Definition of Hell : A Proof

God resides in Heaven, therefore Hell is empty of God.

God is good.

Everything good comes from God.

Jesus and God are one.

The world was created through Jesus.

The world was created for Jesus.

Through Jesus, creation is held together.

No God: no Jesus.

Hell is the absence of good, of creation, of Jesus.

Hell is the absence of everything good that we know and more.
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Can you even imagine what that means?

Can you survive eternity in alone, nothingness, with no evidence or comprehension of good, with no purpose? And if the bible is accurate, can you watch? Can you watch from the other side of the chasm (Luke 16: 19-31) as others bask in good, in pure relationship and in purpose?

Struck by this thought,
k8t
k8t(at)faceofagirl(dot)com
(a comment left on yesterday's post spurred this thought)
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Please include the following statement on any distributed or linked copy: By Kaet Johnson. © faceofagirl.com. Website: faceofagirl.com

Learning To Fear

In this era of political correctness, happiness at all costs, playing nice, no consequences, bailout packages, and relativity, have we made God into god? Have we lost our fear of Him?

As a child, I think I had a fear of God, maybe not a healthy, right fear, but it was fear, nonetheless. I lost that fear when all I concentrated on was how loving God is. We hear it everywhere in Christian circles, and rightly so, “God is love.”

But, I’m getting an inkling of what C.S. Lewis meant in his Narnia series when he writes about Aslan (who represents God/Jesus if Jesus came to a world as a lion):

Susan: “Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

Mrs. Beaver: "That you will, dearie, and no mistake, if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."

And what Bonhoeffer means when he refers to God has severe.

God is scary, He’s big, He’s … I don’t have words.

He leaves you to sit in the results of your choices. He is the god of the old testament, the old covenant. He can be, seemingly, mean.

He is fearful with a capital F.

But there’s more, and I know there’s more, and it ends in love spelled J E S U S. But, right now, I’m learning about His bigness and His scariness. I’m learning to fear-- and it's not a bad thing.

In fear and hope,
k8t
k8t(at)faceofagirl(dot)com
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Please include the following statement on any distributed or linked copy: By Kaet Johnson. © faceofagirl.com. Website: faceofagirl.com

The Trajedy of A Princess: An Old-Fashioned Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, in a land far away, lived a princess. She was a beautiful and pure princess, obedient and smart. Her name was Tamar and she wore lovely gowns and lived in a grand and glorious kingdom. She had one brother, Absalom (who was very handsome) and many half-brothers and sisters. Her mother was a princess, the daughter of the King of Geshur.

Tamar's oldest half-brother, Amnon, was the crown-prince, the son that would become king. Amnon thought Tamar was beautiful. He thought he loved her. He wanted her so much that he would become sick in his stomach when he thought about her. He was very frustrated because he knew that he could not marry his sister. So, day after day he moped around and did not eat.

A wicked and crafty man, named Jon, saw how Amnon was acting. He asked him, "Why are you, the son of the king, looking so ill and acting so depressed? Tell me!"

Amnon said, "I am in love with Tamar, the sister of my brother and I cannot marry her, I cannot have her."

Jon suggested that Amnon trick Tamar so that he could be with her. Amnon thought this was a good idea, so he pretended to be sick. His father, the king, went to him when he heard Amnon was sick; Amnon was his favorite son, his first-born and heir to his throne and he loved him very much.

The king said, "Son, what is it you need?"

"Please, let Tamar come to me and cook for me and feed me. I want to see her and be with her." So the king sent Tamar to Amnon's house to cook for him and feed him.

When Tamar arrived she made cakes of bread; she kneeded them and baked them while Amnon watched. When the cakes were done, she brought Amnon the food, but he refused to eat.

"Send everyone away, I want to be alone, but you stay!"

After everyone left, Amnon said, "Now, bring the food to me here in my bedroom and feed it to me from your hand." Tamar brought him the food. Amnon grabbed her and said to her, "Come, lie with me, my sister, come into my bed."

Tamar was shocked and afraid, "Brother, don't do this thing, do not violate me, this is not done in our kingdom; do not do this disgraceful thing! If you do, what will happen to me? Where will I get rid of my disgrace? And what will happen to you? You will be called wicked and a fool! The people of our nation will laugh at you! Ask the king, he will allow you to marry me!"

