A Little Child Shall Lead Them

This was written by an 8 year old, Danny Dutton of Chula Vista, California, for his third grade homework assignment. The Assignment was to explain God:

One of God's main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die, so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn’t make grown-ups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way He doesn't have to take up His valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to mothers and Fathers.

God's second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times beside bedtime. God doesn't have time to listen to the radio or TV because of this. Because He hears everything, there must be a terrible lot of noise in His ears, unless He has thought of a way to turn it off.

God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere which keeps Him pretty busy. So you shouldn't go wasting His time by going over your Mom and dad's head asking for something they said you couldn't have.

Atheists are people who don't believe in God. I don't think there are any in Chula Vista. At least there aren't any who come to our church.

Jesus is God's Son. He used to do all the hard work like walking on water and performing miracles and trying to teach the people who didn't want to learn about God. They finally got tired of Him preaching to them and they crucified Him. But He was good and kind, like His Father and He told His Father that they didn't know what they were doing and to forgive them and God said "O.K."

His Dad (God)appreciated everything that He had done and all His hard work on earth so He told Him He didn't have to go out on the road anymore. He could stay in heaven. So He did. And now He helps His Dad out by listening to prayers and seeing things which are important for God to take care of and which ones He can take care of Himself without having to bother God. Like a secretary, only more important.

You can pray anytime you want and they are sure to help you becausethey got it worked out so one of them is on duty all the time. You should always go to church on Sunday because it makes God happy, and if there's anybody you want to make happy, it's God. Don't skip church to do something you think will be more fun like going to the beach. This is wrong. And besides, the sun doesn't come out at the beach until noon anyway.

If you don't believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely, because your parents can't go everywhere with you, like to camp, but God can. It is good to know He's around you when you're scared in the dark or when you can't swim and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids.

But... you shouldn't just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and He can take me back anytime He pleases.

And... that's why I believe in God.





THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC

There is no human activity more intriguing to angels than our making of music. An explanation of why this is so can be found in scripture, the implications of which dare us to challenge all that we know of mankind's never ending need to express the duplicity of his soul.

Angels inhabit the Kingdom of Heaven, and are counted among the heavenly host. Numbered by the Word of God as are grains of sand, they glorify His name with celestial singing that is incomprehensible to earthbound sensibilities. If it can be so explained, the music of Heaven is layers upon layers of interwoven harmonic resplendence, for all who are in Heaven sing an unending song, giving praise to He who "made the earth, whose hands stretched out the heavens, and all their host has He commanded." (Is.45:12)

Lucifer was one of three archangels (Michael and Gabriel being the other two), and no cherub or seraph was allowed closer proximity to the throne of God than these. As Heaven's choir director, it was Lucifer's responsibility to lead the angelic host in worship. Created with instruments of music fashioned into his being: "The workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou was created..." (Ezek.28:13) He not only conducted the orchestra, he WAS the orchestra.

And he was very wise and extremely beautiful: "Every precious stone was thy covering, the Sardis, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold." Then in the midst of Heaven's order and harmony, "When the morning stars [angels] sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy" (Job 38:7), Lucifer sees his own beauty and brilliance and declares, "I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars [angels] of God; ...I will be like the most High." (Isa.14:13-14).

When Lucifer was cast to the earth "as lightning fall from heaven" with a third of the heavenly host (who by their free will chose to worship him as god), he brought his talent for music with him. It follows that a contamination of sorts has infected the music on earth, for we have songs that glorify Satanic deception, rebellion, and the occult, driven into the mind and soul by instruments and amplifiers pushed to torturous sound levels; and thousands have given themselves in worship to "the god of this age." I can hear the Lord God now:





At this writing a resurgence of sixties music and ideology is designing much of the present. But our contemporary youth culture wants little to do with the desperate hedonism of modern survival. The burned-out drug-induced aspirations of the sixties do not make for a bright future: Not with AIDS a world-wide epidemic, legal abortion slaughtering millions of the unborn, divorce, unwed motherhood, illegal aliens and drug addiction subsidized by welfare programs; gangs, murder, cocaine and violence on the streets of America everywhere, a criminal justice system criminally lenient and pendulous by inequity; a liberal agenda propagandizing the media with socialist dogma, indoctrinating 3rd graders with homosexuality and proselytizing moral authority while sanctioning chauffeur-driven "fat cat" swindlers with the legislative power to plunder the American dream.





