riches or let me live in poverty. I freely give all that I am and all that I have to you. And now, holy God -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- you are mine and I am yours. So be it. May this covenant made on earth continue for all eternity. Amen

3. Last but certainly not least, the Lord's Prayer is good too

Where ever the reading plan has us reading we read that section of scripture. We are looking for a verse that, for lack of a better description, jumps off of the page. You might want to make a small mark at that verse so you can find it again. We continue to read to the end of the section to make sure that we have the context.

2.2.2 Scripture

That brings us to the S in soap - which stands for Scripture - Now we return to the verse that jumped off of the page - we need to paraphrase it, that means that we are rewriting it so that it becomes meaningful to us. This is something that I wrote recently.

2.2.3 Observation

Once we have written our paraphrase we come to the O - which stands for Observation - Now we look at the passage again and we put down in our own words what the verse is saying to us. Now we have a handle on what the verse means to us today and have it down on paper.

2.2.4 Application

The A stands for Application - what we should be taking away from the verse and apply in our life. Again we are writing it down in our own words, that is one of the important things throughout the process is getting it down in our own words.

2.2.5 Prayer

Now we need to write a prayer to help us learn our lesson, and apply it to our life right now.

3) So lets review

1. Bible study is important because it helps us clean up our soul.

2. Many Bible studies involve studying a book other than the Bible - good but not the best.

3. Many people study the same verses over and over again - a reading plan keeps us moving through the Bible.

4. Prayer we start with prayer - here are some good ones:

(a) The Prayer for Illumination
(b) The Covenant Prayer
(c) The Lord's Prayer

5. Scripture - we read scripture

(a) (S) Look for a verse that stands out. Paraphrase the Verse.
(b) (O) Reflect on what the verse means to you today, and how it relates to the world around you.
(c) (A) Apply the verse to our life.
(d) (P) Pray.

6. Save the information for future reference. Over time it becomes a personal Bible study.

4) Challenge

Are you ready to kick it up a notch?

Six Degrees of Darrell S. Cole

Lat 24 47 N
Lon 141 19 E

Iwo Jima

KIA on D-1 Medal of Honor Winner Sgt. Darrell Samuel Cole, USMCR. Sgt.
Cole’s heroism on 19Feb1945 was memorialized by the Navy with the June 1995 commissioning of DDG-67 USS COLE an Arliegh Burke Class Guided Missile Destroyer.

USS COLE was attacked by al Qaeda terrorists in Aden Yemen on Oct 12, 2000.

Corpsman John Bradley, one of the 3 men in Rosenthal’s picture to survive the battle - said it best “We’re not heros, the heros are the ones who didn’t come home.”

My six degrees:
1) Sgt. D. S. Cole dies at Iwo Jima winning the congressional Medal of Honor
2) US Navy names DDG-67 in honor of Sgt. Cole
3) I was assigned to the Commissioning crew.

Doubling Down on Debt

ARRA is a classic example of a gambler down on his / her luck and doubling down to get even.

Our president, has explicitly stated this principle, by suggesting that we must aggressively prop up the economy by federal spending. It is an article of faith on the stimulation side that Japan's government did not act aggressively enough or fast enough. Even NPR can find the problem with trying to spend our way out of the problem.

Congressman Minnick's stimulus plan looks a lot better, if you buy into the idea that we need to have a stimulus plan

Closing the Loop: OODA, Feedback and Congress

My day job involves a number of electronic and electromechanical systems that test a value, make an adjustment and retest the value. A very common example of one of these systems is the household heating / air conditioning system. A simple one consists of little more than a temperature sensing device - a thermostat and a heat source. Operation is pretty simple - you set the desired temperature at the thermostat and when the temperature drops below a certain level the thermostat signals the heat source to go to work. The temperature rises until the thermostat goes over its upper limit and sends the heat source a stop signal. Viewed over time the temperature will average pretty close to the set value.

One of the systems that I have worked on in the past is the Helm control for the ship. There are a number of pieces in this system that work together to steer the ship in a particular direction. A quick outline of what is going on will help illustrate this - in a small sail boat sailing across a small lake we pick a point on the far side and adjust the rudder by hand to keep the boat aimed at that point. Now if we take this same system and apply it to a boat much too large to steer by hand, we might do it by sending an electrical signal to turn the rudder. So a very simple system only moves the rudder back and forth under our control but does not relieve us of the responsibility of stopping the motion or centering the rudder. A somewhat more sophisticated system will use a principle called feed back to allow us to select an end point to the motion. Now we have an option if we want to shift the rudder 10 degrees to the left we simply move our indicator to the 10 degree mark, now as the rudder shifts to the left as it gets closer to the 10 degree point, the feedback system begins reducing the signals driving the rudder left until we come to rest at the 10 degree mark. For safety reasons ships must have a rudder control method called non follow up or NFU where the operator acts as the feed back circuit to hold a specific course or rudder angle. A accessible example of NFU is the act of driving a car down the street. As we turn the wheel, the car moves in the direction the wheel is turned. The driver is adjusting the path of the car and making corrections as needed. Most of the time if no one is at the wheel of a moving car bad things will happen fairly quickly.

With the foundation of feed back laid lets move on to the Boyd Cycle or OODA loop. In essence it is a mental map of a generic decision making process. The four phases are Observation, Orientation, Decision and Act

• Observation - This is where we observe a situation - sticking with our car example there is a pot hole down the road.
• Orientation - We assess the size of the pot hole and seeing that it is large enough to damage the car determine that an action is required.
• Decision - We decide that we should swerve left.
• Action - we turn the wheel to the left

As proposed by the man who made OODA popular Col. John Boyd, it is a continuous process of adapting to conditions.

As practiced by Congress decision making tends to become fixated not on actual conditions but on favored solutions to problems. Dysfunctional decision makers often come to grief when confronted with situations that do not respond as expected or hoped for. One example for contemplation is the Maginot line, the assumptions that led to its construction, forced the opposing Germans to consider alternatives, and they decided to go through Belgium instead of driving headfirst in to the Maginot line as expected by the French.

"Life is hard, it's harder if you're stupid."

ARRA and the Law of Holes

The first law of holes, famously states - that when one is in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.

In theory our governments should be operating on the same basis as the average household, or company. That would mean that when income drops, expenses should be trimmed as well. As we have seen since the beginning of the National government, first under the Articles of Confederation and then under the Constitution, matching income with expenditures has always been a thorny problem.

Failure to understand and consider the effects of legislation has made Congress watching an unending circus parade of unintended consequences. ARRA or HR 1 is merely the latest in a long line of quick cheap fixes that have been for the most part neither quick, cheap or fixes. There is a large database that shows across history, and culture the effects of various types of economic policy. Still in Washington DC our representatives find new ways to explain to us why this time is different, why this time a policy that has failed every time it has been tried simply has to work.

That sort of blindness always reminds me of an episode of 3rd Rock From the Sun, where Harry, the communications officer is watching reruns of the Buggs Bunny Roadrunner hour. He decides to bet that Wiley will catch the bird on the basis that he had seen this episode before and the plan was too brilliant to fail twice.

On the other hand, maybe we the voters are Harrys - we've been voting the same people in apparently believing that they are too brilliant to screw up twice.