But Amnon would not listen to her, he wanted her, he took her and raped her. Then, in his guilt, he hated her, he hated her more than he loved her. So, he said to her, "Get up and get out!"

"No!" Tamar said to him. "Sending me away is a greater wrong that what you have already done to me; marry me or pay my bride price, make this right, but do not send me away!"

But Amnon would not listen to her. He called to his servant and said, "Get this woman out of here and lock the door after she is gone."

The servant did as he was told. Tamar was wearing a lovely gown, one that only a virgin princess can wear. In her grief and despair, she put ashes on her head and tore her clothing as a sign of a great calamity and her great distress. She went from Amnon's house, with her hand on her head, weeping loudly.

Her brother, Absalom found her, and said, "Did Amnon hurt you, did he violate you? Be quiet now, my sister; he is your brother, he is family. Don't take this thing too hard. You can live in my house."

The King heard all that Amnon had done and he was very angry, but he did nothing. He left Tamar in her brother's care.

Absalom did not do or say anything either, but he hated Amnon for what he had done and he made plans to do evil to his half-brother.

Tamar lived in Absalom's house, a desolate woman, ever after.

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Hoping people see AND do something if a princess they know needs them,
k8t
k8t(at)faceofagirl(dot)com

(This fairy-tale is true and can be found in 2 Samuel, Chapter 13 of the Bible. Because the king did nothing, terrible consequences ensue for the whole family, not just Tamar.)
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Please include the following statement on any distributed or linked copy: By Kaet Johnson. © faceofagirl.com. Website: faceofagirl.com

Which God Do You See?

We have a pre-teen, a female pre-teen, a strong-willed, very bright, with a huge vocabulary and very high comprehension pre-teen.

I need help. I really do. She is my oldest and I am out of my league.

The other day she related to me in a very clear manner that my effort and longing to pass along the truths and wonderful words of God, has, instead of drawing her nearer to our creator and our savior, pushed her away. She also told me that it was high-time I stopped being perfect.

Hmmfff.

I was hit, hard, in the gut. I was also very sad. My girl was rejecting me and worse, rejecting God and it was my fault. She was seeing, not who I am, but some apparition of me she had placed on a pedestal. She was seeing the god I saw as as child, the god of "rules and regulations", the god of "the removal of fun" from life. The god who did not solve my problems, who was not at my beck and call and who made mistakes. This was not the god I was trying to describe, trying to share.

I am at a loss as to how I share my joy in knowing there is truth with a capital T, that life is not all relative. How do I share that there is freedom when one knows who YHWH is, who Yeshua is, when one knows who they are because they realize WHO created them and why.

How do I share reality without condemnation? How do I share my hope? How do I live so she knows I am not perfect, but there is One who is?

Really pondering,
k8t
k8t(at)faceofagirl(dot)com
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Please include the following statement on any distributed or linked copy: By Kaet Johnson. © faceofagirl.com. Website: faceofagirl.com

Everything New Is Old

Do We Need a New New Deal?

Burton W. Folsom, Jr.
Charles F. Kline Chair in History and Management, Hillsdale College
Author, New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on January 9, 2009, in Washington, D.C., at a seminar sponsored by Hillsdale's Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship.

This article was originally posted at http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp in the January 2009 Issue of Imprimus

THE NEW Deal has probably been the greatest political force in America during the last 100 years, and Franklin D. Roosevelt has probably been the most influential president during this time. In our current economic crisis—which some have compared with the Great Depression—many critics are calling for more federal programs and a "New New Deal." There are three reasons we do not need a New New Deal from President Obama in 2009.

First, the federal programs in FDR's New Deal did not lower unemployment. Sure, the Works Progress Administration built roads, the Tennessee Valley Authority built dams, and the Civilian Conservation Corps planted trees. But every dollar that went to creating a federal job had to come from taxpayers, who, by sending their cash to Washington, lost the chance to buy hamburgers, movie tickets, or clothes and create new jobs for restaurants, theaters, and tailors.