The following comes from a Catholic elementary school. Kids were asked questions about the Old and New Testaments. The following statements about the Bible were written by children. They have not been retouched or corrected (i.e., incorrect spelling has been retained).

1. In the first book of the bible, Guinessis, God got tired of creating the world, so he took the Sabbath off

2. Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. Noah's wife was called Joan of Ark. Noah built an ark which the animals come on to in pears.
3. Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day, but a ball of fire by night.

4. The Jews were a proud people and throughout history they had trouble with the unsympathetic Genitals.

5. Samson was a strongman who let himself be led astray by a Jezebel like Delilah.

6. Samson slayed the Philistines with the axe of the Apostles.

7. Moses led the Hebrews to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread without any ingredients.

8. The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten amendments.

9. The first commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple.

10. The seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.

11. Moses died before he ever reached Canada. Then Joshua led the Hebrews in the battle of Geritol.

12. The greatest miracle in the Bible is when Joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him.

13. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Finklesteins, a race of people who lived in Biblical times.

14. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

15. When Mary heard that she was the mother of Jesus, she sang the Magna Carta.

16. When the three wise guys from the east side arrived, they found Jesus in the manager.

17. Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.

18. St. John the blacksmith dumped water on his head.

19. Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says to do one to others before they do one to you. He also explained, "a man doth not live by sweat alone."

20. It was a miracle when Jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the tombstone off the entrance.

21. The people who followed the lord were called the 12 decibels.

22. The epistles were the wives of the apostles.

23. One of the opossums was St. Matthew who was also a taximan.

24. St. Paul cavorted to Christianity. He preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marriage.

25. Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony.






As under the omen star

The New Age movement was initiated by sixties legends as they gloried in the counter culture's rite of passage; willful contempt for God’s authority. But they never said as much. The vitality and naivete of fifties music yielded to the given that rock was growing up, and the tenets of secular humanism, though couched in feel good rhyme and rhythm, were cloaked in the subtle persuasion of duty to ego. Any number of titles from the era conform to what is recognized as New Age sacraments, and were ornamented in themes now honored as the maturing of rock'n'roll, which — at the time — didn’t vilify Christianity so much as it tried to ignore it.

Those of the ilk, such as John Lennon, Donovan, Cat Stevens etc., thought themselves to be enlightened, the word most wrong for what it means. The kingdom of darkness is for those who go one before the other as if led by their own light. The conceit that we've arrived at the next frontier of evolutionary consciousness originated in the culture of sixties idolatry, and began as oneness with the power of ourselves. I was guilty of this, and take now a moment to apologize for my portion of its emergence. Those of us blessed with a blue thumb are to the manor born; having planted that which prospered under the omen star, we negotiated blame in our rhyme and were proud to be blameless in our songs. Occultism marches to a drum beaten by a cloven hoof. It pretends to wear a sandal stained with blood from a crown of thorns, and the beat goes on.

The mystical enchantment of music can envelop the soul with a coma-like malaise, overpowering the prevalent mood of the moment so completely as to give us the sum total of our lives. We experience the full force of integrated longings for love, security, and social significance. These needs are so compelling we remember them in a time and place that never was, and so they "sleep" in the words and melody of a song remembered only by blameless expectations. As "captured" emotions, these feelings are so enshrined in subtle disappointments of anticipated fulfillment they can virtually obliterate the immediate continuity of life. It is a spell, it is escape, it is renewal of stranded dreams, and sometimes it's a denial of a disintegrating future we the collective feel powerless to amend; tomorrow is now.

On the whole this phenomenon is therapeutic. The songs that commemorate enduring expectations can rejuvenate the human spirit for romance, idealism, the beginning of relationships, careers, youth — the whole spectrum of future events and expectant fulfillment. An aspect of healing and released anxiety is associated, one that could be said to have properties significant for the treatment of ills common to an eclectic society. The recapture of youthful idealism softens the heart for tolerance. Introspection allows us to reflect on life's resolutions; the time it takes to appreciate the full design of lessons learned and bridges burned. We mistakenly assume youth is not receptive to experience as the final authority, that perseverance receives no rewards. While it's true contemporary culture demands immediate gratification while divorcing itself from values obtained by the patience required for living life one day at a time, music can revive the immediacy of hope — perpetually conceive it — so that the joy of its discovery is relived again and again.

