November 25, 2008

Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)

@#$%

I was an 8th grader in Forty Fort, Pennsylvania when a high school senior wrote in my yearbook, "May you live as long as you want to and want to as long as you live."

A really smart guy in Florida who has been battling the beast in his mainline franchise for a lot longer than anyone I know just wrote to me, "I want to prepare you to get old! I don't care how long I live, it's being able to be active that counts!"

A friend in our family of faith told me to click on http://yeli.us/Flash/Fire.html.

I'm always sensing connections.

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Speaking of connections, I like Thanksgiving.

Turkey, gravy, stuffing, scalloped and mashed potatoes, salads, yams, corn, breads, green and lima beans, jelloed dishes, drinks galore, pastries, pies, exotic teas from impoverished lands, decaf and regular coffees with hazelnut and mocha and too many flavors to decide, cakes, candies, cranberries, and...

Family.

The last one is best ingredient for a Happy Thanksgiving.

@#$%

I eat until I fall asleep.

I wake up wondering why so many must invite sleep because it's too hard to stay awake when there's so little to eat.

Conscience.

Christine B. Whelan, a visiting Professor of Sociology at the University of Iowa, for USA Today (11/24/08): "As families gather around buffet tables smothered with food on Thanksgiving, religious diet groups caution us God might not approve of that second piece of pie...Gluttony - one of the seven deadly sins dating to the 6th century - was associated with an obsession with food rather than God."

Dang professors!

I know they don't really believe much; but they're always provoking questions and, uh, conscience.

They may be an amoral lot; but they're always provoking our, uh, morality.

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 notwithstanding, there's a Scrooge trying to spoil every party.

Matthew 25 notwithstanding, there's always some bleeding heart trying to make me feel guilty because I'm feelin' too good.

Dang connections.

Dang, uh, conscience.

If this keeps up, I'll have to start doing something about it on, uh, uh, uh,...Friday.

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The Bible talks about partying in a Christian kinda way.

They ran out of wine at a wedding and Jesus made more really good stuff.

You know what dad did when the prodigal came back: party time!

I know that comes as a shock to teetotalers and other self-righteous party-poopers.

Yet He did say, "I came to give you joy to the max!"

Sounds like party time to me.

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O.K.

Balance.

If I'm goin' to party, Jesus says I've got to invite others to join in.

Go back to Matthew 25 again.

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It goes like this.

Have a really happy Thanksgiving.

Whoop it up!

And as long as you keep prayin' and workin' on increasin' attendance, He's right there with ya!

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Thanksgiving began as something of a harvest festival as early as 1565 in Saint Augustine, Florida - which now has the best fried shrimp place on the planet called Osteen's which is my connection without conscience - and was first celebrated by the Plymouth Colony in 1621; and while our first President George Washington was the, uh, first President to declare the holiday in 1789, it took Abraham Lincoln's "Thanksgiving Proclamation" of 10/3/1863 to seal the deal: "The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come...the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God."

In yo' face, secularists!

Incidentally, FDR, who is being compared to PBHO or is that vice versa for one never knows now that Time compares PBHO to Jesus and sycophants say he's the, uh, second coming of Abe, uh, "changed" (that word) Thanksgiving from the last Thursday in November to the 3rd Thursday to lengthen the Christmas shopping season which was how it stayed until Congress moved it to 4th in 1941 where it has stayed ever since.

Geez.

You can't even eat a turkey without politics takin' a bite.

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Speaking of bites, 46 million turkeys, according to Sherrie Rosenblatt of the National Turkey Federation, will be, uh, wolfed down on Thursday.

Mitchell Cohen, a real bummer via www.counterpunch.org whose readers are so much more generous than mine (aka support/gratitude/pity) which causes some real esteem issues pour moi, whines, "The ritual slaughter of turkeys; the fact that each American's average Thanksgiving dinner is 2000 calories, and that we live in a country with 5% of the world's people consuming 27% of the world's natural resources, while making 50% of its garbage..."

Blah. Blah. Blah.

He must be another one of those dang Iowan professors who say they're for the underdog while living off the fat of the land and sippin' latte at Starbucks.

Balance!

There's enough food to go around!

Eat up!

And don't forget to share!

Is it that tough to figure out?

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There is one thing about Thanksgiving lore that baffles me.

How could the Pilgrims have discovered New England if people were already living there?

Sounds a little, uh, condescending to me.

Parenthetically, I think of Mahatma Gandhi. He was asked, "What do you think of Western Civilization?" Response: "I think it would be a good idea!"

It sounds like 1492; or as Kurt Vonnegut wrote in Breakfast of Champions: "The teachers told the children that this [1492] was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them."

I don't recall Macy's having a float for that one.

Conservatives always accuse liberals of revising history to suit their ideology; but I, uh, think it goes both ways.

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Speaking of quandaries, a pastor in Ohio asks, "I know PBHO won the election, but doesn't it look more like a victory for WJC and HRC when you look at who is being tapped for the next administration?"

Hmm.

Change?

Yes, it is a change from the last eight years to the eight years before that which is change if you consider...

What?

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JB predicted a big "crisis" for PBHO not long after swearing in on 1/20/09.

How about this?

The New York Times and Jerusalem Post are reporting, "Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts."

Assuming the ragheaded leadership of Iran has a better delivery system than camels, PBHO better get on the phone now; because Israel ain't waitin' for a sit-down-rap-dialogue on its future when their response time isn't as long as an 8th grade infatuation.