What's worse, some New Deal programs had terrible unintended consequences. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration, for example, overhauled agriculture by paying farmers not to produce on part of their land. After farmers took the federal dollars, the U.S. developed shortages of the very crops taxpayers were paying farmers not to produce. By 1935, for example, the U.S. was importing almost 35 million bushels of corn, 13 million bushels of wheat, and 36 million pounds of cotton. Simultaneously, we had an army of bureaucrats in the Department of Agriculture to inspect farms (and even to do aerial photography) to ensure farmers were not growing the crops we were importing into the country.

Second, the taxes to pay for the New Deal became astronomical. In 1935, Roosevelt decided to raise the marginal tax rate on top incomes to 79 percent. Later he raised it to 90 percent. These confiscatory rates discouraged entrepreneurs from investing, which prolonged the Great Depression.

Henry Morgenthau, FDR's loyal Secretary of the Treasury, was frustrated at the persistence of double-digit unemployment throughout the 1930s. In May 1939, with unemployment at 20 percent, he exploded at the failed New Deal programs. "We have tried spending money," Morgenthau noted. "We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. . . . We have never made good on our promises. . . . I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot!"

Third, the New Deal divided and politicized the country in tragic ways. Those who lobbied most effectively won subsidies and bailouts even if their cause was weak. Others, who had greater needs, received nothing. Walter Waters, who led a march of veterans on Washington, lobbied successfully for a special bonus for veterans, whether they had been in battle or not. When asked why veterans—instead of longshoremen or teachers—should receive a special bonus of taxpayer dollars, he said, "I noticed, too, that the highly organized lobbies in Washington for special industries were producing results: loans were being granted to their special interests. . . . Personal lobbying paid, regardless of the justice or injustice of their demand."

Thus, as money became available, those with effective political lobbies won the subsidies and others, who sometimes had more just causes and greater need, received little or nothing. In the case of the veterans, in 1936 they won a $2 billion federal bonus—a sum exceeding six percent of the entire national debt at the time. Teachers, by contrast, were less effective lobbyists and won almost no federal subsidies. Silver miners, led by Senator Key Pittman of Nevada, won a silver subsidy that paid almost $300,000 a day each day for 14 years, but coal miners were left out.

In another example, under Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt, Illinois lobbied effectively and won $55,443,721 under the first federal welfare grant while Massachusetts received zero federal dollars. Without federal money for welfare needs, Massachusetts valiantly raised its own funds to secure what Illinois extracted from Washington. The Boston Civic Symphony repeatedly gave concerts to benefit the jobless. City officials and teachers raised money and took pay cuts. Massachusetts Governor Joseph Ely believed that no state should receive federal aid and that private charity was the best charity; that federal relief ruined both taxpayers and those in need. "Whatever the justification for relief," Ely said, "the fact remains that the way in which it has been used makes it the greatest political asset on the practical side of party politics ever held by an administration." Ely added that "millions of men and women . . . have come to believe almost that there is no hope for them except upon a government payroll."

Federal dollars always become political dollars, and the Democrats moved to use federal money to gain votes at election time. In Pennsylvania, Joseph Guffey, the successful Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in 1934, ran a campaign ad that said, "Compare this $297,942,173 contributed by Pennsylvania to the U.S. U.S. Treasury with the cash and credit of $678,074,195 contributed to Pennsylvania by the Roosevelt Democratic administration." Vote Democrat, Guffey and others proclaimed, and the federal faucet will keep running. James Doherty, a New Hampshire Democrat, said, "It is my personal belief that to the victor belong the spoils and that Democrats should be holding most of these [WPA] positions so that we might strengthen our fences for the 1940 election." One WPA director in New Jersey—a corrupt but candid man—answered his office phone, "Democratic Headquarters."

If history is a guide, we have every reason to believe that if President Obama institutes a New New Deal, then universal health care, federal bailouts, and jobs stimulus programs will be costly, will be politicized, and will fail.

© 2007-09 Hillsdale College. All Rights Reserved.
33 East College St. Hillsdale, MI 49242 • Tel: 517-437-7341 • Fax: 517-437-3923

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Reading today,
k8t
k8t(at)faceofagirl(dot)com
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