The timeless vitality of this mystical rejuvenation remarries the present with the past, thus music endures as a "living" reward for faith in the future. Each time we hear a song that "lives" in what we are experiencing today, we are more of ourselves, more of who we were, and more of who we will be.

As we enter the 21st century, music encompasses a wide variety of styles and crossbreeds: The big band era gave way to the pop song. What was once known as country & western led to the folk era. Folk was overwhelmed by rock'n'roll, conceived by the blues, which was fathered by the progenitor of most American-born music, gospel.

These and a host of other music categories have found a universal audience. Whereas in times past there was really only one audience, now there are as many musical delineations as there are factions of the public to support them. While it's true that contemporary rock continues to express the obstinate relevance of its seniority, technology is contaminating the market place with artificial sentiment; cloned rhythms, and a redundant library of contrived chants with puerile themes. So much of what is heard obscures the magical power of music by degenerating its "quality of heart," but the real danger in the unspecified diversity of cause and effect is the exploitation of hopelessness.

As for rap, it's a form of urban folk music. With little or no enduring melodic structure, and lyrics enunciating social crises, rap's longevity as a musical expression evoking societal communion degenerates almost as quickly as its problematic themes. If we can't understand the words, and we can't whistle the tune, what's the point? The point is, we need music that reaches into our worth as intelligent beings, to remind us that we're more than just dancing bones and a haircut.

By way of nihilism and technological evolution, our feelings for the human condition have no value. Now bereft of inspiration by vulgar phrases and obscenity, the richness of compliant, emotional continuity so vital to the health of our nation, is vanishing. I don't mean to suggest we can turn back the clock, or that the mystical enchantment of music is reserved for, or limited to, a particular era — or that we should expect to hear gangster rap as hummed by the mailman. But we need to be reminded of simpler times. Of melodies whistled and songs cherished.

It is almost a sacrilege when the continuing treasure of songs that renew us comes floating as background music into elevators and shopping malls, or is relegated to commercials selling beer and pantyhose. This would be incidental to reality were it not for the fact that mainstream American music glorifies sex, drugs, and Satanism. Each generation hears the feudalism of its own voice. All other voices are impotent. Punk reflected the banishment of futility with its discordant noise, mindless tempos, and grinding ferocity. The fashion was body chains, black leather, and dark, masculine eyeshadow; the after the bomb look. With no trace of melodies that linger, the next generation will have no heart for the memory of its youth, but it may be too well-remembered, in a future world of obliterated reminders. We need to be reminded not to rejoice in the death of our dreams, that music lives through and for the nurturing of triumphant hope.

Youth is glorified by a culture of greed. But being young offers little to sing about, laugh at, or be led by. The best the next generation can hope for is a song commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts titled, "It's OK to Pick Your Nose." Dehumanized music, scantily melodic, underscores lyrics exalting Godless humanism. The influence of mysticism on music is now only slightly evident, having moved on to cartoons and toys with supernatural power.

I don't mean to suggest the artists of the sixties (with the exception of the Rolling Stones) made celebrating depravity a lifestyle, nor do I contend paramount obedience to New Age doctrine was the norm. "A Whiter Shade of Pale" was the poetry we never wrote, the song that made everyone who didn't write songs wished they did. It was the sound of a distant train coming from a strange world and going to another.
But many songs of the sixties were guilty of insinuating what others went so far as to endorse: Man is a physical being — evolved and evolving through many lifetimes, on his way to a bold awakening — on the threshold of becoming God.

Physical and spiritual evolution through reincarnation? Bull feathers.

We are spiritual beings housed in a physical body, and our pilgrimage for one lifetime is created specifically to optimize reunification with a loving Creator who died for us — that we may inherit eternal life. The issue was clarified by Norman Greenbaum; "Spirit in the Sky" was so refreshing by virtue of its wholesome enlightenment it cried shame upon all other songs heard on the radio — for the rest of the day — then and now.






What I'm about to propose goes beyond the truth as it is conspicuously revealed in the Word of God, the handbook for survival on earth. I've never heard this hypothesis — I've never read it — and it's never been insinuated to me by theological inference except in the context of certain Biblical passages. It evolved from a revelation inspired by the question why; why are we here.