Read Golda Meir's oral autobiography. She said Israel will not hesitate to use the chocolate candies which they've got stored up in Dimona if it's a matter of national survival. Israel doesn't trust gentiles. And if you were Jewish, you'd understand why; but, quickly, a refresher: German liberal church's messianic hallucinations during Hitler's rise to power, Rome's accommodation of the Nazis, American and British pathetic patterns of soft and slow politics over hard and fast principles during WWII concomitant to the Holocaust...

Yeah, a crisis is coming.

Pray for Israel.

Pray PBHO gets it right in keeping with Biblical prophecy.

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The crisis won't be about PBHO's birth certificate; though Alan Keyes and others are pressing for "the truth" about where he was born.

Personally, I don't care where he was born; but the United States Constitution does require the President to be a "natural-born citizen."

But if mainline denominations don't have to pay attention to their constitutions when it comes to faith, morality, and standards of, uh, election to office/ordination, why should America care about such old-fashioned stuff like that?

Two cautions.

First, an indisputably clear majority of America and all of NBC/CNN want him to be our President; and to pull this stunt at this time will ignite incredible unrest and open rebellion.

Second, this will open the door for Arnold in 2012!

Psst.

This challenge to PBHO's name on the 2008 election ballot citing questions over his citizenship has been scheduled for a "conference" at the Unites States Supreme Court on December 5, 2008.

Supreme Court "conferences" are private meetings among the robed ones to review cases and decide which ones hit pay dirt or formal review.

I'm betting common sense prevails and the justices ignore the challenge.

Al Gore does not agree with me.

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Mail time!

From a really smart lawyer in California who doubles as a pastor: "I want to half-unsubscribe. Please use ___ instead of ___. I do appreciate KDs and read most all of them. I sometimes feel like I'm solving a New York Times crossword puzzle,...but enjoy them and I am encouraged by your prayerfulness and faithfulness."

Half-unsubscribe? I guess that counters those who say I'm half-___.

From a pastor near the NFL's Hall of Fame in Ohio which will be as far away from Favre's successor's destiny as I am from becoming moderator for any "higher" judicatory in my franchise: "I have never saved anyone...Not my job, man. My job is to preach Jesus and Him crucified. Introduce people to Jesus...I am content to let God do His job and not try to do it for Him."

Watch for a link to The Old Gray Dog when www.koppdiscourse.com hits cyberspace for further explanation! Until then, quoting an old friend, "You love 'em! Let God judge 'em!"

From a lawyer in Kansas whose daddy was a pastor: "Your 11/20/08 KD reminds me of a quote that I saw on the bust of Abe Lincoln at Case Western Reserve University Genealogy Library: 'Democracy is dependent upon the consent of the minority.' If Americans forget that, we will no longer live peaceably together in this country."

Absolutely! Just look at what's happening to the PCUSA and its sister mainliners! Assuming Jesus as Lord of all - which, I know, is a really, really, really big assumption for mainliners these days - majorities forgetting minorities will find out how that feels when the minorities end up being the majorities. For example, I've been telling worship committees for over three decades that they better pay attention to the musical tastes of the younger generation because the younger generation will become the older generation and treat them like they were treated. Let me put it another way. Style should never serve substance. Content is more important than form. Style and form enable ingestion of content/substance. But when style and form are more important than content/substance, everything unravels sooner or later and usually sooner than later. Again, just look at the mainliners!

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I got a card from a family at First in Belvidere which reminded me of important stuff:

Friends,

Your card has been posted in my study to remind me why I pastor, preach,
write KDs, press the "Blessings" building campaign, salt, shine/smile,
and all of the rest which annoy casual Christians so much (see Matthew
10, John 10):

Front: David defeated Goliath as a youth.
Mary followed God's plan as a young woman.
Billy Graham met Christ as a teenager.

Inside Left: 1 Corinthians 15:58 (The Message)

Inside Right: Thanks for all the future Davids,
Marys, and Billys that you are
influencing today.

While I know I fall short of this sentiment in a Romans
3:23 kinda way, it is my prayer and, uh,...[What's
that trendy word which has become more of a
cliché than pattern for enfleshed belief?]...purpose.

Blessings and Love!

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Kathie Goymerac, FreiwilligKoppmeisterbeidiegnadenwahl (aka Webmaster/Accountant), told me over coffee this morning with the Belvidere Brewers at Starbucks that www.koppdisclosure.com will be up and running on December 12, 2008.

That means you can show your support/gratitude/pity by becoming a sponsor (donations because you're nice) or advertiser (payables because you know it's gettin' around and KDers are loyal); seriously, we need your help to salt and shine in a sarcastically iconoclastic way in keeping with the first half of the Decalogue in hopes of keeping the second half or...

Something like that.

Sponsors can send donations to KD (221 N. Main Street, Belvidere, Illinois 61008) and advertisers can contact Kathie directly at mhtml:%7BC9B71D13-62FC-4537-9098-C3DA46784965%7Dmid://00001175/!x-usc:mailto:kathiejg7@gmail.com to negotiate a very good deal.

I was surfing late last night and found several really, really, really anti-Christian and anti-American and anti-humanitarian agapephobic sites which just held fundraisers. They don't want their subscribers to think in any kind of way other than pejorative, polemical, and punitive with those who disagree.

No, I'm not talking about websites for mainline denominations or Democrats or Republicans; which, uh, come close to the problems presented in the previous paragraph.

Seriously...

Moretheless, Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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Blessings and Love!