The ego will not easily acquit that which it considers confrontational to its self-image, but the opportunity to redefine yourself is at hand — if for a moment you can instruct it to stop dictating exclusivity, personal uniqueness, and all distinctions of personality that set you apart from humanity. Haven't you said to yourself I don't deserve this. I didn't choose to be alive, and if there is an all-loving Creator, why would He make me who I am and then condemn me for it? Wasn't I born innocent? The world is the way it is. I do the best I can. It's dog eat dog down here. There's only one rule: Do unto others before they do it to you... Close your eyes for a moment. Take a deep breath. Open your mind.

As humans on earth we can by no means experience now. Try it. Snap your fingers and say "NOW." Try it again. Every time you do, now has passed into then! The concept of now is always "then" to we who live in this dimension of time. About the only thing we can be sure of is that time moves forward, and does so I might add with such design as to pass into the future by way of the past. This is why now exists only in non-time. This is where God is.

He created time, and so is transcendent — apart from all dimensions of time. Everything blessed with life "lives" on a time line within a time dimension, and all that does designates a perception of now. God may intervene on any time line, or all time lines — any time dimension or all time dimensions — simultaneously. He can be with all of us in the past, in the present, and in the future; only God exists in now.

The choice of preparing for tomorrow is in the miracle of each morning, the hope of each new day we are privileged to live, and it's in choosing to require of ourselves that we make our decisions according to God's will that gives birth to faith. Confidence in God's love for us — in the unwavering certitude of it to redeem the time and integrate our personal history with the history of all mankind — is how we glorify His name. This brings us full circle to the one great mystery of all mysteries; the passing of time into a future that for God, has already occurred.

If we could travel beyond the speed of light toward a star whose radiance had ceased to be, would we come to the time when the star died? Would we then go passed it into the future? So what is the future if the light we see in the galaxies no longer shines and we see it, the past?

All the cosmos has been propelled away from Now; the moment when Christ spoke as the Word, and it became. In that sense the universe is the same age as earth. From our point of view it's older than the earth, but if it took billions of light years for the earth to become, then it's older from the point measured when the universe was born. That's not the whole of the problem, the definitive brain-twister is that all time ceases at the speed of light.

Our understanding of time is so finite as to be of no use for scientific research faithless to God's creation. This is exactly why we have not been given the relevant data on the moon samples collected decades ago; they don't conform to the evolutionary scale. Nothing in the universe conforms to the model. Ultimately, what they're asking — insisting we believe, is that the perfect order of the cosmos came from non-intelligence, and that life came from nonexistence: Nothing. The question they should be trying to answer is where did time come from, and why did it begin.

Consider that which the science of astrophysics has verified as fact by way of the Hubble telescope: if the universe, with its intricate design and balance of proportional vastness had been created just slightly smaller, or just slightly larger, the starship earth could not provide a stable habitat for life as we know it to be; a singular wonder — but there is more. The Hubble found stars 15 billion years old, and a universe only 12 billion. Supernova activity and the red dwarfs not found in predicted numbers, are just two of many new realities diametric to a scientific model constructed by theory relying on an infinite universe. The new computations attend a model that measures atomic elements as younger than infinity. Calculated from the point at which the universe was three and a half minutes old, astrophysicists now have irrefutable proof from which they acknowledge an astonishing discovery; the universe had a beginning, but by the first and second laws of thermodynamics (everything's in a state of sequential decay) it should be lifeless, having run its course: this means that even the speed of light has decayed, and so the universe is younger by billions of years.

All we see and measure, the galaxies, the stars, the immensity of the cosmos, was created by the Word: He who spoke and the universe was: "In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made." He is the Alpha and the Omega: The beginning and the end. Man has numbered the ages at Christ's first coming from the point of zero. Our calendar of History has been predesignated B.C. and A.D. because the time has been redeemed. The decision to accept Him is made by the heart, not by the mind, and you can make it in the time it takes to snap your finger.

The accounts of creation found in John 1, and Genesis 1, are no longer at odds with astrophysics, and time relativity — in conjunction with what the Hubble measured — portends a model of the universe that necessitates an interrelationship designed by transcendence. "I am the Light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness". (John 8:12) If He made the heavens and the earth in His time of non-time ("A day is as a 1000 years, and a 1000 years as a day"), then the Bible only hints at the relativity of Now, when He spoke and the universe became. For the age of the earth is not the same as the universe, and by looking into time for its past we find a future that "was" created by a Savior who lives in now:



All of it was spoken when the Word of life was heard.

All of it was said and done before it did occur...

All of it by perfect love for time to save the lost:

He formed stars and then the world...

for a moment on the cross.